The Harbinger

Patrick is a jovial sort. As you can see here. I’m used to him calling at all hours and maybe spouting off some nonsense before getting to the meat of the matter. So when he called me on Monday, the very night that Halo 3 would unleash a torrent of sales and slay false divinity in the gaming hippodrome as we know it, I answered with a sardonic “Halo 3?” After doing that a few times, he told me to shut it and listen. Brash and not really what I expect from the lad, with a timorous yet forceful tone.
“Allred killed two people and we don’t think he’s done yet.”

What? No way. Andrew Allred would maybe jack your MySpace and make you look like you’re eating dicks in every picture, but…he did what?

A little over a month ago, Allred’s girlfriend Tiffany plotted and succeeded in breaking up with Allred at a party. A birthday party that was for Allred and his long time friend Michael Ruschak, and was attended by many of their friends. Now, I know what you’re thinking because your thought process is as transparent and shallow as Orlando Radio’s current talent pool. What a bitch, breaking up with him at his birthday party! I had a similar thought before remembering I actually have a semblance of sapience and switched gears to why would she feel the need to do this…coupled with the fact that calling her a bitch when she’s dead is just beneath me.

So while on the phone with people all night, some of it starts coming into light. But to tell the story as I know it to be takes us back and forth between the night of the break up and the night of the double murder. Tiffany did indeed plot to leave Allred, presumably because he was controlling and sometimes had a cruel tongue. He had done her so many favors, from arranging a place for her to live (which was his place, under careful eye constantly), to her cell phone (attached to his account so he could see who she was talking to), to her bank account and beyond. He also keylogged the computer. Keyloggers allow you to see every keystroke made on a computer in an easy to hide text file…even the symbols and back spaces can be viddied. Every pass word she had, he likely had as well.

That’s not normal, but no one knew about it until it was too late. A mutual good friend told me that he was getting angrier and angrier at his own friends following the break up. Here’s what I know about that night. Michael and Allred were already partying with Tiffany, who was being distant, when the guests showed up. Allred was performing as the ribald, albeit to an almost rancorous degree. Spilling beer on people, throwing lit firecrackers at them…you know what they say, it’s my party and I’ll light you on fire if I want to. She then went out by the front gate of the place to talk to her friends. Her plan was to break up after the party, but when people were still there so that whatever his reaction was to it, which worried her, she’d be safe. That changed when Allred threw her stuff out and yelled at her for trying to break up on his birthday. Then she found out he’d been reading her locked posts on LiveJournal and knew about this all along. I know because she posted something on another site that she thought was safe, Greatest Journal, and he had that too. He posted all of it the day he set out to kill them, along with a chat transcript between Michael and Tiffany about the sexual nature of their relationship. It’s believed that this chat may have driven him over the edge.

Allred was a guy who came to my house, helped me move twice, helped plan and film projects together, hung out and even came up to the old station I worked at whenever the group he was with wanted to co host the Rant or have a fun Saturday night show. I keep thinking that he’s dead, but he’s not. He’s in jail. However, as most people who know him say to me when I discuss it with them…he’s all but dead to us. I don’t know that guy anymore.

He rammed into her car at least 7 or 8 times in his truck before jumping out and trying to knock down the front door. Failing that, he went around back and shot at the sliding glass door until he could enter it and went inside. He shot one man in the leg who tried to stop him and targeted Michael. After killing him, he went after Tiffany. He tracked her down and while a good friend of hers was locked in the adjacent bathroom…terrified and transfixed by what she heard, he argued with her briefly before shooting her. She didn’t die immediately. It took a while. Then he called a few people asking them to turn him in to the local constabulary and went home. His website was taken down and all that was left was a directory of evidence he’s amassed over the past month on his perceived enemies, including at least two of his closest friends. A message on the group’s website forum simply said he’d see all his failures for friends in Hell. So, most of his friends panicked and called the cops. They stayed out until they had proof that he was in custody. One of the screen caps was a message from his closest friend MySpace messaging Tiffany asking her if she would l need help moving still. Allred saw this as betrayal. I’m just glad that he wasn’t at the party. Allred changed her MySpace profile to say “I’m a whore” and erased all of her stored pics on facebook right before he killed her.

Don’t listen to the bullshit spouted on the news. They didn’t get him for another 3 hours or so after he did this DESPITE them having a description, a name, an address, make and model of his vehicle and witnesses that he did indeed kill two people. He went fucking home. How fucking hard is it to send one Gawd Damned vehicle over there?

I’ve thought about going to see him. I don’t know why. Mine would not be the eyes of bitter anger or vengeance, but of confusion. Don’t know if that’ll ever happen.

Now, to the police who went on the news after it happened and trumpeted their “on-line skills” in the investigation AFTER THE FACT THAT TWO PEOPLE WERE DEAD. Goody for you, you pusillanimous puerile problematic pricks. How about when Tiffany reported that Allred had ‘hacked’ her bank account on-line and withdrew funds that he just may have used to help purchase the gun he killed her with?

“Oh, take that up with your bank.”

How about when Allred sent Michael and Tiffany death threats and posted pictures of them he used for target practice? How about when they went back and had it printed out for the cops and showed them the death threats?

“He didn’t threaten you in person, so nothing we can do.”

Not even look into the fact that he had just purchased a gun, bragged about it on-line and told the two of them, “the next time I see you, I’m going to kill you both.” Not even a visit.

Yet you’ll beat your sunken chests and pound your inept pud on TV clamoring about what great detective work you did on the onlines. Fuck you. You go on air afterward and talk about how “these days you have to take internet threats seriously” yet you dropped the fucking ball, didn’t you?

You dunderheads using this tragedy (and this always fucking happens. Your agenda comes first, sympathy for the victims second) to soapbox your instigative self interests…just log the fuck off the internet and do something constructive, M’kay? I saw this shit posted all over the internet…”if only we made guns illegal they’d be alive today.”

Bullshit. The only other guy I know who purposefully killed someone didn’t have a gun. He waited until his girlfriend and her lover were getting into his car, knowing he’d open the door for her, and he rammed them at 80mph. If only we made cars illegal, they’d be alive today.

Another person I know who has killed in self-defense crushed the attacker’s throat with his elbow. If only we made elbows illegal, that guy would have succeeded in stealing my friend’s wallet and possibly killed him with the knife he was wielding.

The XBOX murders? Aluminum baseball bats. If only we made baseball bats illegal, those kids would still be flipping burgers in glee.

So lay off the agenda, where there’s a broken mind there’s a way.
I went to one of the previous toilets of the internet, the SA forum, to see if they caught wind of it seeing as Allred posted there. I wanted to light into some ridiculous pederast who had the nerve to make fun of this. To my utter shock, there was none of that to be found. They were horrified. I was moderately surprised.

Turns out, I knew Tiffany. She went by the handle Incuchik on the old board the old station had. We weren’t best of buds, but we were friendly with one another and I even hooked her up with some tickets, because that’s what pals do. It took a phone call from my friend Bill to make me realize that she was who she was, as I refused to watch the news due to their inaccurate reporting.

Tiffany, Michael and Allred are gone. Shit.

I had a girlfriend who broke up with me on my birthday once. She gave me a black candle in a black bag then broke it off before the appetizer arrived. I ordered another beer and cried in my chicken fried steak, then cooled it down and dealt with it. Doing so, I had the pleasure of continuing to fuck this girl for three more years when we weren’t dating others (and sometimes during) and it was brilliant.

I’m not saying my way was better than…aw fuck it. Yes it is. By fucking tons.

Gary is
Email this author | All posts by Gary