On Saturday night, in Davis County, Utah, a man was arrested for the alleged murder of his mother. The man additionally broadcasted three videos on Facebook showing the deceased.
Ironically, it’s often alternative platforms that get targeted and deplatformed by media for their content issues – when it’s Facebook that has been hosting the vast majority of illegal and violent content.
The live streams of murders and violence online have recently become a recurring phenomenon. Beyond the already heinous act of the crime, many murderers are publicly showing their actions, which puts platforms between the sword and the wall as they do not have a capable way to prevent this material from being broadcast.
Between drugs and the internet
The most recent case is that of Jeffrey Antonio Langford Jr., a 24-year-old man who is being accused of first-degree murder, obstruction of police work, and possession of dangerous weapons while handling substances such as drugs or alcohol. The victim was the mother of the accused, Graciela Laura Holker, 45.
Langford made public a series of videos on Facebook where he shows the mother’s body, and where he repeatedly indicates that he had nothing to do with her death, that she committed suicide, and that therefore he should not go to jail.
Suicide or murder?
When the officers arrived at the abode, they found Langford with bloodstains and not very sober. The doctors who interviewed him later indicated that he was intoxicated. During his medical examination, the man said he had witnessed his mother shooting herself in the face.
Regarding the live videos: in the first one, Langford is seen with the body of his mother. In the second, the man indicates that she shot herself but that she was not yet dead and he was going to finish the job, and finally in the third video he says wishes to remember his mother with honor.
He also told police she had first slit her throat with a knife and then said she had shot herself three times, documents state.
The coroners also indicated that the position in which they found the weapon does not seem to coincide with a suicide.
This news occurs just after Facebook announced an alliance with London police to develop software that detects transmissions and videos that could contain violent acts – although, that is tailored towards terrorist incidents, and is not going to deal with the wider issue.
