Posted on 11/06/2005 2:49:58 PM PST by SmithL
LOS ANGELES - The Orange County man who killed two neighbors and then turned a shotgun on himself desperately sought friends on the Internet but was ridiculed for his sometimes angry and bizarre messages.
William Freund, 19, had no more success finding companionship online than he had in high school, where his poor social skills made him the butt of cruelty.
In the wake of last week's rampage, Tiffany Key, Freund's former high school classmate, wondered via the Internet: "Think about your interactions with him. Were they positive? Or were you one of those kids that made his life hell?
"If you did, then please change your life. This is your wake-up call."
Two days before Halloween, Freund, who lived in the wealthy community of Aliso Viejo, donned a cape and a paintball mask and drove to a neighbor's home, where killed a father and his 22-year-old daughter. He also fired into another home, wounding a person inside who was cut by flying glass. Freund's shotgun jammed when he fired at another neighbor. Freund then went home and shot himself.
Freund had Asperger's syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by poor communication and social skills. As an undergraduate at Aliso Niguel High School, he reportedly was harassed, spit on and had his head pushed into the toilet.
People laughed at him and harassed him in the school halls, Key told the Los Angeles Times for a Sunday story.
"He wouldn't get aggressive. He would never retaliate," she said. "He would just take it, day after day."
"Here's a guy who had it really hard and nobody made it any easier for him," said Tio Lavranos, 19, another former classmate.
After Freund graduated last year, he got a part-time job at a computer repair shop in Corona del Mar.
"He didn't have much of a personal life with friends," said Forrest Fuster, his former employer. "He did a lot of work and no play. All he did personally was play on the computer."
Freund only opened up on the Internet, which he accessed from his computer-filled bedroom at his parents house. The Times said he played online games, discussed movies and TV shows such as "The Outer Limits," posted reviews of online businesses, bought and sold video games and paintball supplies on eBay.
He left pleas for friendship on some Web sites.
"I've never really had a friend," Freund wrote in one profile. "I've never had someone I can share more intimate conversation with, or just have a good time with."
In more troubling messages, he discussed guns and, in the weeks before his death, talked about his thoughts of suicide.
"I think the only thing to do is go admit myself to a hospital I feel like I need to kill myself," he wrote in an Oct. 19 post on wrongplanet.com, a Web site for those with Asperger's syndrome.
In one message, Freund said he planned to "Start a Terror Campaign To hurt those that have hurt me," and added: "My future ended some time ago."
In a firearms forum on the Web site somethingawful.com, Freund talked about staging a "Halloween shootout" to get even with pranksters who vandalized his pumpkin last Halloween.
That was met with ridicule.
"I can imagine this mongoloid, sitting on his creaky porch, one strap on his overalls, leaping up and running to the defense of his precious 24-ounce pumpkin," read one response.
Freund's comments got him banned from the Web site three days before his rampage.
i keep hearin banjos with this one, at least he had the decency to fix his problem with the last shot.
Sheesh. This could be several FReepers. Me included.
Todd? They found TLBShow Todd!
SMN!
I think the kid goes to this school: http://www.snafuuniversity.com/
"I think the only thing to do is go admit myself to a hospital I feel like I need to kill myself," he wrote in an Oct. 19 post on wrongplanet.com, a Web site for those with Asperger's syndrome.
Look Martin, you've weighed in on this before. You think it's cruel of me to got to wrongplanet.com and ridicule people there. I don't. That's why they make chocolate and vanilla. I wonder if this was that "Lonely Bill" poster to whom I was particularly acerbic to a couple of weeks ago.
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
I told you it is wrong to go to these sites and trying to push these people over the edge. But you just won't listen.
You guys are all so preachy. If it isn't being critical of my canine dentistry hobby, it's brow beating me about organizing a Jew Klux Klan. What a bunch of fuddy-duddys.
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
I was just upset because you thought of it first!
I didn't want to say anything, but skywriting "Bill Freund's a Loser" over the Coliseum at the USC game was particularly cruel on your part.
And I thought wrongplanet.com was a Scientology site.
Dude.
Do what I do:
WRITE AN OPUS!
I guess its too late to tell him to get a life.
And I thought I had it rough in High School. 'course, I was never spit on or had my head pushed into the toilet...
Hmm. Two things I learned today.
1.) If you attend high school, you are an undergraduate.
2.) They actually have a named syndrome for being a nerd..
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