Mother of Purdue Bomb Hoax Suspect Sues for Son’s Release

Wired | 5/27/2009 | Kevin Poulsen

[normanpubbie]

The mother of the 16-year-old North Carolina boy arrested for allegedly making a bomb threat against Purdue University has filed a federal habeas corpus petition demanding his release, and attacking the government's authority to prosecute anyone.

[normanpubbie]

(FreeRepublic doesn't allow posting links to wired.com).

There is a link to the petition in Poulsen's 5/27/2009 article. It's worth the effort to download and read it.

The most interesting statement by Mrs. Lundeby in her petition (IMHO) is that:

At the time of the phone call of focus, A.L. was about 45 minutes away attending a church function (Next Friend, whole church).

where A.L. refers to the defendant and Next Friend refers to Mrs. Lundeby. This assertion seems to contradict earlier statements by Mrs. Lundeby.

The Raleigh News & Observer published its first article on this topic on 5/8/2009.

The money quote from the article is:

It couldn't have been Ashton," she said. "He's a great kid, a kind kid, a gentle kid. He won't even let me kill snakes out in the yard."

On 5/30/2009 the N&O Executive Editor published a statement whose theme seemed to be that the bloggers who covered the story did a shoddy job while the reporters (his own and Kevin Poulsen) did an excellent job. Or, to put it another way, "bloggers bad, paid media good."

The money quote from Drescher's self-congratulatory screed is:

...This was a story that needed to be told. When a 16-year-old is removed from his home and detained halfway across the country, it is worth reporting. I wish The N&O had moved quicker.

Sir, I have a suggestion. Why don't you and your publisher gather your entire news staff for training in how to recognize a newsworthy story?

[pepsionice]

I’ve kept track of the story since the start. Very early in the episode...I was kinda believing the idea of the kid being innocent. But several things that came out...don’t match up to the kid’s story or mom’s story.

[bobby.223]

exactly how I felt/feel as this went on. have not seen to much on it recently though.

[Jack Black]

the thing I find most interesting is that “Wired”, the sort of house organ of the libertarian/techno-geeks is so uptight about linking. LINKING? Geeze! What happened to ‘information wants to be free’ and all the ruminations of editor Kevin Kelly about ‘new media rules’.

[iopscusa]

The Raleigh News & Observer is IMHO, one of the crappiest Newspapers in the South....they should be banned from the business after the way they misrepresented and inflamed the Duke LaCrosse travesty!

[iopscusa]

“Wired” is a weird bunch of closet commies except when they want to steal some private property from the Kapitalistas...bunch of whiney tools @ Wired!

[napscoordinator]

“He’s a great kid, a kind kid, a gentle kid. He won’t even let me kill snakes out in the yard.”

Jeffrey Dahmer probably was all those things. Sometimes kids are just evil as in this case.

[savedbygrace]

Sometimes kids are just evil as in this case.

I read about this story when it first came out, but not much since then.

What has been revealed that leads you to that conclusion? I'm asking from a position of lack of knowledge.

[FreedomPoster]

I suggest we have abb comment on the N&O’s cluefulness, or lack thereof.

[imskylark]

“At the time of the phone call of focus, A.L. was about 45 minutes away attending a church function (Next Friend, whole church).

where A.L. refers to the defendant and Next Friend refers to Mrs. Lundeby. This assertion seems to contradict earlier statements by Mrs. Lundeby.”

Not quite sure how story changed. I remember her always saying that they were at church when these things apparently happened.

[abb]

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/421799.html

Dancer gives details of ordeal

A woman hired to dance for the Duke lacrosse team describes a night of racial slurs, growing fear and, finally, sexual violence

Samiha Khanna and Anne Blythe - Staff Writers

Published: Sat, Mar. 25, 2006 12:00AM
Modified Sat, Mar. 25, 2006 05:14AM

[mrsmel]

Ugh, I don’t see a desire to protect venomous snakes in a person’s yard, as necessarily indicative of “kindness” and “gentleness”. And he doesn’t “let” her? I wonder how she means that? And go to a website like “venomous.org”—not all, but some of those people are waaay wacky—first they wanted people to relocate venomous snakes that come to their yard, then they decided that relocating the snakes is potentially harmful to them, so people (and their children, and their pets) should just learn to “live with them”. They value the life of venomous snakes over that of people, their children, and their beloved pets.

[FreedomPoster]

So they still employ Anne Blythe?

Idiots, but then again, we already knew that.

[normanpubbie]

Re: When did the story change?

On April 29, Amanda Lamb of WRAL-TV interviewed Mrs. Lundeby. According to the web article,

The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

On May 8, 2008, Ruth Sheehan and Anne Blythe published a web article in the Raleigh News-Observer reporting that:

The whole drama harks back to the night of Feb. 15.

Lundeby said she, Ashton and her 12-year-old daughter spent the evening at a Valentine's party at Union Chapel Methodist Church in Kittrell. They stayed after to help clean up, then stopped at Wal-Mart to buy cat food and kitty litter before driving the 40 minutes or so to their home in Oxford. She estimates they got home about 10:15 p.m.

According to Lundeby, the FBI told her that the false bomb threat at Purdue was received at 10 p.m. eastern time.

Compare these two statements with what she asserted in her petition (see post #1).

[imskylark]

Okay, they were on their way home from church.

I’m not sure if I would have all my times correct when I am in the middle of dealing with someone taking my son away. She always stated they weren’t home at the time and that they had been to church 40-45 minutes away.