Website linked to Montreal shooting and other cases

A screenshot of the vampirefreaks.com website.

TORONTO - A website used by the gunman who killed one and wounded 19 at a Montreal college had surfaced in other violent Canadian incidents, including one in which an Alberta girl allegedly killed her family in April.

The black and purple website, www.vampirefreaks.com, is described by its Brooklyn, New York-based founder as a "goth/industrial" site.

The site was available intermittently today, a day after Kimveer Gill, 25, was killed by police after he went on a shooting rampage at Montreal's Dawson College. Gill posted photographs and comments on the site, saying he loved guns and hated people.

"This is not the first time that the vampirefreaks website has been in the news," said Jesse Hirsh, president of technology services firm Openflows Networks Ltd. in Toronto.

In a Toronto trial last year, the girlfriend of a youth accused of killing his younger brother and attempting to kill his stepfather was revealed to have had a profile and pictures on the site.

A 23-year old man and his 12-year-old girlfriend, accused of killing a woman, her husband and their eight-year-old son in Medicine Hat, Alberta, last April, were also reported to have had profiles on vampirefreaks.com.

Started by a Brooklyn resident, the site claims to have more than 600,000 members and millions of page views each day.

Users can post pictures along with their likes, dislikes, favourite music and location, and communicate with others in "cults" or groups.

The Goth sub-culture is often characterised by black clothing, pale makeup and body piercing. Many write about being alienated from society, and while musical tastes vary, shock rockers such as Marilyn Manson are said to be popular.

The site says users must be at least 13 years old to sign up and "excessively gory/offensive pictures are not allowed. This includes cutting images."

Gill had posted several photographs of himself brandishing guns and a hunting knife.

A user identified as "kimveer-hater" wrote today: "the only thing I'm sad about in this situation is that you couldn't have removed yourself from the gene pool before harming others. Rot in hell."

Some of the "cult" names on the site refer to death, freaks, witchcraft and sex or sexuality. Others refer to bands or have seemingly innocent names.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said today that the Montreal shooting was impossible to comprehend. He also said there is a tricky balance between freedom of speech and websites such as vampirefreaks.com.

"We as a society have trouble squaring our outrage at some of the images we see, some of the messages that are communicated to young people in particular ... with our belief in freedom and our desire to avoid censorship," Harper said.

A history of the www.vampirefreaks.com website, posted by a man called "Jet" in January, said it began as a personal homepage in 1999 while he was a 20-year-old computer science student. "Jet" does not identify himself further.

In an interview on CBC Television today, a young man identified as the site's creator said the vampirefreaks.com site is moderated, and should not be blamed if a handful of users do something illegal.

"That doesn't mean that the site itself is bad or it condones such activities," the man said.

- REUTERS