Breaking news: Jihad Jane, boyfriend astonished (pictures, video)
Jihad Jane's boyfriend, Kurt Gorman, was amazed to learn that Colleen LaRose had terrorist inclinations. She had lived with him and his father and they thought she was quite normal.
"She was a good-hearted person," he told reporters.
He was astonished that she could be a terrorist when she was a woman living with a man and his elderly father and was helping that elderly father by taking care of him during the day, while Kurt went off to work. It just didn't go together in his mind.
But although the couple were together for five years, one day Gorman came home and, he says, she was simply gone.
Jihad Jane had been living a double life.
She had used her My Space account to try to recruit radical fighters to help her travel to Sweden to kill the Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks who had drawn a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a dog's body. She had been wanting to help the "suffering of the Muslim people" and she believed killing Vilks was one way to do that.
That plot was revealed this week after 7 men were arrested in Ireland this week.
LaRose had said she would kill Vilks or die trying. Vilks, for his part, was not relying on anyone else to keep him safe. Instead, he kept an ax next to his bed and said he had rigged up security devices in his home. He said he “had prepared in other ways.” He had a safe room and an electrified fence around his house.
Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant said, "This is a very rare case of a disturbed woman but it shows how the Internet not only allows them to communicate, but also allows them to recruit."
San Franciscans who have been following the story know that, if convicted, LaRose faces a potential life sentence and a fine of $1million
LaRose has been held since October 16, 2009, charged with trying to recruit fighters and plotting an assassination. One of the ways she would do that, she said, was to kill Vilks.
Jihad Jane said in her emails that her physical appearance would allow her to "blend in" with many people and be a "way to achieve what was in [her] heart."
"The terrorists figured out that they can't all look like Middle Eastern people, whether they be male or female," says Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and consultant for ABC news.
What do San Franciscans think of the "terrorist next door?". Georgia Woods, a long-time traveler and native San Franciscan says, "The internet in many ways can be a blessing, but we are beginning to see a very negative side of technology. It's a great shame, but we have to be all the more vigilant now."
Travelers from San Francisco to Pennsylvania, should they decide to visit the state where LaRose was arrested, can find flights online at www.kayak.com. Flights from SFO to Philadelphia with US Airways can be found for as low as $735.
To see yesterday's breaking news article on this story, click here.
See the video and slide show below (pics of Lars Vilks and Jihad Jane) for more illustrations on this story.
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Comments
You just can't be too careful these days.
its a scary world out there
I don't see her as a terrorist, but a disturbed woman. Only the most stupid terrorist on earth would use a Facebook or MySpace account in order to recruit adepts. She doesn't deserve a life sentence, but she should be put away from computers and treated by a psychiatrist.
Hang the bitch on main street.
What a frightening story. Thank you for keeping us informed.
When the assasination plot was originally released, I was stunned. The www has enabled masses of people to be able to communicate electronically, and unfortunately for the good people in the world, it is much like real life (and always has been) where bad people have an alternate way of planning to enact their evil deeds. I can not say what she deserves, I can only hope though that she never sees life outside of a cement cell. Lars Vilks is now concerned enough for his safety that he sleeps with an axe next to his bed and has rigged several securtiy measures throughout his home- she (and her extremist freinds) have made him a paranoid prisoner in his own home for the rest of his life, how should she have the right to live any better?
Sad world we live in.
A different kind of "Calamity Jane"!
What a horrible woman. How could anyone be so pure evil?
It was an Algerian immigrant - an UNWORKING, living on unearned benefits (that the politically correct tell us aren't the evil bigots we say they are) who got this brainless halfwit to do what she did. Lock her up and throw away the key - the Irish released her because they're so used to releasing terrorists that target protestants.
And take the Algerian out into the middle of the Atlantic with a large lump of concrete around his ankles and boot him out, and improve the human race in doing so
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