The World Is Watching Now

Folks in Nodaway County, Missouri, know a thing or two about small-town justice. The rural area near the Iowa and Nebraska borders is home to the hamlet of Skidmore, where–one sunny morning in 1981–the town bully was shot dead by two gunmen. On the town’s main street. In front of more than 30 witnesses. To this day, no one has said who did it.

But small-town secrets are hard to keep when the vigilantes of the digital universe saddle up. News that once was swept under the rug now spreads like a thunderclap, as Nodaway County learned when the loose alliance of Internet activists known as Anonymous alerted the world to a possible rape case in which a well-connected boy skated free of any charges.

The story, detailed in an Oct. 12 report in the Kansas City (Mo.) Star, is chilling. Two girls, 14 and 13 years old, sneaked out to join a group of older football players at a party last year in Maryville, the Nodaway County seat. After the girls became drunk, a 17-year-old boy had sex with the 14-year-old, while another boy stood by with an iPhone video camera running. Afterward, the boys left the girl on her front porch, nearly unconscious in subfreezing temperatures. The 13-year-old told police that she too had been assaulted by another older boy.

Nodaway sheriff Darren White told the Star his team swiftly compiled the evidence and he expected to see the boys in court. But county prosecutor Robert Rice dropped the charges, saying the evidence was inconclusive. The 17-year-old–the grandson of a former state representative–went to college rather than to prison.

The case ripped Maryville apart, as many in the town shrugged and said boys will be boys. Melinda Coleman, mother of the 14-year-old, lost her job, and a mysterious fire left her house in ashes. In earlier times, that might have been the end of it. But Anonymous focused the digital universe on Maryville: city-linked websites were apparently hacked; a popular local restaurant was bombarded with hostile Yelp reviews; the topic lit up Twitter. The state’s lieutenant governor has since called for an investigation.

The alleged rapes and seeming lack of justice had familiar echoes. Last year, Anonymous swarmed Steubenville, Ohio, after high school football players sexually assaulted an unconscious teenager and recorded the attack on a smartphone. Like Maryville’s, the case had been a local story until Anonymous and other online activists shone their spotlight.

It should not, then, have been too great a surprise when Anonymous announced, “Maryville, expect us,” in an online statement. The rough justice of the electronic frontier was on its way.