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Nikki Catsouras Death Photographs

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nikki catsouras accident scene photos

You are interested in: Nikki catsouras autopsy photos wallpapers. (Here are selected photos on this topic, but full relevance is not guaranteed.) If you find that some photos violates copyright or have unacceptable properties, please inform us about it. May 25, 2020 2. Nikki Catsouras A young girl who died in 2006 due to a car accident. The photo of his death should have been kept a secret because even his own family had not been allowed to come to see the body to the scene. But alas, this is the era of the internet. Edward Mordrake was an Englishman born in the 19th century. He became known thanks to its congenital anomalies, as had the second person behind his head. About this man, little is known. And his date of birth, date of death, and to this day remain a mystery.


A tragic event that occurred nearly three years ago continues to disturb a family in Orange County, Calif. Despite every effort, they are unable to move past the tragedy because the Internet will not allow them to reach closure. Actually, the World Wide Web itself is not to blame as much as the morbid and insensitive individuals who hide on its darker side.
The events surrounding this story began to unfold on October 31, 2006. On that day, 18-year-old Nikki Catsouras (photo here) fatefully grabbed the keys to her father's Porsche 911 Carrera and walked out the front door of her parents' home. Nikki had been forbidden to drive the sports car, and her judgment on that day will forever remain in question.
As a child, Nikki was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Tests showed the growth to be benign; however, she still had to endure radiation treatment which, doctors warned, could cause her to have difficulty with impulse control - issues which may have contributed to the cocaine-induced psychosis that she suffered in 2005. Despite her hospital stay after that incident, Nikki again experimented with cocaine in October 2006. In response, her parents scheduled an appointment with a brain disorder specialist. Unfortunately, Nikki never made the appointment.
It will never be known whether the accident was the result of teen disobedience or a lack of judgment caused by her brain disorder. Regardless of the reason, Nikki got behind the wheel of her father's car and backed it out of the family's garage. Nikki's mother, Lesli Catsouras, heard the commotion outside and ran out, only to see her daughter speeding down the road. Lesli immediately phoned her husband, Christos, who called 911. During the call, the dispatcher informed him that a black Porsche had been involved in an accident on the 241 toll road in Lake Forest. Christos' heart immediately sank to the pit of his stomach.
According to police, Nikki was traveling at approximately 100 mph when she lost control of the car. She hit a Honda driven by a lone man before tumbling over the median and slamming into a concrete toll booth. The accident was so severe that Nikki was nearly decapitated upon impact (those photos will not be shown here). Her remains were in such a horrific state that the coroner would not allow her family to view her body
As tragic as Nikki's death was, it was only the beginning of a long road of suffering that her family would have to endure.
In the weeks that followed the accident, Christos received an e-mail that he assumed was related to his real estate business. However, when he opened it, he was confronted by a gruesome crime scene photo of his daughter and a caption that read, 'Whoohoo Daddy! Hey Daddy, I'm still alive.'
That e-mail set the stage for a wave of harassment which has targeted each member of Nikki's family. In addition, one particularly sick individual took the time to set up a fake MySpace page in Nikki's name in order to poke fun at her death. Within the comment section, one visitor wrote, 'What a waste of a Porsche,' while another comment read, 'That spoiled rich girl deserved it.'
The release of the nine crime scene photos was traced to two California Highway Patrol dispatchers - Thomas O'Donnell, 39, and Aaron Reich, 30. In response, the CHP sent a letter of apology to the family and suspended O'Donnell for 25 days without pay. According to newsweek.com, Reich quit his job for unrelated reasons.
The crime scene photos have since gone viral and can be found on thousands of Web sites. Despite the family's best efforts, they have been unable to have them removed from the Internet. With little remaining recourse, they filed a lawsuit against the CHP for negligence, privacy invasion and infliction of emotional harm.
In March 2008, the Catsouras' case was dismissed by a superior court judge who ruled that rights of privacy do not extend to the dead. The court response to the family's appeal is expected on June 1.
In the wake of the case's recent media coverage, Russian cyber criminals attempted to exploit the situation by registering a domain name to distribute malware under the disguise of a 'video' of the crime scene. According to trendmicro.com, the site in question has been optimized to appear as the first result in Internet searches for 'Nikki Catsouras.' The malware contains several variants of worms and viruses. Perhaps the site is actually doing the family a favor by luring those who wish to view the video. After doing so, they will surf away with a PC full of computer viruses.
Meanwhile, Nikki's parents and siblings have all enrolled in therapy so that they might eventually be able to come to terms with the situation or at least begin travelling the road to closure.
Morbid curiosity is one thing, but to turn Nikki Catsouras' death into a twisted Internet phenomenon is another. The incredible cruelty that the Catsouras family has suffered as a result of this chain of events is inexcusable. The individuals who are responsible should be charged with harassment. Their lack of empathy leaves me utterly speechless.






The Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy concerns the leaked photographs of Nicole 'Nikki' Catsouras (March 4, 1988 - October 31, 2006), who died at the age of 18 in a high speed car crash after losing control of a Porsche 911 Carrera, which belonged to her father, and colliding with a toll booth in Lake Forest, California. Photographs of Catsouras' badly disfigured body were published on the internet, leading her family to take legal action due to the distress this caused.


Video Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy


Background

Circumstances of the accident

On the date of the accident, October 31, 2006, Catsouras and her parents ate lunch together at the family home in Ladera Ranch. After lunch, her father Christos Catsouras left for work while her mother remained at home. Around 10 minutes later, her mother heard a door shut along with footsteps out the back door. As she walked toward the garage, she was able to see Catsouras reversing out of the driveway in her father's Porsche 911 Carrera -- a car she was not allowed to drive. Her mother called her father, who began driving around trying to find his daughter. While doing so, he called 9-1-1 for assistance, apparently minutes before the accident, and was put on hold. When he was taken off hold, the dispatcher informed him of the accident.

Accident

Catsouras was traveling on the 241 Toll Road in Lake Forest at approximately 1:38 pm, when she clipped a Honda Civic that she was attempting to pass on the right at over 100 miles per hour (160 km/h). The Porsche crossed the road's broad median (which lacks a physical barrier on that segment) and crashed into an unmanned concrete toll booth near the Alton Parkway interchange; the Porsche was destroyed. Catsouras was killed on impact. Toxicological tests revealed traces of cocaine in Catsouras's body, but no alcohol.

Leaked photographs

According to Newsweek, the Catsouras 'accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn't allow her parents to identify their daughter's body.' However, photographs of the scene of Catsouras' death were taken by California Highway Patrol officers as part of standard fatal traffic collision procedures. These photographs were then forwarded to colleagues, and were leaked onto the Internet.

Two CHP employees, Aaron Reich and Thomas O'Donnell, admitted to releasing the photographs in violation of CHP policy. O'Donnell later stated in interviews that he only sent the photos to his own e-mail account for viewing at a later time, while Reich stated that he had forwarded the pictures to four other people. Catsouras' parents soon discovered the photographs posted online. The pictures had gained much attention, including a fake MySpace tribute website that actually contained links to the photographs. People also anonymously e-mailed copies of the photos to the Catsouras family with misleading subject headers, in one case captioning the photo sent to the father with the words 'Woohoo Daddy! Hey daddy, I'm still alive.' This led the Catsouras family to withdraw from Internet use and, concerned that their youngest daughter might be taunted with the photographs, to begin homeschooling her.

The online harassment aspects of the case were covered by Werner Herzog in his 2016 documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World.

Nikki Catsouras Death Photographs


Maps Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy


Legal action by the family

The Catsouras family sued the California Highway Patrol and the two dispatch supervisors allegedly responsible for leaking the photographs in the Superior Court of California for Orange County. Initially, a judge ruled that it would be appropriate to move forward with the family's legal case against the CHP for leaking the photographs.

An internal investigation led the CHP to issue a formal apology and took action to prevent similar occurrences in the future, after discovering that departmental policy had been violated by the two dispatch supervisors responsible for the leakage of the photographs. O'Donnell was suspended for 25 days without pay, and Reich quit soon after, 'for unrelated reasons,' according to his lawyer. However, when the defendants moved for summary judgment, Judge Steven L. Perk dismissed the case against the Department of the California Highway Patrol after both Reich and O'Donnell were removed as defendants. Judge Perk ruled that the two were not under any responsibility for protecting the privacy of the Catsouras family, effectively ending the basis for the case. The superior court judge who dismissed the Catsouras' case ruled in March 2008 that while the dispatchers' conduct was 'utterly reprehensible,' there was no law that allowed it to be punishable.

The CHP sent websites 'cease and desist' notices in an effort to get the photos off the Internet. The Catsouras family hired ReputationDefender to help remove the photos, but they continue to spread. ReputationDefender estimates that it has persuaded websites to remove 2,500 of the photos, but accepts that removing them from the Internet completely is impossible. Attorney and blogger Ted Frank wrote that even though the media were sympathetic to the parents' plight, 'the Streisand effect has resulted in far more dissemination of the gruesome photos.'

On February 1, 2010, it was reported that the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District had reversed Judge Perk's grant of summary judgment, and instead ruled that the Catsouras family did have the right to sue the defendants for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Calling the actions of O'Donnell and Reich 'vulgar' and 'morally deficient,' the court stated:

'We rely upon the CHP to protect and serve the public. It is antithetical to that expectation for the CHP to inflict harm upon us by making the ravaged remains of our loved ones the subject of Internet sensationalism... O'Donnell and Reich owed the plaintiffs a duty not to exploit CHP-acquired evidence in such a manner as to place them at foreseeable risk of grave emotional distress.'

On May 25, 2011, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District ruled that Aaron Reich failed to prove that e-mailing the photographs is covered by the First Amendment. Reich claimed that he e-mailed the photographs as a caution about the dangers of drunk driving because he e-mailed the pictures with an anti-drunk driving message, despite Catsouras' postmortem examination revealing a blood alcohol content of zero. The three-justice panel which reviewed Reich's appeal wrote, 'Any editorial comments that Reich may have made with respect to the photographs are not before us. In short, there is no evidence at this point that the e-mails were sent to communicate on the topic of drunk driving.' The justices questioned whether the recipients still retained the e-mails, but Reich's attorney conceded that they had not investigated this.

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On January 30, 2012, the CHP reached a settlement with the Catsouras family, under which the family received around $2.37 million in damages. CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader commented: 'No amount of money can compensate for the pain the Catsouras family has suffered. We have reached a resolution with the family to save substantial costs of continued litigation and a jury trial. It is our hope that with this legal issue resolved, the Catsouras family can receive some closure.'

Nikki Catsouras Death Photographs Body



References



External links

  • Catsouras family wins right to sue over death photos
Photographs

Nikki Catsouras Death Photographs Accident

Source of the article : Wikipedia





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