By JIM AVILA TERI WHITCRAFT KRISTIN PISARCIK July 1, 2008
![]() Family's Nightmare: Daughter's Accident Photos Go Viral
Feb 02, 2010 Family Can Sue Calif. Highway Patrol for Letting Daughter's Accident Photos Spread Online Nicole Catsouras, 18, died in car crash; police pictures of wreck went viral. The Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy concerns the leaked photographs of Nicole. However, photographs of the scene of Catsouras' death were taken by California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers as part of standard fatal traffic collision.
With just a few mouse clicks, you can find pictures that are too graphic to show in the mainstream media -- images of horrible accidents, mutilations and death.There's an Internet subculture devoted to death and gore with thousands of images, each bloodier than the next. For one family, an image that circulated on these types of Web sites added injury to already profound pain.
Nikki Catsouras was an 18-year-old college freshman living in California with her parents and two sisters. She loved to shoot videos on her camera, and ironically, it was a camera that would memorialize Nikki's life and death as a gruesome and macabre joke on the Internet.
It all started with a typical fight between parents and teenager when Nikki got caught sneaking a cigarette in the house.
'Nikki broke a house rule and we had a disagreement, and I took her car keys away,' said Christos Catsouras, Nikki's father. Catsouras had no idea the next day would be the last time he'd ever see the daughter he called 'Angel.'
'As I was walking out the door, I kind of winked and blew her a kiss, and she winked back and flipped me a peace sign,' he recalled. 'I said, 'Bye, see you at two-thirty, love you. She said, 'Love you, bye.'
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Then, her family says, Nikki did something out of character. She took the keys to her father's Porsche 911 Carrera, a car that goes zero to 60 miles an hour in less than five seconds. She had never driven the Porsche before.
'The Whole World Is Seeing My Daughter'
According to state highway patrol reports, at approximately 1:45 p.m. last Halloween, Nikki Catsouras was traveling 100 mph on State Route 241, near Lake Forest, Calif., when she clipped another car and lost control, going across lanes over the median and slamming into a concrete tollbooth. She was killed instantly.
'Her head was more or less cut in two and sort of cleaved and then smashed. It's nothing that anyone should ever have to see,' said Michael Fertik, the founder of ReputationDefender, a company that helps clients such as the Catsouras family remove items from the Internet. The Catsouras family was told they should never see the photos from the scene of the horrendous accident.
But as the Catsouras family was grieving for their daughter, the accident scene photos showing Nikki's mutilated body suddenly appeared on the Internet. 'They didn't even let me see my daughter, and now the whole world is seeing my daughter,' recalled Lesli Catsouras, Nikki's mother.
The family soon began receiving anonymous e-mails and text messages that contained photographs of the accident, including pictures of Nikki's decapitated body, still strapped to the crumpled remains of her father's Porsche. A fake MySpace page was created, which at first looked like a tribute to Catsouras but also led to the horrific photos.
'What type of individual would do that?' asked Christos Catsouras.
The pictures, taken by California Highway Patrol officers and e-mailed outside the department, became so persistent that Lesli Catsouras stopped checking her e-mail. Nikki's younger sisters were forbidden to use the Internet, and 16-year-old Danielle was taken out of school to be home schooled out of fear that her peers might confront her with the pictures.
The Catsouras family has filed a lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol for allegedly releasing the accident scene pictures.
'Death Is Real'
Who would want to look at such horrible images? Shockingly, the Catsouras family says many people. At one point photos of Nikki's crash could be found on 1,600 Web sites in 50 countries.
'Everybody I know has either seen them or they know someone that's seen them,' said Lesli Catsouras. 'This was an expensive car and it was a young girl and she was also a very pretty girl. It was also Halloween, so it was just the perfect recipe for something like this.'
Though the Catsourases hired ReputationDefender to remove the photos from the Internet, the images live on. 'It spreads in bursts, and when it spreads, it happens very fast,' said Fertik.
'Whether it's right or wrong doesn't even matter when you're online. The digital world has no morals,' said Ron Braunstein, who goes by the name Necro. Braunstein is a self-described death rapper who has made a career of exploiting gore in his music and on his Web site.
'Me personally, I've built a career around exploitation. I consider what I do real, everything is real, death is real,' Braunstein said. He said his intent is not to shock people. 'They're intrigued, they're into it.'
Braunstein's site never posted the crime scene photos from Nikki Catsouras' death, but he has posted other accident photos. With thousands of sites like Braunstein's, there is no shortage of places to find disturbing images.
'Very Damaging'
'This is very damaging. It's desensitizing some people. It's feeding into the perversion for some people. It's one thing when no one suffers; it's very much another thing to be involving the suffering of others,' said Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist.
'We all have some pretty primitive human emotions that are about sadism,' Saltz said. ' And there is something very gratifying about watching other people get hurt, or tortured or suffer violence.'
Saltz warns that while curiosity is normal, an obsession with these images can be unhealthy. If they're pretty obsessed with it, and they're looking at it a lot, I would call it a fetish. I would call it a perversion.'
On the first anniversary of Nikki's death, the Catsouras family cut together a video tribute with their own pictures of Nikki, set to the song 'Angel.'
'I feel like no one really realized she was a person, and they in a sick way got really entertained by this photograph, and it's just sad that someone can feel the need to put it out and keep it going on and harming others by putting it up,' said Danielle, Nikki's sister.
'We are a real family with real hearts,' said Nikki's father. 'And it hurts what people are doing.'
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Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World - Official Trailer
Legendary master filmmaker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams) examines the past, present and constantly evolving future of the Internet in Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Working with NETSCOUT, a world leader in-real time service assurance and cybersecurity, which came aboard as a producer and led him into a new world, Herzog conducted original interviews with cyberspace pioneers and prophets such as PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn, and famed hacker Kevin Mitnick.
These provocative conversations reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works, from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships. In the words of executive producer Jim McNiel, “It’s a journey even Werner, with his immense imagination and inquisitive mind, didn’t expect. Unless you have lived in the technology space, you don’t yet fully appreciate what dwells there.” Herzog adds: “It is one of the biggest revolutions we as humans are experiencing.”
Oscar®-nominated documentarian Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams) chronicles the virtual world from its origins to its outermost reaches, exploring the digital landscape with the same curiosity and imagination he previously trained on earthly destinations. Herzog leads viewers on a journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works - from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships.
Actors: Elon Musk, Dr. Robert Kahn, Kevin Mitnick
Director: Werner Herzog
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KCAL-LA 9 - Father of Victim Joins Consumer Watchdog's Call To Offer 'Right To Be Forgotten' In U.S.
The father of a California woman whose family name remains linked in Internet search results to graphic leaked police photos of her fatal car crash, today joined Consumer Watchdog in calling for the 'Right To Be Forgotten' to be honored in the United States.
'Since the leak my family has been forced to relive the shock every time the horrific images reappear simply because there are no tools in place to stop it,' said Christos Catsouras during a news conference at the public interest group's office. 'The Right To Be Forgotten' is the only chance for my family to find closure, and to finally grieve.'
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ONE FAMILY'S FIGHT AGAINST GRISLY WEB PHOTOSBY JESSICA BENNETT ON 4/24/09 AT 8:00 PM Nikki Catsouras Dead Photographs Case
Nikki Catsouras died October 31, 2016 in a fatal car accident. She was barely 18-year-old at the time of her death. Speed was considered to be factor in the accident that took her life.
Nikki Catsouras (Nikki Catsura or nikki castagneto) was traveling in a Porsche 911 Carrera, which reportedly belonged to her father when the she collided with a toll booth in Lake Forest, California.
Nikki Catsouras Death Photos | Nikki Catsouras Accident Photos:
The accident pictures of Nikki Catsouras were leaked online. The photographs of Nikki’s accident were reportedly leaked by California officers.
The images show badly disfigured body of the teen girl and have been published on many internet platforms, leading the family of the deceased to take a legal action.
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.
The Nikki Catsouras dead images are widely available on Google images. It is very devastating and horrifying.DEATH QUOTES
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