Once again To all the bands that added me to their my space page..... Look at the page!!!! I don't want your comments about all your new music the only comments I want are ones about Nikki or condolences to her family.. i will even accept hello ones and thanks for the add and ones that say your welcome.. It is so sad to see bands and so called my space whores can't take a few minutes of their time to see in gods name who they are adding.. this is not my page I set this up so the people who did not know about Nikki Catsouras know how she died and how her family was treated.. and for the people who knew Nikki to say what they wanted on here... PLEASE take the time out of your not so busy schedule to look at the page!!!!
For those of you wondering I in no way have those internet pictures of Nikki. This site is in memory to Nikki. It is not connected to or affiliated with her family. So if you are looking for the pictures you have come to the wrong page. I first heard it on 20/20. Then I read a lot of the comments people had to say about it and I was so sad and sickened that people could have no remorse for what they were saying about a beautiful young lady who passed away so tragically.
Here is the story.
Nicole "Nikki" Catsouras was killed in a car accident on Halloween last year. Gruesome photos of the accident scene have spread around the internet, and people have e-mailed the images to Catsouras' family. Her family is suing the California Highway Patrol for allegedly releasing the accident photos.f (Courtesy of the Catsouras family.)
By JIM AVILA, EAMON McNIFF and SCOTT MICHELS
Nov. 16, 2007
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ShareNot long after their 18-year-old daughter died in a car accident, Christos and Lesli Catsouras were forced to relive their grief.They soon began receiving anonymous e-mails and text messages that contained photographs of the accident, including pictures of Nicole Catsouras' 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.
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Young Life Cut Short"What type of individual would do that?" asked Christos.The pictures, taken by California Highway Patrol officers and e-mailed outside the department, spread around the Internet, making their way to about 1,600 Web sites, according to an investigator hired by family. The images became so persistent that Lesli Catsouras stopped checking her e-mail. Nikki's three 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."There was threats that people were gonna put the pictures on my locker, in my locker," said Danielle. "I remember her in such a great way, I don't wanna see it and have that image stuck in my head.""I've stopped using my e-mail," says Lesli Catsouras. "I don't want to see these every single day. …And you know, I take a risk every time I go on the computer."We talk about Nikki all the time, " said Christos. "We've got pictures of her everywhere, We laugh about her, cry. I always called her Angel."'A Life of Its Own'A judge in California ruled that the Catsouras family's lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol for allegedly releasing the accident scene pictures can go forward. According to Catsouras family attorney Tyler Offenhauser, the ruling is a significant step toward getting justice for Nikki because a jury will now decide whether the CHP must take responsibility for its employees' conduct of disseminating the graphic photos outside the agency.
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Family's Ordeal Horrifies Viewers"They were crime scene pictures that never, ever should have gone out," Christos Catsouras said. "There was a big mistake made by the California Highway Patrol that was never really acknowledged, or they never wanted to help us once that mistake had been made."The California Highway Patrol declined to comment on the case, citing the pending litigation. Though the CHP has admitted in a letter to the Catsouras family that its dispatchers violated department policy, it has said it is not legally responsible for the Catsourases' anguish.According to state highway patrol reports, at approximately 1:45 p.m. last Halloween, 15 minutes after taking her father's Porsche 911 for a drive without permission, Nikki Catsouras was traveling 100 mph on State Route 241, near Lake Forest, Calif., when she clipped another car and lost control, slamming into a concrete tollbooth, killing her instantly.
Photos of Catsouras' decapitated body, still strapped into the car, were taken by highway patrol officers investigating the crash, as per departmental procedure.According to Keith Bremer, an attorney for the Catsouras family, "One of the officers e-mails some of the photographs to a dispatcher and then the dispatcher e-mails them outside the Police Department. And then from there, you know, it, it created a life of its own and created momentum and it just, it just exploded.""There is absolutely no public benefit pursuant to the investigation and the preparation of that police report for those photographs to go anywhere other than in the evidence locker," he said."The pictures were passed around to thousands of sites, and the Catsourases began receiving the images masked behind anonymous e-mails and text messages. A fake MySpace page was created, ostensibly as a tribute site to Nikki's life. But friends and family were again met with the horrific photos, captioned by "false and degrading labels" about Nikki and her family, according to the lawsuit."Everybody I know has either seen them or they know someone that's seen them," said Lesli. "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.""People say that she deserved to die," said Christos. "She was irresponsible, driving fast, we understand that. But she didn't deserve to die, and especially in the manner that she died."'This Is In No One's InterestThough the Catsourases hired a company to remove the photos from the Internet, the images live on. "It spreads in bursts, and when it spreads it happens very fast," said Michael Fertik, the founder of ReputationDefender, a company that helps clients remove items from the Internet."We go at it by just direct human to human contact. We reach out to the people who are posting them, or chiefly in these cases, hosting the website where they are posted, and saying 'Look, this is in no one's interest. You're getting less pleasure out of this than these people are suffering pain.""We've asked them to please take down the pictures, and they've said, 'No, I don't have to because I've got my First Amendment rights," says Lesli Catsouras of the Web sites that still carry the photos. "But we have rights, you know, we're living in the United States of America."One such Web site did not remove the photos. It's owner declined a request to be interviewed, but provided a statement to ABC News, which reads in part:"Wanting to view photographs of tragic events is a part of human nature. It's a very rare person who doesn't rubberneck as they pass the scene of an accident, because we're all interested in a glimpse into death and misfortune. When we look upon photographs, like those of a young girl who has been violently struck down in the prime of her life by a moment's recklessness, we gaze upon our own mortality, and we think about how easily this could have been us. …While I sympathize with the family and have no desire to perpetuate the pain of their loss, I also realize the reality of the internet. Once photographs like these leak online, they spread like a virus. … For those who find photographs of deceased individuals disturbing, they have the option of not visiting the sort of sites that display those images. (Most of those sites have ample warnings before anything disturbing is shown.) But the right of the rest of us to view such images should not be infringed upon."After an internal investigation, the California Highway Patrol identified two dispatchers, Thomas O'Donnell and Aaron Reich as being responsible for the leaked images. Citing "pending litigation," the highway patrol has yet to comment on the case, but it sent a letter to the family admitting the mistake."After a thorough and complete investigation we have determined that a CHP employee did violate departmental policy in this matter. Appropriate action has taken place to preclude a similar occurrence in the future," the letter, signed by Orange County Communications Center Lt. Cmdr. Paul Depaola, states."Again, my sympathy to you and your family at this difficult time of loss," Depaola wrote."The CHP has taken the position that plaintiffs do not have a civil case against them because the release of the photographs, while morally wrong, did not violate any governmental regulation or statute," Bremer said.Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Perk refused to dismiss the case against the California Highway Patrol. Bremer expects more challenges to the lawsuit from the dispatchers as well.'She Was a Person'
Rex Parris, a lawyer for defendant Thomas O'Donnell, said his client is innocent of any wrongdoing and said that O'Donnell did not leak any of the photos. He only received pictures and sent them to his own, personal e-mail, Parris said.O'Donnell says that the agency isn't defending him in the lawsuit, and that he feels abandoned."I don't understand why the department isn't sitting here with me, helping me," he said."Other than looking at the photographs and forwarding them to his own private e-mail account, he did nothing," Parris said. "He was just a recipient of the digital photographs, he didn't forward them on to anyone," Parris said.Sharing photographs of accident scenes are a part of the job for highway patrol workers and dispatchers, and always have been, he said. He claimed that as long as taking accident scene pictures remains part of CHP policy, incidents such as this one will continue to come up."There isn't anybody out there that wouldn't want to protect this family from seeing those photographs," Parris said. "This is an issue of technology, not morality or equal prohibition. It's one of those painful things that come along with technology."Parris and Bremer said the CHP should apologize."It is disappointing that the CHP acknowledges an internal error of this magnitude has occurred," Bremer said, "but steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the ramifications and extent of pain it has caused the Catsouras family.""They'd like the California Highway Patrol, which has admitted that internal policies were violated, to come and say that they are sorry."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," which is what her father always called her."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."We are a real family with real hearts," said Christos. "And it hurts what people are doing.I am not sure if this one says were the people guilty even sent her cousin one.. How on earth these people feel good about them selves is beyond me..
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Lesli Catsouras hasn't opened her e-mails in weeks.Her husband, Christos, dreads having to use the Internet – fearful of what he accidentally may see.They have banned their daughters – ages 15, 13 and 8 – from going online.Losing oldest daughter Nikki, 18, in a car crash on Halloween has been hard enough on the Catsouras family.Now, their heartache is compounded by outrage.Graphic accident-scene photos, including close-up shots of Nikki, who suffered massive head trauma, have been leaked onto the Internet.The images have turned up on hundreds of Web sites and in countless chat rooms and e-mails – from Australia to Italy. The photos often are accompanied by debates about the merits of the images, with many viewers even vilifying the dead teen."We're still just starting to deal with Nikki's death, and now this," said Christos Catsouras, 43. "People are sick."The family blames the leak on the California Highway Patrol, the agency that is investigating the crash. The family has filed a claim against the state as a precursor to a civil lawsuit. The CHP is investigating.As they continue to grieve, members of the Catsouras family also find themselves struggling to restore some dignity to Nikki's memory – and facing seemingly insurmountable odds to establish some decency in the sometimes insidious, unforgiving grip of the Internet.The photos are so pervasive, Nikki's 15-year-old sister has stopped going to school out of fear of opening her locker and seeing a photo of her dead sister. She now is being home schooled.A 12-year-old neighbor who accidentally saw the images is seeing a counselor, according to Christos Catsouras.Some people have anonymously sent cruel, taunting e-mails to Nikki's relatives – including one to her father that read, "From Dead Girl Walking: Woo Hoo Daddy, I'm Alive."
CHALLENGEA CHP official in Sacramento said the agency cannot discuss the claim filed by the Catsouras family and said the issue of the leaked images remains under investigation."We're trying to find out if these are our photos and, if they are, how they were made public," CHP spokesman Tom Marshall said.Accident-scene photos are meant only for investigative purposes. CHP policy and the state vehicle code forbid them from being distributed publicly.The CHP is sending notices to operators of Web sites that have posted the images, demanding that they immediately be taken down."We certainly do feel sorry for the family," Marshall said.The Catsouras family has hired a company, Reputation Defender, also to demand that Web site operators remove the offending pictures.The Catsouras family may face an uphill battle in trying to control use of the pictures on the Internet, said Brian Daucher, a civil litigator and partner with the Costa Mesa office of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton who specializes in Internet-related litigation."Unfortunately, the law is not always great at regulating human decency," said Daucher, who is not involved in the Catsouras case.Rights that protect a living person against defamation or invasion of privacy don't necessarily extend past death, Daucher said.The pictures of Nikki's body also have turned up in at least one class for DUI offenders in Orange County, even though alcohol did not play a factor in the 1:45 p.m. accident, according to the CHP.Toxicological and autopsy reports are pending, the coroner said.Mothers Against Drunk Driving strongly opposes the use of gory or graphic images."The gore factor doesn't necessarily translate to behavioral changes," said Gail Butler, executive director of the Orange County chapter of MADD. "It would be nice if things were that easy."One Internet expert theorized about why people would view and circulate such images."In the online world, a person can be totally disconnected from the consequences of their actions," said Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use in Eugene, Ore."They can have no empathy. They can't see the harm being done."
FREE SPIRITBy all accounts, Nikki was not the rich, spoiled party goer who got drunk and crashed a Porsche given to her by her father – a fiction circulating online."She was a sweet, wonderful girl who never hurt anyone," said her mother, Lesli Catsouras.Nikki had just started taking classes at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo. She had a passion for photography.Nikki actually loved thrift stores and wanted to buy a beat-up '80s car, Johnson said.In its claim, the Catsouras family cites emotional distress, loss of earnings and loss of consortium and seeks punitive damages, said attorney Tyler D. Offenhauser of Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara in Newport Beach."These images were posted solely for their 'shock and awe' value, without any consideration whatsoever for the feelings of the family," Offenhauser said. The 911 calls also are circulating online, he said.The Catsouras family found out about the photos a few days after Nikki's funeral.One of her cousins, Zoe, 19, got a text message on her cell phone.When she opened it, she saw thumbnail images of the accident scene – one of Nikki shown slumped over and still strapped into the driver's seat, most of her head and face missing – and threw her phone down in shock.The night before she died, Nikki had gotten into an argument with her father about "typical teenager stuff," Christos Catsouras said.He disciplined her by taking away the keys to her car.Nikki's mother said her daughter wasn't feeling well Oct. 31. She had a 3 p.m. appointment to see a doctor.Christos Catsouras had lunch at home that day. He works five minutes away at a real estate office.He recalled telling Nikki before he went back to the office that he loved her. She blew him a kiss and flashed him a peace sign.After he left, Nikki walked to a key rack in the house and took the keys to her father's $150,000 Porsche – which Nikki had never driven, her father said.The keys were hanging where they always were, with all the others.Lesli Catsouras heard the garage door open and the car leave and called her husband, who called 911. He immediately drove around looking for her.Nikki had taken off down the Eastern (241) Toll Road in his black 911 Carrera.As she tried to pass a car that was going about 70 mph, she clipped it and lost control of the Porsche, the CHP said.She slammed into a toll-booth building at Alton Parkway in Lake Forest.Christos Catsouras' mind continually goes back to his last moments with his daughter.Every day, he said, he kisses his daughters goodbye.That day, he didn't kiss Nikki. In an interview, his eyes welled up. He fell silent.Lesli Catsouras sat next to him, staring blankly ahead, her arms tightly crossed."She was our child," she said.
FROM THE PAGE OF ABC"S 20/20
LADERA RANCH – The tragic story of car-crash victim Nikki Catsouras went national again this week as her family awaits a legal ruling on a case that touches on privacy, harassment and image control in cyberspace.Newsweek magazine, in its May 4 newsstand issue, documents the saga of how leaked images of Nikki's lifeless body have created a legal and emotional nightmare for her Ladera Ranch family.As first reported in The Orange County Register, the Catsouras family sued the California Highway Patrol after images of Nikki's body began circulating on the Internet soon after a horrific car crash on Halloween Day in 2006.Nikki, 18, had taken her father's Porsche without permission and, moving at speeds estimated at 100 mph, was killed when she lost control of the sports car and slammed into a concrete toll booth on the 241 toll road in Lake Forest.Soon, nine images of her nearly decapitated body began appearing on Web sites and in e-mails sent anonymously to her family. Some who posted Web site comments or sent e-mails taunted the family; parents Lesli and Christos and three younger sisters.The CHP later apologized for the leak, blaming it on two employees. Accident-scene photos are routinely used for investigative purposes but legally are not supposed to be disseminated publicly.The Catsouras family and their attorneys, Keith Bremer and Tyler Offenhauser, are awaiting an appellate court ruling that might keep the lawsuit alive in civil court.An Orange County Superior Court judge previously dismissed the lawsuit – for negligence, privacy invasion and infliction of emotional harm, among other charges – saying Nikki's rights to privacy did not extend to her grieving family.The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana has until June 1 to decide whether to send the case back to be heard for trial or keep it dismissed. Bremer said he is hopeful the Catsouras family will prevail."We continue to remain optimistic," Bremer said. "The 4th District will see it as we see it as a duty to protect the surviving family."Attorney Jon Schlueter, who represents Aaron Reich, one of the two CHP employees named in the lawsuit, said: "This is a time for the lawyers to be quiet and wait for the (appellate court) to make its ruling."
(FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)
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.
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 Catsourases are by no means the first to suffer at the hands of cyber-aggressors. But their story is unique in that it touches on so many of the ways the Web has become perverted: as an outlet for morbid curiosities, a space where cruel behavior suffers little consequence and an uncontrollable forum in which things that were once private—like photos of the dead—can go public in an instant. The case also illustrates how the law has struggled to define how legal concepts like privacy and defamation are translated into an online world.
For the Catsouras family, calling attention to the case has obvious drawbacks: they realize some who read this story may seek out their daughter's death photos, though they desperately hope you won't. But the family decided that sharing its story with NEWSWEEK was worth that risk, to raise awareness of the real suffering caused by their dissemination—and of the need for America's legal system to better protect privacy in the Internet age. "The fact is that we will never get rid of the photos anyway," says Lesli, Nikki's mother. "So we have made a decision to make something good come out of this horrible bad."
From the beginning, Nikki's death had all the makings of a sensational story. She was gorgeous; it was Halloween, and she was driving a $90,000 sports car. She was from Orange County; the Beverly Hills 90210 of the housewives-filled suburbs. And from the outside, the Catsourases seemed to have it all: Christos and Lesli and their four beautiful girls lived in a planned community with man-made parks and multimillion-dollar homes. The family ate dinner together almost every night; their best friends lived next door.
But the family's life wasn't as idyllic as it seemed. In third grade, Nikki was diagnosed with a brain tumor that doctors didn't think she'd survive. It turned out to be benign, but 8-year-old Nikki had to undergo intensive radiation, and doctors told her parents the effects of that treatment on her young brain might show up someday—perhaps by causing changes in her judgment, or impulse control. Her family believes that's why, the summer before the accident, Nikki tried cocaine and ended up in the hospital in a cocaine-induced psychosis. She used cocaine again the night before the accident, her family says. Lesli and Christos discussed checking her into a hospital, but decided against it: she was to visit a psychiatrist the next day, a specialist on brain disorders. So they let her sleep it off, and the next day, the three of them ate lunch together.
At the accident site, a crane was lifting the remains of a car so crumpled it was hard to tell what it had been. But Christos recognized a hubcap, barely attached, and collapsed onto the pavement.
Two weeks later, Lesli's brother, Geoff, got a call from a neighbor. "Have you seen the photos?" he asked. Apparently, photos of the crash scene were circulating around town, via e-mail. Soon they showed up on Web sites, many of them dedicated to hard-core pornography and death. A fake MySpace page was set up in Nikki's name, where she was identified as a "stupid bitch." "That spoiled rich girl deserved it," one commenter wrote. "What a waste of a Porsche," announced another.
Both men declined requests for comment, but Jon Schlueter, Reich's attorney, says his client sent the images to relatives and friends to warn them of the dangers of the road. "It was a cautionary tale," Schlueter says. "Any young person that sees these photos and is goaded into driving more cautiously or less recklessly—that's a public service."
The Catsourases have appealed the court's decision—and at least one legal expert believes they may prevail. "Many, many courts have concluded that families of deceased individuals do have privacy rights to the deceased," says Daniel Solove, a law professor at George Washington University. In particular, he cites a 2004 case involving death-scene photos of former deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster, who died in 1993 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could deny Freedom of Information Act requests for the photos based on a family's right to survivor privacy. "I'm totally perplexed at how the [California] court concludes there was no duty to preserve this family's privacy," he says.
Two and a half years after Nikki's death, her loss hangs over the Catsouras family. They've made her room into a makeshift music studio, but there are still folders with her schoolwork, a closet full of clothes and her posters of Jim Morrison, Radiohead and the Beatles line the walls. Danielle, the daughter closest to Nikki in age, and Kira, the youngest, both study from home now, afraid to face the rumor mill at school. Christiana, the middle daughter, is finishing up her sophomore year, but memories of her sister pop up when she least expects it, like when a firefighter mentioned Nikki in a driver-safety lecture; Christiana fled the room crying.
Today the entire family is in therapy, and they've taken out a second mortgage to cover the costs of their legal battle. They still eat dinner as a family each night, but Nikki's seat sits empty. At times, they wish they could put it all behind them. But for the moment, they're focused on the June 1 deadline for a California appeals court to rule on their case. "In a perfect world, I would push a button and delete every one of the images," says Lesli. In the real world, she finds some comfort in working to change the laws, so that photos of some future family's dead child might stay locked away, leaving only smiling, lively images to remember.
