The man suspected of killing 18-year-old Emily Sander — a college student who posed on an Internet porn site as Zoey Zane — has been extradited back to Kansas from Mexico, the Associated Press reports.
The AP says Israel Mireles’ first court appearance on charges of capital murder, rape and aggravated criminal sodomy is scheduled for Friday in Butler County District Court.
One of my all-time favorite stories in The Pitch was Alan Schersthul’s “The Truth Behind Zoey” (February 13, 2008). It’s a sad story that treats Sander better than the anonymous jerks who leered at her nude photos and then insulted her after her murder.
Scherstuhl writes:
As the Girl Next Door goes, so — to an extent — goes the girl next door. Sander was shaved and tattooed, professionally tanned and pierced through the lip. But she still was “natural,” both in the categorical sense and in that real-girl essence that is the selling point of online amateurs. She looked real because that’s what she was: a real young woman trying — like so many of her peers — to look like a porn star.
The day-night writers prefer to think of Zoey Zane as someone separate from Emily Sander. But such real feeling pulses in that photograph of her grinning in that beige bedroom that it’s dishonest not to ask the hard questions. What if this is simply who she is? Who we are? At what point does pornography become documentary?
I can’t recommend Scherstuhl’s story enough.
Source: blogs.pitch.com