Category: Let's talk
What are your thoughts on this?
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URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/29787673/the_boy_who_heard_too_much
Rollingstone.com
The Boy Who Heard Too Much
He was a 14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone. Then he discovered that he possessed a strange and fearsome superpower — one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI
DAVID KUSHNER
Posted Aug 21, 2009 9:50 AM
It began, as it always did, with a phone call to 911. "Now listen here," the caller demanded, his voice frantic. "I've got two people here held hostage, all right? Now, you know what happens to people that are held hostage? It's not like on the movies or nothing, you understand that?"
"OK," the 911 operator said.
"One of them here's name is Danielle, and her father," the caller continued. "And the reason why I'm doing this is because her father raped my sister."
The caller, who identified himself as John Defanno, said that he had the 18-year-old Danielle and her dad tied up in their home in Security, a suburb of Colorado Springs. He'd beaten the father with his gun. "He's bleeding profusely," Defanno warned. "I am armed, I do have a pistol. If any cops come in this house with any guns, I will fucking shoot them. I better get some help here, because I'm going fucking psycho right now."
The 911 operator tried to keep him on the line, but Defanno cut the call short. "I'm not talking anymore," he snapped. "You have the address. If I don't have help here now, in the next five minutes, I swear to fucking God, I will shoot these people." Then the line went dead.
Officers raced to the house, ready for an armed standoff with a homicidal suspect. But when they arrived, they found no gunman, no hostages, no blood. Danielle and her father were safe and sound at home — alone. They had never heard of John Defanno, for good reason: He didn't exist.
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"John Defanno" was actually a 15-year-old boy named Matthew Weigman — a fat, lonely blind kid who lived with his mom in a working-class neighborhood of East Boston. In person, Weigman was a shy and awkward teenager with a shaved head who spent his days holed up in his room, often talking for up to 20 hours a day on free telephone chat lines. On the phone, he became "Lil' Hacker," the most skilled member of a small band of telephone pranksters known as "phreaks." To punish Danielle, who had pissed him off on a chat line, Weigman had phoned 911 and posed as a psycho, rigging his caller ID to make it look like the emergency call was coming from inside Danielle's home. It's a trick known as "swatting" — mobilizing SWAT teams to exact revenge on your enemies — and phreakers like Weigman have used it to trigger some 200 false raids in dozens of cities nationwide.
"When I was a kid, a prank was calling in a pizza to a neighbor's house," says Kevin Kolbye, an FBI assistant special agent in charge who has investigated the phreaks. "Today it's this."
Like a comic-book villain transformed by a tragic accident, Weigman discovered at an early age that his acute hearing gave him superpowers on the telephone. He could impersonate any voice, memorize phone numbers by the sound of the buttons and decipher the inner workings of a phone system by the frequencies and clicks on a call, which he refers to as "songs." The knowledge enabled him to hack into cellphones, order phone lines disconnected and even tap home phones. "Man, it felt pretty powerful for a little kid," he says. "Anyone said something bad about me, and I'd press a button, and I'd get them."
But in the end, those close to Weigman feared that his gift would prove to be his downfall. "Matt never intended on becoming the person he became," says Jeff Daniels, a former phreaker who befriended Weigman on a chat line. "When you're a blind little tubby bald kid in a broke-ass family, and you have that one ability to make yourself feel good, what do you expect to happen?"
Matthew Weigman was born blind, but that was hardly the only strike against him. His family was a mess. His father, an alcoholic who did drugs, would drag the terrified Matt across the floor by his hair and call him a "blind bastard." His dad left the family when Weigman was five, leaving Matt and his older brother and sister to scrape by on his disability pension and what their mother earned as a nurse's aide. For Weigman, every day was a struggle. "There were times I hated being blind," he recalls. At school, as he caned his way through the halls, other kids teased him about how his eyes rolled out of control. "Kids can be cruel, because they don't understand what they're doing," he says. "They can't even begin to fathom what they're causing, and that stuff eats at your mind."
At age four, Matt surprised his mother by making out flashing bulbs on the Christmas tree. After that, he could perceive faint lights — and he exploited the ability for all it was worth. He cooked for himself by feeling his way around the kitchen — eggs here, frying pan there, toaster over there — and refused to stop, even after he burned himself. He shocked his brother by climbing on a bicycle and tearing down the road, using the blurry shadows for guidance. He taught himself to skateboard, too. To build his confidence, his mom's new husband let the eight-year-old Matt drive his car around the empty parking lot at Suffolk Downs, a nearby racetrack. "It made me feel a lot better," Weigman recalls. "I thought, 'I'm doing something that people who see can do.'"
And he could do one thing even better than sighted people: hear. Weigman became obsessed with voices, music and sounds of all sorts. He could perfectly mimic characters he heard on the Cartoon Network, and he played his favorite songs on a small keyboard by ear. He would also dial random numbers on the phone, just to hear who picked up — and what kind of response he could elicit from them. He fondly recalls the first time he called 911, at age five, and duped them into sending a cop to his door.
"You need the police?" the officer asked.
"No," Weigman replied. "I'm just curious. I wanted to see what the operator would do."
The cop reprimanded the boy sharply. "I wouldn't do that no more," he said.
But Weigman was hooked. In real life, he was gaining weight and dodging bullies, struggling to find a place to fit in. By age 10, however, he had found the perfect escape: a telephone party line. The service — a precursor to Internet chat rooms — allows multiple callers to talk with each other over the phone. Despite the rise of online video streaming, there are still scores of telephone party lines scattered across the country, an odd and forgotten throwback to a pre-digital world. Compared to texting or video chat, the phone lines have a unique appeal: They offer callers a cloak of anonymity coupled with the visceral immediacy of live human voices. Some call to socialize, others for phone sex.
Hoping to give Weigman a social network beyond the confines of his tiny bedroom, a friend had slipped him the number of a free party line known as Studio 55. The second Weigman called, a new world opened up to him. He heard voices. Some were talking to each other. Others piped in only occasionally, listening in as they watched TV or played video games. Weigman found he could decipher each and every ambient sound, no matter how soft or garbled. Many of the callers were social misfits and outcasts: ex-cons and bawdy chicks and unemployed guys with nothing better to do all day than talk shit to a bunch of complete strangers. People without a life. And that's when it hit Weigman: No one here could see each other. They were all just disembodied voices. "We're all blind right now," he announced to the group.
Weigman wasn't a freak anymore. But he was about to become a phreak.
Telephone phreaking isn't new: The practice, which dates back half a century, was the forerunner of
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As to my thoughts on this, here you are:
"I think it's messed up. I'm not sure what exactly disturbs you, but I
am not disturbed that a blind person is in jail. (If that's what
disturbs you. If it disturbs you that he could do this to other
people, then I'm with you 100%). He shouldn't have done what he did, &
it's only fair he pay for his crimes.
I was bullied & abused in school, I rarely had my Braille books on
time, etc, but I didn't turn into him. My parents were weekend
warriors, my mom used to smoke, & she divorced my Dad when I was 18,
but still I graduated 6 months ahead of my class in Dec of 2003, & am
working my way towards getting my autobiography published.
I think he should have gotten longer for wreaking so much havoc.
Imagine how many of those 911 calls that were serious & required
immediate attention were not responded to as quickly because of his
dumbass. He gives blind people a bad name.
Going out & hurting people, whether or not they hurt you doesn't make
things better, & it doesn't change your life for the better.
Just think of what he could have done had he stayed in school & put
those skills to truly good use after graduating."
not to mention that the writer of this article gives me a pain in the nether regions. "caning his way around school?" gosh that's condescending. also, putting fat up there as a moral problem with no character and no sense of right and wrong. i'm fat and blind. Calling out 911 for no good reason is criminal. My son is a volunteer firefighter. This dude's spiritual and mental lack of vision are far more damaging to the community then his lack of physical sight. If I knew where this bozo lived i'd kick his butt. What a terrible person.
Lol. Very true, that's what I've been thinking!!
Wow! Um. Wow! Wow! Wow!
I've had it very rough at times, but i've never done this stuff. I was treated bad not by the kids in school but by other people--adults who were supposed to give a crap, and no not my parents, but I won't say because that is private. The point is, i had it rough. Those experiences have taught me what I'd never do to people. They actually taught me to do the opposite--avenge bullies, stand up for the weak, and fight for justice. Someone getting his jollies hurting others is sick. i pray for this boy that he finds something better in his life. I pray that he can know that he can use his abilities for good and not for hurting others. I pray for him to find healing and to straighten up and walk a better path.
It is amazing what can happen to a person when they are so beaten down and broken. They just can't take anymore and they just snap. This is why I despise bullying and will not stand for it. Bullying causes weak people to retalliate in ways that are sometimes terrifying. Some take their own lives, and the family hurts from grief of losing a loved one. some do what this boy did. And others shoot up schools. Bullies think it is good picking on others that are weak, but they fail to realize that they are creating a monster. And the bullies tha tbully are weak themselves, hence the reason they need to hurt others to feel powerful. That is why I pray for this boy. I feel bad for him, but i really and truly hate what he has done.
And yes, though I feel bad for this boy, I feel he should also pay for his crimes. He must suffer the consequences for his actions.
Aspie,
My thoughts exactly. As I said, (& I think), the majority of us have suffered. But to turn it around on others the way he did is bull.
Oh, yes, most of us have suffered harshly due to ignorance. That is why eighty percent of us are unemployed. It is the ignorance that abounds. I hope i can take care of a lot of that when I get my law degree. i want my name to carry a legacy of fear, as well as reassurance that justice will be brought.
Damn!! Good luck with that, sounds really awesome!
I myself am working on becoming a published author (among other things), so hopefully I too will be able to lend a helping hand in turning things around for all.
This kid got what he deserved. Yes, he was a victim when he was being bullied. But that stopped when he turned into a criminal and a bully himself. This guy should have been put away the minute agents and officers found out what he was up to. This twerp is getting what he deserves!
We have all swum through our own pile of suffering, but lashing out in such a truculent manner is inappropriate and uncalled for.
Very true.
I think what makes me the angriest is the way he bullied people. Using threats, sneaky phone tapping, pranks... Fear... That's really what it is; he used fear, he used a power that, in my opinion was over-emphasized and over-estimated. I don't think blind people "hear" any better than people who can see. I think weuse our haring better to help us survive. Sighted people are so incredibly ignorant when it comes to our small little circle of blind people. There aren't that many of us, we are most certainly outnumbered; but it's jack-asses like this kid who get all the publicity. There's a blind kid I saw on TV not too long ago who has some "extraodinary hearing," and he's so dumb that he things his "outstanding hearing" is gonna save his ass when it comes to crossing a street. This kid refuses to use a cane because it "makes him look blind," and I'm suresome sighted punk out there actually admires the kid for "using his talents." But yet, here we are; blind parents, blind college students, blind authors, teachers and lawyers. Do we get recognition? Nope. Do we get publicity? Nope. Do we even want that kind of publicity? Nope. But we still go on and live amazing lives. That's what we need to remember here. We may get ignored, bullied, jipped or denied rights, but we aren't stupid and ignorant and evil like this punk-ass kid. We're extraordinary, we're awesome; and so what if one or two or even ten dumb-ass blind kids pisses us off or makes us look bad. At least I put my hearing to good use keeping my son safe and lending a sympatheticear to a friend instead of hurting people and causing Hell for society. Let him rot in jail because with his ignorance, he'll just keep doing it. He gets satisfaction from it and as long as he's getting his jollies, he'll continue this evil behavior.
Very true Sunshine!
Sunshine, agree with you. He needs to suffer the consequences for his actions.
As to the sighted who misunderstand us and treat us like trash, I say this to the entire blind community, "We are everything. They are nothing." When sighted people make us feel horrible for who we are, we must remember that.