Tamara Broome, a 31 year old Australian college student loves to play World of Warcraft. This by no means is abnormal as the video game has a huge following. Also, like many other MMORPGs, people seem to find love through them. There’s plenty of stories about happy couples who found each other through virtual online worlds.
The problem is when Tamara met her one true love in WoW almost one year ago, the kid was only 16 years old and he lived on the other side of the planet. That’s right, she was almost twice his age and lived about 12,000 miles from him.
After a year of online courting, apparently the young boy decided he couldn’t live without her. He tried to board a plane for Australia but apparently got caught and was sent back to his parents.
Last Saturday Tamara boarded a plane for the US. The trip, she told her roommate, was paid for by the boy’s parents so they could “sort it all out” The boy’s parents, however, had something else in mind. When she arrived in North Carolina and attempted to board a train near the boy’s home, she was met by 3 detectives and taken into custody, charged with attempting to abduct a child.
You see, children are considered underage if they are not 18 in the US, a fact that Ms. Broome was either not aware of, or simply didn’t care about. Her roommate who asked not to be named, said that the boy was the one who wanted to come to Australia. Even if that’s so, the kid apparently didn’t have his parents permission to do so. Her roommate also claimed that the boy’s parents hacked into Tamara’s email to find out more about her.
My hat goes off to this kid’s parents. I’ve ranted about people who blame video games plenty of times on this site and pointed out that parents need to take a more active role in children’s lives. They should know what they’re kids are doing and how it’s affecting them. These parents should be up for a “parents of the year” award.
While I’m sure Tamara Broome had the best of intentions and genuinely cared about the boy, she should have waited until he was 18 at least. Instead, she now sits in jail on 2.35 million dollars bail and faces 2 years in prison. The good news is he’ll be legal when she gets out!
Comment by rainman
7 7/5/2007, 5:22 am o'clock |
go to reflector.com and look the story up there. The wowan started the relationship when he was 16. She helped him get a ticket by paying for it with her credit card, and talked him into leaveing. He was pocked up at the airport by the police when his mother reported him missing. Sounds like child abduction to me when a 31 yr old give a minor money and pays for a ticket to leave without his parents consent.Also how did he get a passport to leave?
Comment by peterb
6 7/3/2007, 11:50 pm o'clock |
Would those of you who are brimming with sympathy for this somewhat creepy-sounding woman be so sympathetic if she was a 31 year old man trying to consummate a relationship with a 17 year old girl?
I didn’t think so.
Comment by Bob Weaver
5 7/3/2007, 8:30 am o'clock |
This is absurd. The boy is 17. It’s not like he’s a child, and anyone believing that your 18 birthday is the magical time when you sexually mature and able to deal with a real relationship should have their heads examined. This is entrapment. Pure and simple. The parents flew the woman over here to meet with them only to call the cops on her. Sounds to me like they’re afraid to lose their son when he turns 18. DUCT TAPE HIM TO THE RADIATOR, HE’S ALMOST LEGAL AND WE CAN’T BRAINWASH HIM AFTER THIS YEAR.
It sounds to me like some parents are in for a rude awakening when their son turns 18, moves to Australia, and decides he never wants anything to do with the parents that ruined his life (sound familiar? it should. this crap happens all the time. YOUR 17 YEAR OLD SON OR DAUGHTER IS NOT YOUR BABY ANYMORE. Stop treating them as such).
I’m sick and tired of this retarded mentality in America. Dress your tweeners up in mini skirts and g-strings and your toddlers in string bikinis. Let them watch Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and the Anna Nicole Smith Show; Let them idolize Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Kate Moss; Let them find out about sex in the sex crazed zoo that is modern high school. God forbid though, if they find someone they care about who happened to be in middle school when they were born……. oh wait, but it’s cool if you wait a year. What a crock!!!!
Comment by DaiTengu
4 7/3/2007, 4:13 am o'clock |
From the information I got on this story, apparently the lady tried to get the boy to come to Australia once before, possibly by paying for his plane ticket. Her roommate said that it was all the boy’s idea, but still, if you’re 31, you don’t do that for a 17 year old. The least she could have done was call and talk to the kid’s parents.
On the other hand, the kids parents could have made a phonecall to her. If they did indeed “hack into her email” as previously mentioned, they should have at least had her phone number. The kid’s parents definitely could have handled the situation better. Unless of course, this was the only recourse. Even with all the phonecalls and forbidding in the world, sometimes people manage to get around the rules that are in place.
Anyway, 2 years in jail is the maximum time she could receive. I really expect her to receive very little jail time if any aside from what she’s doing while waiting for trial.
Comment by Nathan
3 7/3/2007, 2:36 am o'clock |
Andrew, I’m an American and I agree with you. Beside the fact that the parents have behaved reprehensibly, it’s absolutely shameful that any criminal proceedings have been brought against her for domestic laws. She should be immediately extradited to her home in Australia where the court that holds jurisdiction over her affairs may then decide what to do.
As for the parents, they should be ashamed of themselves. I applaud them for being involved enough in their sons’ life to know what’s going on and care for him, but they’ve just set the example of irrationality and vindictiveness for him. They would have 100% support from the law to simply meet with her, explain that she is not allowed to see their son, prevent their son from seeing her and vice versa, and to then use law enforcement to make sure that contact doesn’t occur.
I think our legal system has its ups and downs, but that shouldn’t even be an issue because she’s not an American citizen and in fact comes from a country with an established court system that could appropriately pass judgement. If anything, this is a waste of my fucking tax dollars. From a financial point of view, she doesn’t pay taxes and thus shouldn’t be taking up resources from the criminal justice system and from an ethical point of view, it’s not proper for her to be judged within the American values system when it is in fact faster, cheaper, and easier to fly her back to Australia and say, “Here’s what happened. You deal with it.”
And I just hope that that boy doesn’t take a page from his parents back when he has children. He just got quite a lesson in kicking someone while they’re down.
Comment by Andrew
2 7/3/2007, 12:57 am o'clock |
I think the woman was a moron for trying to link up with a minor, and I am also extremely critical of internet relationships - you always seem to hear about people being hurt by them. That being said, one of my good friends has a very stable relationship ship with his girlfriend in the USA (I live in Australia). But I am disgusted with the parents for lureing this woman into a trap - they destroyed her life when she had done nothing wrong. Morally, maybe, but legally I don’t see that she has caused harm.
The parents could have acted as moderators and helped the relationship be sorted out. Instead they chose to ruin the woman’s life by sending her to a correctional facility for two years and screwing her financially with the legal costs she will now have to dish. Not to mention how downhill the US’s legal system is headed at the moment. (Note: this is not saying your country sucks, but I am saying that the net is inundated with horror stories and terrible sentences being bandied around)
So yes, the woman was a moron. But no, she didn’t deserve being lured into a trap by what she must have thought of as a good gesture, and threatened with prison in a foreign nation. I’m abhorred to think someone would support this.
Comment by William
1 7/2/2007, 8:13 pm o'clock |
A charge of “attempting to abduct a child” is simply ludicrous in this situation.
While I agree parents should take more active roles in their children’s lives, and not look for scapegoats to blame for misbehavior (i.e. video games), teenagers are very independent and leaving home for a while isn’t all that uncommon in any circumstances.
There’s a far cry from a person snatching a six year old from a shopping center, and a seventeen year old deciding he wants to spend some time with somebody he met online. It appears to be a bad call on the part of Ms. Broome, but unless there’s unquestionable evidence of criminal intent, “abducting a child” is a ridiculous charge which should be met with incredulity, not applause.
Legally speaking, 18 is the “age of majority”, but it’s not some magical milestone in which a person is suddenly transformed from a naive child into an infallible adult.. If it had happened in several months, after the guy had turned 18, then there would have been no problems, but because of a few months difference the woman gets stuck with an unrealistic US$2.36m bail and potential prison sentence? I fail to see how this can possibly be seen as an appropriate response.