 This past week we've been inundated with media reports regarding the murder of cute 18 year old college student, Emily Sander, also known online as "Zoey Zane", a solo nude model. Yes, she just teased while naked for one web site, since September of this year. Nevermind that she's never performed in a porno, or the fact that she only started nude modeling a couple month's ago -- the mainstream media has labeled the slain teen as "PORN STAR" and "Internet Porn Star".
Sander disappeared over Thanksgiving weekend. She was a freshman at Butler Community College, who couldn't wait to get back to her family in Texas, with whom she was close. Her immediate family and close friends were aware of her nude modeling work. She was last seen alive leaving a local El Dorado bar with Israel Mireles. Her body was found dumped off the highway, fifty miles east of El Dorado. Police believe the suspect, Israel Mireles, was en route to the home of his sixteen year old (pregnant) girlfriend, Victoria Martens, when he dumped the body. According to local authorities, Mireles's apartment was found in disarray with a large quantity of blood in his room. Mireles and Martens are nowhere to be found, but the pair were last seen heading south, presumably towards Mexico.
Emily Sander modeled on YourDailyGirls.com as "Zoey Zane", but since then it appears the site has taken down her galleries. The company has also launched a web page dedicated to apprehending the murder suspect. The page features a donation drive to raise money towards a 'Reward Fund For the capture of Isreal Mireles'. As of publication of this article, they have raised $3,773 and are continually updating.
According to El Dorado Police Chief Tom Boren, since the sensational media onslaught regarding Sander's online pictorials, the El Dorado police have been inundated by false leads and all kinds of inappropriate calls hindering the case. Police Chief Boren has issued the following statement:
The issue of the Internet and the spin-off of that has been literally crippling our investigation.
The Police Chief made it clear that her appearance on a solo-girl adult site has no connection to her murder. In fact, the people at YourDailyGirls.com are disgusted with the media blitzkrieg. They have issued the following statement to the media on ZoeyZane.com:
It truly saddens us to see, in this day and age, that we still live in a society that ridicules a woman for doing something that is completely legal. ... due to your irresponsible journalism and not checking your facts before sending out this info over the news wire, you have turned this into a PR feeding frenzy for the sole purpose of creating drama to draw in viewers. We ask all media outlets - please show some class and respect, for once, on a very sad and [sic] misfortunate situation, and get back to the main focus now of capturing Israel Mireles.
What is it with the label "Porn Star" getting thrown around the media like some magical panacea for any one who takes off his or her clothes online, regardless of a total lack of film or online video career, no penetration, and no fame in the adult industry. All this unnecessary ugliness could have been avoided if the press first contacted the web site on which Sander modeled nude. Conclusions were no doubt irresponsibly drawn in order to garnish attention. I can't even begin to imagine how Emily's family must feel having their daughter's death turned into a prime-time media circus.
And beside the point, if she were well-known online (which she wasn't), why does that need to be the headline? Unless the press has some reliable information directly linking her extracurricular activities to the murder, it is completely inappropriate to lead an article with a headline that reads Missing student led double life as porn star (MSNBC). Other journalistic gems include:
* Body Found in Search for Teen Porn Star (ABC News)
* Missing Kansas Porn Star Student's Body ID'd (Fox News)
* Police: Body found appears to be missing porn star (CNN)
And the one that I find most interesting is Yahoo! News, who originally headlined the story with Body identified as secret porn star's but then changed the working title to Body ID'd as missing student, performer. Apparently, Yahoo! realized they had made a bad call on the headline and actually corrected it.
The press is passing moral judgment on the adult industry because well, now, if she was murdered there must be a link to her posing nude - evidence be damned! Last time I checked, taking one's clothes off on a web site does not lead to homicide shortly after leaving a bar with someone, nor should it diminish the wrongfulness of a young woman's unfortunate demise.
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