Did A Murderer Post Corpse Photos On 4chan?

Be warned, this is a pretty upsetting story. It'll take some time and further investigation before anyone knows how it happened for sure, but this much is now known — a woman was murdered in Port Orchard, Washington on Tuesday, and denizens of the controversial internet message board 4chan may have known about it before anyone else. That's because images on 4chan may have shown the Washington victim's murder, raising the chilling possibility that the killer took to the internet to reveal his crime before anyone else knew anything had happened. Basically, it all sounds about as awful as it gets.

Port Orchard is a town which sits across from Seattle, on the other side of the picturesque Puget Sound. It's a suburban community of just over 11,000 people, and is home to a U.S. Naval installation. Authorities discovered the dead body of a woman inside an apartment in the town, a death which they considered the result of foul-play. According to Kitsap County Sheriff's Office Deputy Scott Wilson, who spoke to local NBC News affiliate King 5, the woman — aged in her 30s, and reportedly discovered by a member of her own family — is thought to have been targeted in a deliberate, violent act.

We do not believe this is a random assault. We believe this person was targeted by a yet-to-be determined other person.

According to the Port Orchard Independent, Wilson also stated that a series of images, apparently of a strangled woman's corpse, were uploaded to 4chan before the authorities had found the body — the pictures apparently went up before 3:00 pm PT, and the woman's death wasn't called in until nearly 30 minutes later.

While he didn't confirm whether the images showed the same woman, the context that the anonymous 4chan post included is harrowing, to say the least. Though the post and images have since been deleted, NBC News detailed their contents — photos of a body with red marks across the neck, with the comment "turns out it’s way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks on the movies." When this drew incredulous replies, the anonymous poster answered with a much more specific claim.

Check the news for Port Orchard, Washington, in a few hours. Her son will be home from school soon. He'll find her, then call the cops. I just wanted to share the pics before they find me.

So, in short, there's a hunt going on in Washington for an ostensibly on-the-loose killer, possibly with an affinity for 4chan. According to Inquisitir, this person didn't stop at just displaying the woman's corpse, either, also laying out plans to commit a police suicide, provoking officers to open fire by displaying a realistic-looking BB gun. The police believe he may have stolen the victim's car, a gold, 2001 Ford Focus, so if you live in the area, keep your eyes peeled — we can only hope and pray that this person is apprehended, and soon.