John Doe 117: Who Killed Michael Hastings
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This episode of True Crime Tuesday, happens to contain the perfect blend of uncommon weirdness that you are not going to want to miss; mystery, murder, Mayhem, government conspiracy, cover up and much more. So without further ado we present to you the mystery of John Doe 117.
Michael Hastings was my absolute favorite type of journalist! He was the kind of man who believed in telling it how it is and getting the truth out to the public by any means necessary, this included ruffling a few feathers. But this ruthless pursuit of the truth, while refreshing, may have been the very thing that cost him his life.
Michael Mahon Hastings, born January 28, 1980, was a renowned, hard-hitting American journalist, author, and contributing editor for Rolling Stones. At the time of his death he was a staff writer for BuzzFeed but he wasn't exactly the type of guy in charge of writing articles to find out which Hogwarts house you belong to, he was a real authentic journalist who dug in to much deeper issues, like Why Democrats love to spy on Americans, which happens to be one of the last few articles he posted to BuzzFeed before is death. Is anyone smelling the conspiracy that's cooking here?
Hastings was easily one of the most fearless journalist of our time. In 2010 he wrote an award-winning article titled "The Runaway General" for Rolling Stones. The article was credited for bringing down the corrupt General Stanley McChrystal. It's definitely worth a read!
But that was just one of many articles that Hastings wrote that covered controversial government issues, military corruption, political Injustice and other hot-button topics. In an article from New York Magazine titled Who killed Michael Hastings? they shared a jarring quote. It was something Hastings said which literally gave me cold chills;
"Whenever I had been reporting around groups of dude's whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mentioned that they were going to kill me."
It's entirely possible that he just had a sarcastic, and dark sense of humor like myself and would joke about his own death. But since he died under somewhat suspicious circumstances I think in hindsight this quote is extremely prophetic and totally creepy. So are you wondering how Michael Hastings died yet?
I wanted to give a little bit of background details into the type of writer Michael Hastings was before I touched on his death because I felt like that is a HUGE Factor in the mystery and suspicious nature of his death.
On June 18th of 2013 everything went up in flames and I mean that literally. The well-known author and journalist quickly and tragically became known to the Los Angeles coroner as John Doe number 117. We now know that on the last day of his life Hastings was very paranoid and for seemingly just reasons. He met his gruesome end speeding down Highland Avenue in his silver Mercedes C250 before careening off the road, into the median and hitting a palm tree head-on at a pretty high rate of speed, which caused his vehicle to explode in a fiery crash. Or so they say...
His body was so badly burnt that he remained John Doe 117 until the coroner was able to identify his fingerprints & confirm that he was indeed Michael Hastings.
And get this, According to an article written by L.A. Weekly, just hours before the deadly crash Hastings had asked to borrow his neighbor’s Volvo because he suspected his own car’s computer system had been hacked. Ummm excuse me? That is beyond fishy. He no longer seems paranoid, he seems well aware that someone intended to shut him up..for good. What do you think?
The LAPD continues to claim that there is no foul play suspected but its not like the LAPD is without reproach! In fact many would say look at their extremely corrupt history before taking their word for it. Before the car crash that caused Hastings Death, several of his close friends and co-workers remarked that he seemed quote “deeply agitated”. He even mentioned to several of his friends that he thought the FBI was following him and that helicopters were tracking him at his home, possibly due to a big story that he was working on. In one of the last emails to his BuzzFeed colleagues he does mentioned that he was planning on going in quotation off the radar for a bit... And hoped to see them all soon "
So there are several different elements to his crash that seem extremely suspicious. Number one Mercedes don't just explode! They have done crash simulations with that exact vehicle model and just no! There's no way it would have exploded unless it had been tampered with. And number two Hastings, prior to his death, had taken Eerie precautions and sent one of the attorneys at WikiLeaks whose name was Jennifer Robinson and unusual email that said basically I'm being investigated. All of this really makes me wonder what type of information Hastings stumbled upon that put a target on his back. We already know based on his character, that he was not afraid to write about almost anything, so what level of conspiracy or corruption was he sitting on?
This dude was a rebel with a Cause. And all though the FBI say they were not investigating the journalist, the timing and manner of his death seem to say otherwise. After publishing articles centered around his time in Afghanistan and Iraq he was approached by one of General McChrystal who you might remember I mentioned earlier, one of his aides who said flat out, " we'll hunt you you down and kill you if we don't like what you write."
According to a really revealing article I read on the civil liberties defense Center website (read full story HERE), before his death he was working on a huge piece that centered around CIA director John Brennan who was known for his work in the Drone program. This very well could have been what lead to his murder? Is it too bizarre to think that the CIA could have tampered with his vehicle or rigged it to explode? I certainly don't think so, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time the CIA assinated someone for speaking out on corruption within our government....not so uncommon But, then again what do I know? Tell us what you thought of this episode, or share your theories on who killed Michael Hastings with us, on Facebook, twitter, instagram or in the comments below.
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