Military murder is an independent project and is not endorsed by the Department of Defense or any military component.

The views expressed are those of those.

The content of this podcast is not meant to be legal or medical advice.

Warning, this episode contains graphic details of murder and is not suitable for young listeners.

Welcome back to Crime Army. I am your host Margo and this is Military Murder, a show where I focus on crimes committed by military members and veterans.

But don't worry, you don't have to know anything about the military to listen, I promise.

You just have to be a true crime enthusiast and if that's you, welcome home.

Today's story has been recommended to me every few months since I started this show.

And I've always wanted to look into it, but it wasn't until recently when I sat down to watch the documentary

that I was like, wait, what happened? All I know is that this case is a real headscratcher and you will see why.

Join me today as I tell you about an internet love triangle that caused a young man to lose his life.

This is the story of Marine Sniper, Tahop Blonde and Beefcake Brian Barrett. Now let's dig in.

My sources for this episode include a documentary found on Amazon Prime titled Tahop Blonde and reporting by 2020, ABC News, CBS News and The New York Times.

If you're listening to this and you were born before 1995, do you remember a time without computers, without cell phones, without 24-7 connectivity?

I mean, I remember when we got our first giant computer at home and I felt so cool. I was one of the first ones to get it.

It took 8,000 years to log on, but this little sound always tended to bring me so much joy. Do you recall your first screen name?

Mine was something like Chinita, something or other. It was a nickname my family had for me when I was a baby.

Anyway, today's story begins in an internet chat room found on Pogo.com. Before I started looking into this case, I had never heard of Pogo.com, but I'm happy to report that this is still around today.

And well, it's an online gaming website where you register and you can play all kinds of games. I'm looking at it right now and they have Monopoly Sudoku.

They have something called Quinn's Aquarium, which looks like a version of Majang and they have Scrabble and that's just to name a few.

So it's May 2005 and on Pogo, there's an 18-year-old whose screen name is Marine Sniper. While he was playing Blackjack, he simultaneously in different chat rooms and a message pops up. It's from user Tauhop Blonde.

Marine Sniper says hi and they strike up a conversation. Tauhop Blonde asked Marine Sniper if he knew that they were chatting in a team chat room. And Marine Sniper is like, yeah, well that's cool considering I'm only 18 years old.

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