The 100-Name Facebook Hit List Terrifying a Colombian Town

On August 17, a list of the names of 69 young men in Puerto Asis, Colombia was published on Facebook. Leave town in three days, the list warned, or you will be executed. Now, three of the men are dead.

Are you a movie producer? You might want to get your phone out, because have I got a story for you. The southwestern Colombia town of Puerto Asis has been thrown into a panic after the deaths of three teenage boys whose names appeared on a two-part hit list published on Facebook last week, and parents are sending their children out of town because their names show up on the list as well.

On August 15, 16-year-old student Diego Ferney Jaramillo and 17-year-old "CD retailer" Eibart Alejandro Ruiz Munoz were killed while riding their motorcycle to another town. Two days later, on August 17, the first "hit list" was published, with the names of both Munoz and Jaramilo as well as 67 other local young men, warning them to leave town in three days or face execution.

The police, thinking it was a hoax, ignored it; days after that, another list was published—this one with 31 girls' names, bringing the grand total to 100. On August 20, 19-year-old Norbey Alexander Vargas was killed, and 16-year-old Juan Pablo Zambrano Anacona was injured by Vargas' killers. Both teens' names were on the list.

Police apparently don't know who put the list together, though a gang called Los Rastrojos is active in the area, as well as longtime Colombian Marxist rebel group FARC. CNN says that the list is now "blocked," though it's unclear what it was, exactly—a note? An event? A page? Were the kids tagged in it? Or invited to it? Is that not, like, terrifying? Your Murderer tagged you in a note: Hit List 2010. Your Murderer likes your check-in at Abandoned Mental Hospital. The Coroner's Office tagged you in a photo.

Either way, the story reads like a schlocky internet horror movie, except that in the movies it would be because the 100 kids had all, I don't know, murdered a fat girl, or something, and the girl came back to life and had her revenge, and only one of the 100 survived (played by Blake Lively). Instead of this tragic and unsettling real-life story of three dead kids and a panicked town.

CNN