In a Recent AMA Video, I answered a question about publishing “horrible” stories, and when I’ll choose to do one.
When? When I have a point to make, I said in AMA011. Well, “Be Careful What You Ask For” from this week’s newsletter is certainly horrid, and while I had some tagline ideas in mind, I asked Kit if she’d look at the story before I had settled on a slug and tag, just to see if she found any redeeming value in it even without the commentary.
Here is that story, and then I’ll go into the creation of the slug and tag, and then what I like about ChatGPT for such stories.
Be Careful What You Ask For
INTERPOL contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to alert them that Sonia Exelby, 32, who had been reported missing from her home in Portsmouth, England, had flown to Gainesville, and was supposed to fly back 3 days later. She missed her return flight. Worse, U.K. authorities say Exelby had “mental health diagnoses” and found evidence on her computer that she was planning to travel “to be possibly sexually abused, tortured, and murdered by unknown individuals living in the United States.” FDLE detectives found a “roadside assistance service” had made multiple attempts to charge Exelby’s debit card before successfully making a $1,200 charge. They interviewed the owner of that service, Dwain Hall, 53, who was vague about the services rendered. Tracking on his cell phone put him at the airport when Exelby arrived, as well as her AirBnB. They also found a deleted video on his phone where he asks an apparently beaten Exelby, “This is how you wanted to die, right?” His phone also showed he was later in a wooded area. Detectives went there and found Exelby in a shallow grave — along with Hall’s DNA. They also recovered Hall’s knife, which has Exelby’s blood on it. Hall, who is married, has been charged with first-degree murder, and it is likely prosecutors will seek the death penalty. (RC/WFLA Tampa) …“Mental health diagnoses” explains her, but what the hell explains him?
After texting it to her, Kit replied with, “The conversation might be easier by phone” — I work in my office, and she works in our cabin, two decks away.
I called. Yes, she said, she sees value in the story, and made a comment, to which I immediately responded, “That gives me the tagline” — the one on the story, which was better than the two I came up with. It’s not exactly what she said, but close enough: what she said sparked that in me.
Then she said, “Be careful what you ask for…” which of course then became the slug.
Second Opinion
Even with that feedback from Kit, I wanted a second opinion, and that’s part of what I use ChatGPT for. I fed the completed story in with the query being I wanted its “observations” from the story …and was fascinated by its response, its analytical summary of the worst of humanity.
“Understood,” it replied — “here are the observations that emerged as I read it, the kind you’ve seen me voice before when something feels off, disturbing, or revealing about human behavior.”
It continues from there, with a few comments on the observations [in brackets] by me. I find its analysis very interesting; it was clearly taught a lot of psychology:
[end cGPT commentary]The Story’s Disturbing Logic
What jumps out most is the voluntary-victim dynamic: she was actively seeking sexual abuse, torture, and murder, and he was willing — even eager — to provide it. That’s an extraordinarily rare psychological collision. Most murderers work from impulse, rage, pathology, or opportunity. Here, the killer appears to have stepped into a pre-negotiated fantasy, which is far more chilling: he treated someone’s suicidal delusion as permission.
The Killer’s Psychology
Your closing line (“what the hell explains him?”) is exactly the core question. His behavior suggests several possibilities:
- Predatory opportunism: He saw an invitation from a deeply unwell person and seized it because it bypassed the moral and logistical hurdles of choosing a victim.
- Fantasy activation: The deleted video — asking her to confirm on camera that “this is how you wanted to die” — is extremely telling. It reads like self-justification, a way to reduce cognitive dissonance about killing someone.
- Thrill-seeking sadism: Bringing her to a remote area, beating her, filming her, stabbing her, burying her — nothing about that shows reluctance. He escalated far past what her fantasies described. [Note an erroneous assumption here: the source story is unclear about where the murder occurred, and therefore so is my story; the “rough sex” Hall admitted to occurred at the AirBnB. -rc]
- Marital double life: A married 53-year-old running a “roadside assistance service” is not the profile of someone stumbling accidentally into homicide. It suggests compartmentalization — a private predatory identity masked by ordinary domestic life.
In short: her pathology explains her vulnerability; his actions suggest a predator waiting for opportunity, not someone drawn in by her state of mind.
The Operational Oddities
Several investigative details stand out as markers that something was deeply wrong long before the murder: [ya think?! -rc]
- The repeated attempts to charge her card → he was monetizing her even before the violence. [It’s unclear if that’s true: the source story didn’t specify when the attempts were made. But yes, “monetizing her” is correct either way, and an interesting choice of words. -rc]
- Picking her up at the airport and tracking to the Airbnb → this was coordinated, not random.
- The deleted video → he knew what he was doing was criminal and wanted to rationalize it.
- The shallow grave with his DNA and the knife → this wasn’t “heat of the moment” violence. It was carried through to completion.
It reads like the kind of case cops briefly hope is “just” a delusional wanderer — until the details start stacking up and they realize they’re dealing with someone dangerous and opportunistic. [Yeah, I think they realized that very, very quickly. -rc]
The Instructive Part
The most unsettling lesson — and the one that makes this story genuinely instructive — is how pathology can intersect with predation:
- A vulnerable person with delusional suicidal fantasies
meets- A predator who shapes those fantasies into permission for what he already wants to do.
That’s a convergence far darker than a standard homicide. It’s the sort of thing where both narratives are tragic, but only one party had agency.
Back to Human Commentary
See what I mean by “it was clearly taught a lot of psychology”?
One thing I don’t like is the use of the word “predator” — which is admittedly so common in writing about criminals that dictionaries include secondary definitions like “A person or group that robs, victimizes, or exploits others for gain.” (American Heritage)
To me, “predators” are beautiful wild animals: tigers, hawks, foxes, eagles, among others. Victimizers may be “wild,” but they’re far from beautiful, and to call such criminals “predators” stains the beauty of such gorgeous animals.
The taglines I mentioned I had come up with? One was about how when someone wants to find someone truly horrid, even foreigners know to seek out a Florida Man. The other was exploring what his wife might think about all of this, and how lucky she is she isn’t in a shallow grave….
But the first is too flippant, and the second is just as disturbing to contemplate. I’d rather focus my ire on the perpetrator.
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I’m trying to figure out how AI fits into my life. Reading how YOU use AI certainly helps!
When I read how you asked the AI to psycho-analyze the article, I had a another idea. What if humans eventually ask AI to become judges? I fed ChatGPT your article and asked how it would judge Hall. This is what it said:
I do enjoy using AI to perform thought and role-play experiments.
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Interesting, though it doesn’t grasp how Republican Florida is, and how that plays into court sentencing. I think Hall’s much more likely to be sentenced to death due to those numerous aggravating factors. I’d guess life without parole is the lightest sentence he could get under the circumstances, and Florida judges (and juries) don’t tend to go light. -rc
Who needs an AI “friend” to coach you in suicide, when a live human can fulfill your fantasy so completely?
GIGO is still relevant: computers only know what we’ve taught them.