We should have suspected the possibility sooner, or at least been more creative in the way we approached the search. That's the explanation you hear from legitimate Gates-assassination researchers when confronted with the new Gates murder controversy, the "hero120299 post" or the "Martyr Test" (as it's coming to be known.)

The clues were actually right there in the Garcetti Report on page three of the narrative:

Records from Hidell's personal computer indicate that a connection to an Internet service provider was made at 7:10 p.m., that the computer accessed the World Wide Web via Microsoft Internet Explorer software and Usenet via NewsWatcher software. The session lasted forty-three minutes, and following the session the Web "cache" from that period--the record of the sites visited during that time--were moved to the "trash" portion of the hard disk and deleted.

For the record, let's spell it out: Alek Hidell, the lone gunman that the official investigation pegs as the sole culprit, was an Internet user like us. He read, he emailed ... he probably posted to Usenet groups, and maybe even web discussion boards. And yet, despite this realization, all the public portion of the Garcetti Report has to tell us about his activities is:

Partial reconstruction of those records indicates that among other areas of the Web, Alek Hidell visited the now-defunct Windoz Watch, an anti-Microsoft site that as of 7 p.m. on December 1 contained an item about "rumors" of Gates's surprise appearance at the Literacy for Life event. The site advised that "some sort of trouble might be possible," gave the time of the event as "noon" and requested that all Los Angeles residents bring whistles and "anti-monopoly" placards to the event.

Where else he visited, what else he did online ... the day before the assassination, let alone before ... was shrouded in mystery until one pseudonymous Web user sent this email to Citizens for Truth's Mark Anderson on December 15th ... over a year after the assassination (reprinted with his permission, but with the submitter's email omitted for their protection):

At 8:14 PM -0800 12/15/00, Johnny Rotten wrote:
>X-Apparently-From: < @ >
>From: "Johnny Rotten" < @ >
>To: "Mark Anderson"
>Subject: Re: The alt.test Post
>Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 20:14:46 -0800
>X-Priority: 3
>Status:
>
>Mark,
>My fingers are shaking as I type this.
>
>I was searching for "histery" references on the Web as I mentioned, and
>found this in the Usegroup alt.test
>
>http://x53.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=555521776&CONTEXT=97692239
5.2084438020&hitnum=0
>
>i.e.
>----------------------------------
>
>Subject: Martyr
>Date: 12/02/1999
>Author: hero120299
>
>Be sure to get my name right in the histery, ha ha ha.
>
>George don't worry. This is for me a sweet prospect. I have no regret.
>
>AH
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>
>
>I urge you and the other Citizens to form a Security Division
>immediately, as the next bit of information is too unbelievable.
>
>I don't know if the danger might come from the NSA, the KGB
>or where. But I can sense it.

Johnny Rotten's stroke of brilliance? Searching the Usenet archives for some of the characteristic language quoted from Alek Hidell's journal, in this case a misspelling of the word "history" (which Hidell is quoted as spelling "histery", the same mistake made in the Usenet post.)

Is this post from Alek Hidell? It's certainly not inconsistent with that supposition, as the post is at the very least signed "AH" and posted to the Usenet on the day of Gates' assassination, and the Garcetti Report itself establishes that Hidell was an Internet user.

But the tantalizing question -- is this post really from Alek Hidell, and what does it mean if it is -- is almost overshadowed by the thought that this might be the tip of the iceberg. For all we know, there a hundred more "Martyr Tests" (or the Alex Hidell equivalent) that shed some insight on what happened in this tragedy. No one on the Web (at least, that chose to come forward with the knowledge) ever thought to search the Usenet on the word "histery" ... at least until Johnny Rotten did.

This should be inspiration to each of us, from Gates enthusiasts to Gates-assassination researchers, that at least some of the answers to what happened to Gates on December 2, 1999 might actually be out there on the Web just waiting for us to find them.