Until I ran across this story in the Daily Caller last month, I’d never even heard of them. Who knew an estimated 250,000 grown adults across the U.S. were into dressing up as furry animal characters and playing make believe?
 

Apparently there’s an entire “furry” subculture. And it’s worldwide. (“Unity Paws” is holding a Halloween get-together in Moscow on October 29th) ~

SoFurry is the home for artists and fans of the anthropomorphic arts. We believe that all types of furry creativity are precious, in freedom of choice and the uniting power of our common interests. We believe in you.

Last month Connecticut Democrat Scott Chamberlain was forced to resign as a New Milford councilman after being outed as a furry. As the Daily Caller explained, his extracurricular hobby ~

… involves role-playing or even living as an animal. Many furries adopt “fursonas” and believe themselves to have the souls of typically wild animals like wolves, bears, and foxes. The lifestyle is often sexual in nature.

 
Hmmm. As curiosity led me to search further I found a darker side to the furry phenom – and this tragic story: Two suspects and three victims in California killings are all furries, according to friends and social media accounts ~

Two men are arrested and a 17-year-old girl is detained for ‘killing three people at California home’ – one day after child called 911 to report her parents were dead
• Christopher Yost and his wife Jennifer were found murdered in the house
• Family friend William Boucher, 28, was also found dead inside the home
• Two girls aged six and nine were unharmed inside the house in Fullerton
• Police arrested Josh Acosta, 21, and Frank Felix, 25, for the triple murders
• Police are refusing to name a girl, 17 detained following the three murders

 

The Yosts and Boucher, as well as the two suspects were all “furries.” So was Jennifer’s daughter (Christopher’s step-daughter), 17 year-old Katlynn Goodwill Yost. ➡
 
It seems quite likely that Katlynn is the girl police have “detained” in connection with the murders… [Check out the Daily Mail article for some really disturbing pix she posted on Facebook]
 

Earlier this month the NY Daily News reported on one of the suspect’s social media communications just days before the September 23rd murders ~

One of the Southern California furries accused of killing three of his fellow fandom friends discussed the planned murders online just days before his alleged victims were found dead.
 
Frank Felix Facebook-messaged Cody Dunn, another one of his friends in the furry community, on Sept. 19, the Orange County Register reported.
 
“I might be assisting someone in murder,” he wrote.
 
When an alarmed Dunn pressed Felix for details, he backtracked, explaining that he was just “killing an animal.“

The New York Post recently spoke with Joe Strike, the author of “Furry Nation” about the strange culture ~

Strike estimates that two-thirds of furries are men and that a large number of them come from the IT and technology professions. The latter somewhat jibes with a study on furries led by Canadian college professor Dr. Kathy Gerbasi and published in the journal Society & Animals. Gerbasi found that approximately 25 percent of those surveyed considered themselves less than 100 percent human and would become zero percent human if they could. Strike said that most furries he encountered grew up with interests in anthropomorphic cartoon characters and now find comfort around others with the same interest. […]
 
Though the idea of people relating to animals and adopting their own beastly characteristics dates back thousands of years, Strike figures that the modern furry movement gained its footing in the early 1990s. “The Internet began hooking people up and it took off,” Strike said. […]
 
 
For the furries who will be gathering in Connecticut this month, pleasures promise to go beyond the physical. “People invent mythologies for themselves, and it is a hell of a lot of fun,” said Strike. “You have permission to not be yourself, and it is liberating.” Outside of his costume, Strike said, “I am easygoing. As Komos, though, I become forceful. It’s a nice vacation for me.”

 
A “nice vacation” – from reality?
 
There’s something more than a little disturbing about this furry fad. If you’re actively pursuing a fantasy life through an alternative self, how long before you start behaving as if you’re actually living in an alternative universe? How long before before killing a human being becomes killing an “animal?”