The lead that caught my eye was from the article “The Boy Who Heard too Much.”
It began, as it always did, with a phone call to 911. “Now listen here,” the caller demanded, his voice frantic. “I’ve got two people here held hostage, all right? Now, you know what happens to people that are held hostage? It’s not like on the movies or nothing, you understand that?”
I believe this lead works because it jumps right into one of Matthew Weigman’s prank phone calls, which is what he is notorious for. I believe this phone call is particularly compelling to use as the lead since it shows that not only was he making prank calls, but the content of the calls was extremely serious.
Other lead ideas:
One fat, blind kid is putting people in their place one phone call at a time.
Piss off the blind kid and he’ll send a SWAT team to your door.
Quitting school to make 40,000 prank calls a month is always on option, right?
Matthew Weigman possesses a considerable superpower. One he exercised so often, that it got him in trouble with the FBI.
I like 2-4, Maggie. All of them are short and make me curious enough to read more. “Fat” in the first one kind of bugs me, and it bothered me in the story as well. It seems pejorative in this situation.
Hackers have a heightened sense of entitlement.