Huffington Post writer may have killed ex-lover in rage, then killed herself

(Boyton Beach, Fla.) Jessica Kalish, 56, was stabbed 200 times with a screwdriver.Carol Anne Burger, 57, of Boyton Beach, Fla., is suspected of killing her ex-lover the day after writing about presidential candidate Barack Obama at the Huffington Post website. Jessica Kalish, communications director for a spyware company according to The Palm Beach Post, was found dead late Thursday evening. Kalish, 56, had been stabbed 222 times with a screwdriver. Kalish’s body was found in her BMW at Boyton Beach Open Imaging Center. Burger’s body was found the next afternoon in the back yard of the home she shared with Kalish. Police say Burger shot herself. Investigators believe Burger killed Kalish at home and then moved the body.

Various accounts say Burger and Kalish had married in Massachusetts in 2005, but then Kalish met another woman. Burger and Kalish continued to share a home for financial reasons. The Palm Beach Post said Burger was tapped on Oct. 7 to cover the election for the Web site The Huffington Post. But most writers knowledgeable about Internet writing perceive the HP as a blog platform. To my knowledge, writers aren’t paid. I could be wrong about that. Bloggers at the website are big Obama fans.

HP was founded by Arianna Huffington who morphed from the wife of an (allegedly) conservative bisexual oil millionaire to a divorcee who opted to go liberal and start her own blog directory. Leftie fans like to read there; it’s a gossipy, GOP-bashing tabloid site. Sort of like a Web version of The National Enquirer but without the original dicey reporting. And I'm pretty sure the NE pays its writers well.

Huffington apparently has connections strong enough (and a number of bloggers whose backlinks work in her favor) and enough bucks to get top listings in the searches. That’s one reason I always advise my readers to immediately jump to page 2 of searches if you’re using an engine like Google. For engines like Google, it’s all about the backlinks. You find the good stuff by using a number of different search engines and patiently thumbing through lots of pages of search results. A Yahoo search will sometimes turn up worthier news items because there's a human element in selections.

Google News sometimes lists HP stories as news which lends credence to the perception of the Web as a wild frontier. Although the state of news has descended to such depths, it’s understandable.

Sad state of affairs in Boyton Beach, though. Apparently it’s a story of a spurned lover and a depressed aspiring writer who simply couldn’t handle life anymore. To read all the details, follow links in ‘References’ below. The Palm Beach Post said as investigators studied the case, several telltale signs, including the ferocity and personal nature of the attack, pointed to Burger.