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Gene Leonhardt ("You Dun Goofed" dad) dead at 53

Rob Beschizza at 5:55 pm Tue, Aug 16, 2011

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Gene Leonhardt, who became an instant internet legend after angrily defending his daughter from online critics, died this week of a heart attack. He was 53. Know Your Meme writes:

On August 14th, 2011, Jessi’s mother posted a status update on her Facebook account claiming that her husband Gene Leonhardt passed away on August 11th, the same day her apology video was uploaded, due to a massive heart attack

A death notice was published in the Charleston Gazette.

Previously: Father of “Jessi Slaughter,” girl in “You Dun Goofed” video, arrested for child abuse
4chan “backtraced,” reported to “cyberpolice” by mustachioed mad dad.

Discuss

37 Responses to “Gene Leonhardt ("You Dun Goofed" dad) dead at 53”

  1. selfinflected says:
    August 16, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    RIP, angry, tortured man.

    Reply
  2. TylerNerd says:
    August 16, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    His heart done goofed.

    Reply
    • Andrew More says:
      August 16, 2011 at 5:34 pm

      Or… maybe it was goof by all the grief from internet posters, such as yourself, who gave him no end of torment for one unwitting video, that was deemed “funny”.

      Reply
      • Gideon Jones says:
        August 16, 2011 at 6:00 pm

        Dude was abusing his daughter.  Maybe his heart gave out early because he was an angry asshole, and not because of the internet?

        Reply
        • Bersl says:
          August 16, 2011 at 6:01 pm

          Maybe it was both of those and everything else stressful in his life cumulatively.

          Reply
      • Benjamin Terry says:
        August 16, 2011 at 6:03 pm

        Hmm, maybe you are intimately familiar with the situation, but my guess would be that you don’t have grounds to play the “Maybe people like you, Tyler Burger, are responsible for this man’s death!” card.  In fact, it sounds like a pretty wild accusation.

        Reply
      • Kelsey says:
        August 17, 2011 at 4:12 pm

        Actually, you are the one who done goofed by taking yourself way to seriously on the internets.

        Reply
  3. Ari B. says:
    August 16, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    Wow, that’s young. Sad.

    Reply
  4. Jason Holland says:
    August 16, 2011 at 5:36 pm

    How’s the view up there, champ?

    Reply
  5. Avram Grumer says:
    August 16, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    The consequences will never be the same. 

    Reply
  6. Dave Faris says:
    August 16, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    How sad is it that this guy lived a rich full life, and he’s remembered for that stupid video?

    Reply
  7. Cydonia says:
    August 16, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    Am I the only one who remembers that this guy got arrested for hitting his daughter?

    Reply
  8. ChuckieJesus says:
    August 16, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    Jessi Slaughter: The only real difference between her and me was that the Internet wasn’t around when I was her age, and white girls get away with just a smidgen more. We’d have been friends in the pokey. What she’s done is really not all that different than what I did back then. Attention whoring? Histrionics? That’s what it is to have hormones, a sex drive, and no sense of proportion. You couldn’t pay me to be 13 again.  Foster care was where I ended up, too.  Then group homes, then treatment centers.  Then, suddenly, adulthood.  Hope she has kind people around her.  Also: My dad was an asshole a lot, but I still miss him.

    Reply
  9. thebelgianpanda says:
    August 16, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    regardless, dead at 53 makes me feel very, very mortal.

    Reply
    • Antinous / Moderator says:
      August 16, 2011 at 8:13 pm

      Yeah, especially since I’m a couple of months away from being 54.

      Reply
  10. desiredusername says:
    August 16, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    The internet as an intermediary social technology certainly does make it easier to wrap someone up in a simply explanation and toss him into some classification, often times the dustbin.  

    Yeah, I know it’s not new but it’s much easier now.

    Reply
  11. A. . says:
    August 16, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Consequences will never be the same.  

    There, I said it.  

    Reply
  12. gwailo_joe says:
    August 16, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    We all gotta go sometime.

    If you’re lucky it’ll be in relative anonymity.

    This guy: not so lucky.

    Reply
  13. Bling Wad says:
    August 16, 2011 at 8:40 pm

     I watched the video and laughed at it. I, too, am responsible for this man’s death. I’m going to turn myself in to cyber police.

    Reply
  14. Syn - says:
    August 16, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    hnng…?

    Reply
  15. Darth says:
    August 17, 2011 at 1:57 am

    Poor guy. He learned you can’t fight the idiot, internet tide.

    Reply
  16. Tonweight says:
    August 17, 2011 at 3:54 am

    @yahoo-QN6WUG7WMBDAGUPFVSJ6HJAS2A:disqus :  Pissing into an ocean of piss, etc..

    @google-6bd320334380d5f17141b8a0483f9b9f:disqus :  Hey, guys… I was just backtracing sum fortunes when HNNNNNNNNNNNNG!

    @boingboing-a8f8f60264024dca151f164729b76c0b:disqus :  Tales like yours make me sad(der?) for humanity.  That totally sucks, and you’re probably right to hope ol’ Jessi has some caring supporters (and has the sense to stay off Internets for a while).

    I still think Miss Slaughter’s a total waste of skin and hair, but… ::shrug:: …whatevs.

    Reply
  17. IRMO says:
    August 17, 2011 at 4:45 am

    “I still think Miss Slaughter’s a total waste of skin and hair, but… ::shrug:: …whatevs.”

    Who at 13 justifies their allotment of skin and hair? I sure as hell didn’t.

    Reply
  18. William George says:
    August 17, 2011 at 5:00 am

    There was no participant in that whole situation who shouldn’t be embarrassed to look at themselves in the mirror.

    Reply
  19. Paool says:
    August 17, 2011 at 5:14 am

    IDK, I’m not going to get critical about myself because I laughed THEN and hes dead NOW. It seems that if we were to “learn” from this then we wouldn’t laugh at anything because something else in the future might happen that might make us feel bad about it.
    w/e, he’s dead, I’m sorry for the family, but I’m not gonna apologize, beat myself up, or tut-tut at other people over something like this. I thought him yelling at everyone was funny. I think that he is dead now is sad (especially at his age.) Two different events in part of a timeline and I’m not going to let them coincide with each other.

    Reply
  20. Lobster says:
    August 17, 2011 at 6:05 am

    Excuse me, “online critics?”

    Why is this the first time BoingBoing won’t mention Anonymous by name? They did it. In between defending our freedoms from evil corporations or whatever, they took the time to systematically bully a teenager.

    Reply
    • Kieran Manners says:
      August 17, 2011 at 6:17 am

      An abused teenager. And anyone who said that maybe that wasn’t such a great thing to do was yelled at for being a sanctimonious prick. ‘Internet Culture’ can fuck off, pretty much.

      Reply
    • Guest says:
      August 17, 2011 at 7:18 am

      “They took the time to systematically bully a teenager”

      Ahhh, guilt by association, my favorite canard.

      If a police officer beats his neighbor with a baton, are all police responsible?

      Reply
      • Lobster says:
        August 17, 2011 at 8:30 am

        Last I checked, Anonymous prides itself on being a single aggregate entity, to such a point that it will ostracize anyone with enough individuality to give their name.  So, yes.  If Anonymous wants to be a single entity, I do hold it accountable for all of its actions.

        Reply
        • Mister44 says:
          August 17, 2011 at 11:30 am

          As I understand it – there are two different things. There are the “/b/tards” and “Anonymous”, The /b/tards are pretty much anyone who hangs out in the random forum (/b/) of 4chan.org. While Anonymous hangs out and got their origins there, they are their own entity.

          So while people involved with Anonymous were probably in the fray, they would have been a fraction of the overall users and no more responsible as BoingBoing would be if some of their members are on /b/.

          Reply
    • larrym says:
      August 17, 2011 at 3:58 pm

      A teenager that probably needed the wake-up call. The reality is, it was
      a failure of the parents that allowed her to be in that position.

      Reply
  21. larrym says:
    August 17, 2011 at 7:27 am

    You mean the notice was placed in an out of state paper that prints free notices with no verification and the proof comes from an open facebook account of someone who was stalked and hounded online relentlessly?
    Yeah.. totally seems legit..
     

    Reply
    • GertaLives says:
      August 17, 2011 at 8:12 am

      Exactly what I was thinking. I would hope that BoingBoing’s /b/-dar would be a little more sensitive and require more evidence before helping to publicize what could very well be a troll.

      Reply
  22. Jack Holmes says:
    August 17, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    I’m just going to go ahead and posit that it’s possible to 
    A) have found the video funny,
    B) think that the abuse allegations are awful,
    C) think this man’s death is sad and
    D) still be a decent human being, and to do all of these things at the same time. Imagine that!

    Reply
    • solstone says:
      August 17, 2011 at 7:59 pm

      This.

      A tip of the hat to you, sir.

      Reply
  23. Mærty Townsend says:
    August 18, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    Well… now… listen carefully, Jessi. When you see your father, relay these words: Prepare for unforeseen… consequences.

    Reply
  24. Mister44 says:
    August 16, 2011 at 9:10 pm

    MMmm – I don’t think that ever panned out. I believe that stems from a police statement saying they were looking for alleged photos, but never found any evidence of them. So yeah… not so much.

    He did hit her though, and was charged with abuse.

    Reply

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