Most Knew Jihad Jane as Just Colleen

Suburban online jihadist "wasn't nothing to remember"
By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 11, 2010 7:43 AM CST
Most Knew Jihad Jane as Just Colleen
This image provided by the SITE Intelligence Group shows Colleen LaRose, indicted Tuesday March 9, 2010 accused of using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help terrorists overseas.   (AP Photo/SITE Intelligence Group)

Nobody who knows terrorist suspect Colleen LaRose had any inkling of her online JihadJane identity, and many of those who talk about her sound like she didn't leave much of an impression at all. The boyfriend LaRose lived with for years in suburban Pennsylvania while she took care of his elderly father told CNN she "seemed like a completely normal person" and was "no rocket scientist."

"What do I remember about her? Nothing. Wasn't nothing to remember," the ex-husband LaRose married in 1980 as a 16-year-old high school dropout told the Washington Post. One Pennsylvania neighbor called LaRose the kind of naive person who could easily be manipulated online, while others told the LA Times she was "mostly notorious for getting drunk and getting into fights." (More Colleen LaRose stories.)

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