Guy meets girl. Guy falls for girl. Guy asks girl to marry him. Old story.
Except when the smitten guy is Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, a 44-year-old self-described vampire from New Jersey, who has a colored history of controversial relationships with teenage girls, a laundry list of run-ins with the law in at least three states, and a bizarre plan to get elected Minnesota's next governor.
And when the object of his affection is 16-year-old Paige Brewer, a troubled kid who walked out on her mother, Jillian Moen, and their Mound home six months ago. Brewer met Sharkey in an online vampire forum in January. She, too, claimed to be a vamp.
An email relationship developed. Sharkey proposed marriage on February 11 via YouTube video. She accepted via MySpace. On Valentine's Day he flew in from New Jersey to pick her up and the pair went into hiding—with a cell phone, an internet connection, and an insatiable desire to wage war with their critics in the comments section of the City Pages website.
Meanwhile, friends, family, total strangers, and a Faribault police detective began using the same forum to urge Brewer to contact authorities.
"This is Detective Lisa Petricka with the Faribault Police Department and you know me from meeting with you a few months back," read one comment. "I have been assigned your case file for running away. I would like you to contact me so we can talk and I will help you with the situation you are in and handle this the right way."
Brewer, writing under the pen name Paige Sharkey, attacked them all and insisted Sharkey had rescued her.
"Jonathon and I plan to get married as soon as I get emancipated from my mother," Paige wrote. " If she refuses to emancipate me, then it will be a court battle."
By Tuesday she was listed as an endangered runaway by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and she was angry.
"Screw off," Brewer said in an interview, adding that she knew all about Sharkey's criminal record, and discounted it after getting to know him better. She said she was a vampire, too, and that Sharkey was treating her like his queen.
"I bit him first," she said. "Let me live my life."
Visitors to citypages.com questioned whether a 16-year-old girl—especially one claiming to be a vampire—was able to make a decision like that for herself.
"This is sick," wrote one. "She isn't an adult, not capable of making adult decisions, and Mr. Sharkey is a pedophile."
Except when the smitten guy is Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, a 44-year-old self-described vampire from New Jersey, who has a colored history of controversial relationships with teenage girls, a laundry list of run-ins with the law in at least three states, and a bizarre plan to get elected Minnesota's next governor.
And when the object of his affection is 16-year-old Paige Brewer, a troubled kid who walked out on her mother, Jillian Moen, and their Mound home six months ago. Brewer met Sharkey in an online vampire forum in January. She, too, claimed to be a vamp.
An email relationship developed. Sharkey proposed marriage on February 11 via YouTube video. She accepted via MySpace. On Valentine's Day he flew in from New Jersey to pick her up and the pair went into hiding—with a cell phone, an internet connection, and an insatiable desire to wage war with their critics in the comments section of the City Pages website.
Meanwhile, friends, family, total strangers, and a Faribault police detective began using the same forum to urge Brewer to contact authorities.
"This is Detective Lisa Petricka with the Faribault Police Department and you know me from meeting with you a few months back," read one comment. "I have been assigned your case file for running away. I would like you to contact me so we can talk and I will help you with the situation you are in and handle this the right way."
Brewer, writing under the pen name Paige Sharkey, attacked them all and insisted Sharkey had rescued her.
"Jonathon and I plan to get married as soon as I get emancipated from my mother," Paige wrote. " If she refuses to emancipate me, then it will be a court battle."
By Tuesday she was listed as an endangered runaway by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and she was angry.
"Screw off," Brewer said in an interview, adding that she knew all about Sharkey's criminal record, and discounted it after getting to know him better. She said she was a vampire, too, and that Sharkey was treating her like his queen.
"I bit him first," she said. "Let me live my life."
Visitors to citypages.com questioned whether a 16-year-old girl—especially one claiming to be a vampire—was able to make a decision like that for herself.
"This is sick," wrote one. "She isn't an adult, not capable of making adult decisions, and Mr. Sharkey is a pedophile."
