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How an ‘all-American boy’ became a Mississippi synagogue arson suspect

JL;DR SUMMARY Stephen Spencer Pittman's sudden shift from a typical all-American teen to an arson suspect has puzzled his community and investigators. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Social MediaMental HealthExtremismRadicalizationArsonCommunity ResponseBeth Israel CongregationJackson MississippiStephen Spencer Pittman

Places mentioned

Jackson, Mississippi, United States
"JACKSON, Mississippi Parishioners pass under large banners reading Embrace Diversity and Serve Others as they file into Sunday mass at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church just north of town."
Madison, Mississippi, United States
"Even as a team of investigators have pieced together Pittmans drive from his home in a gated community in nearby Madison to a run-down gas station where he purchased the fuel and removed the license plate,"
Mississippi, United States
"The crime did not seem to fit neatly into the white supremacist violence that has historically afflicted Jews in Mississippi."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 73254
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2026-01-22 05:30:43 UTC
Curated 2026-01-22 08:30:39 UTC