Zidonuke

Zidonuke (born February 18, 19??, died February 21, 2018 ), real name David Gregory Brown, also known as Zidonuke Ghost, Zidonuke Marshdevil and Starrykitten, previously as Sidonuke and Zephyr Nayl on Second Life, was an American furry fan and computer programmer who lived in Ashburn, Virginia, USA.

As a programmer, Zidonuke contributed programming and security consulting to several online projects such as Chucklefish Ltd's Starbound, Second Life, Pokémon World Online, and TShock's Terraria.

Fursona
Zidonuke's fursona was a rabbit.

Volunteering
Zidonuke attended and volunteered for several conventions, including Anthrocon, Midwest FurFest, MagFest, and Biggest Little Fur Con. He was on the technical operations team at MagFest, and was one of the Dealer's Den leads at Biggest Little Fur Con.

Controversy
Zidonuke had a history of conflicting hacking exploits that garnered him some problems and distrust with projects and people he worked with,  such as Pokémon World Online  and Second Life, where he was banned by Linden Lab after reporting and exploiting various security issues with Vivox, a voice service in use by Second Life.

F-List
Zidonuke was a coder and administrator on F-List, but was banned in February 2011 after spying on users through the use of a TCP dumper. Once discovered, he gave all users administrator access, removed bans, and published the site's code online. F-List Administration spent 5 days restoring the site entirely from backups.

Fur Affinity
On November 13, 2014, Fur Affinity announced that a new user named Starrykitten would be "joining the Dev/Ops team". Starrykitten, listed as "Tech Team Lead" on the staff page, began talking candidly about site issues, and linked to a new developer operations tracker. The obvious use of a sockpuppet account led to suspicions, and Starrykitten admitted under pressure to being Zidonuke a few days later, saying that (site owner) "Dragoneer was my next door neighbor and is my co-worker", and that he had been a "hidden admin on the FA staff" for the previous year. The revelation proved hugely controversial, and he subsequently resigned.

Reckless driving
At around 1:30 am on Sunday, January 22, 2017, Zidonuke was responsible for a high-speed vehicle crash that claimed the lives of two other furries. The incident took place in Loudoun County, Virginia, when Zidonuke was driving a BMW with two passengers northbound on Route 606 (Old Ox Road) near Dulles West Boulevard.

Using radar, Loudoun County deputy Glenn Keough measured the BMW's speed as 91mph and initiated a traffic stop, but the BMW ran a red light and turned as the deputy got behind the car. Keough lost sight of the BMW, and, as he crested a hill on Evergreen Mills Road, he discovered that the car had crashed into a tree near Evergreen Mills Road and Stone Springs Boulevard. According to data later recovered from the BMW’s computer, the car reached speeds of 119 mph just before the crash.

Deputy Keough saw fire under the hood of the BMW, and used a fire extinguisher from his own vehicle to put it out. This allowed Zidonuke to crawl out through the broken front windshield, after which he told the deputy there were two passengers in the BMW. Fire engulfed the car, despite Keough’s continued efforts with an extinguisher.

The two victims were later identified as Kyle W. Youngblood, 29, of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia (known in the furry fandom as Kalili Youngblood), and Cody R. Cooling, 27, of Washington, DC (known in the fandom as Galonodel). Kalili, seated in the front passenger seat, was killed on impact, whilst Galonodel, seated in the rear, died in the fire.

Zidonuke was charged with reckless driving and, according to Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman, "will likely face more charges".

In District Court on March 1, county prosecutors agreed to drop the misdemeanor charges (including speeding 91 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone) and to bring the charges in the incident to Circuit Court as a direct indictment through a grand jury. On March 13, a Loudoun grand jury charged Zidonuke with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, and a three-day jury trial was scheduled to begin on November 27.

Zidonuke had previously been fined for speeding (September 2010), and making an improper/erratic lane change (January 2014).

On November 16, 2017, Zidonuke pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of driving over the speed limit. His jury trial was withdrawn and his sentencing was scheduled to take place on February 23, 2018, however, the hearing was continued indefinitely following his death in the week leading up to sentencing.