Posted on 04/18/2006 11:58:39 AM PDT by freepatriot32
CORINTH, Maine - The Maine Department of Public Safety has no plans to change the state's Web-based sex offender registry despite the killings of two sex offenders whose addresses were apparently obtained online.
A Canadian man used the registry to obtain personal information about the victims, authorities said, renewing fears that such lists expose ex-convicts to vigilante violence.
"The events of the weekend will obviously be reviewed, but there are no plans to change the Web site at this point," Stephen McCausland, Maine Public Safety spokesman, said Monday.
The gunman, Stephen A. Marshall, a 20-year-old from Nova Scotia's Cape Breton, committed suicide Sunday night in Boston after being confronted aboard a bus by police.
Investigators were uncertain what relationship, if any, Marshall had with the victims, who lived 25 miles apart.
But the two men were among 34 names in five towns Marshall had looked up on the Web site, McCausland said. Investigators said Marshall typed in his name to receive extra information online, including street addresses.
The Web site was disabled while police searched for Marshall but was restored Monday afternoon.
All states have sex offender registries designed to let people know of child molesters and other sex offenders in their midst, and almost all post the information online.
Maine's registry has the names of more than 2,200 sex offenders. It contains such information as the offender's name, address, date of birth, identifying characteristics and place of employment, as well as a photograph.
The killings added to a growing unease with such Web sites. Jack King from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington said making public sex offenders' addresses can be an invitation to violence.
Harassment, vandalism, assaults and even killings of sex offenders have been reported from coast to coast.
"There are going to be crazy people out there," King said. "And there's going to be vigilantism."
After New Jersey passed a public disclosure law on sex offenders in the 1990s, the brother of an offender was nearly beaten to death with a baseball bat when he was mistaken for his brother, King said.
In New Hampshire, Lawrence Trant went to prison after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry.
A sex offender Web site in Washington state was cited in the slayings of two convicted child rapists last summer. Michael Anthony Mullen, 35, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to more than 44 years in prison.
The registered sex offenders shot to death in Maine were Joseph Gray, 57, of Milo, and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth.
Gray had moved to Maine after a Massachusetts conviction for sexual assault on a child under 14, McCausland said. Elliott was convicted of having sex with an underage girl, he said.
When he shot himself, Marshall had with him a laptop computer and two handguns, said Dave Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk County, Mass., District Attorney's Office.
Marshall had come to Houlton, Maine, to visit his father, authorities said.
Police tracked Marshall to Boston after finding his father's pickup abandoned in Bangor along with a rifle. They also discovered bullets hidden in a bus stop restroom that were of the same caliber as one of his father's handguns.
Ralph Marshall told reporters his son didn't appear troubled and never said he had been sexually abused.
Gray and Elliott were shot about five hours apart Sunday morning. Neither appeared to have caused a stir recently.
Gray and his wife moved a couple of years ago from Massachusetts to Milo, said Kenny Hudak, a local police sergeant.
In Corinth, residents were alerted when Elliott moved into a trailer in the woods. The property was covered with trash, tires and at least a dozen junked vehicles.
"I think more people were concerned about the mess than him being a sex offender," said Mary Hadley, who lives across the road.
I've actually seen in the CA database one child molester that was listed as living across from a public school and park. How that happened I have no idea.
Common sense died when political correctness came into vogue. Can't have some sex offenders "profiled" as being worse now, can we????
There was a story reported here on FR about a senior citizen in IL who was going to have to be listed as a sex offender because he simply grabbed a girl by the arm. She rode into the street on her bicycle and laughed at him when he almost ran into her. He was so mad he got out and grabbed her arm to yell at her. This brat goes screaming to her parents who then had the man arrested and the state said he should be on the sex offender list. How absurd. So there is a chance that guys who are not rapists/abusers could be victimized.
This is the funeral that crazy Baptist bastid should be taking his people too. Not the funerals of soldiers.
I assume that most of those actually fearing vigilantism are on the offender list.
Do you have al ink to that story ?
Three strikes and its life, or by prisoner agreement: optional castration.
Says he was 28. I was mistaken, I thought he was older. In any case it is pretty scary to see how the law can victimize people who have not really committed a crime but somehow dangerous scumbags get treated very lightly in many cases.
And I assume that most of those actually supporting vigilantism are on the offender list.
If it has to do with a child (not a consensual teenager thing) then I think ONE time is enough.
That's acually what happened. He was 19, with a 17 year old girlfriend. Five years later he's still a registered sex offender.
In Massachusetts, if a guy got cited for relieving himself on the side of a road he had to register as a sex offender.
I'm not sure if they've closed that loophole yet.
brilliant comment!
Agreed.
But I like baseball.( LOL)
No offense to baseball intended.
Good point.
We've a new criminal name: "Sex Offender" and we hear, like on this thread, all sex offenders should be killed, when the label applies to flashers, people like Elliot and serial child-rapist murderers.
We should go back to the older method and label the criminal with the actual crime.
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