Killer taunts victim's family over the Internet

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/13/killers....e.ap/index.html

 

Killer taunts victim's family over the Internet

 

Death row inmates posting their crimes in cyberspace

 

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) -- Mary Kate Gach thought she had heard the last of Jack Trawick when he went to death row for murdering her daughter in 1992.

 

Instead, Trawick's twisted writings about how he beat, strangled and stabbed Stephanie Gach and killed other women are available to anyone who wants to read them on the Internet. Many of the writings were put there by a one-time pen pal and admirer of Trawick's.

 

The killer even taunts Mary Kate Gach by name.

 

"I'm mad as hell," she said. "Those people don't even have a right to speak my name or my child's name. There's got to be a way to keep them from funneling this stuff out of prisons."

 

Around the country, dozens of U.S. death row inmates have gotten their letters and artwork posted on the Internet, a practice that torments the victims' grieving friends and relatives.

 

"It's going on all over," said Nancy Ruhe, executive director of Parents of Murdered Children in Cincinnati. "People say to me all the time, 'When are these (victims) going to get over it?' They can't."

 

Experts say little can be done about Web sites featuring the writings of killers.

 

"It's the First Amendment," Ruhe acknowledged.

 

Typically, material from inmates makes it onto the Internet through an intermediary. Prisoners send letters to people or companies on the outside, where it is then posted online.

 

Alabama prison officials say it appears Trawick stopped sending out new stories about murder after Gach's mother and others complained last year. But Trawick's old writings are still on the Web, along with gruesome drawings of murdered women.

 

In one letter posted on the Internet, Trawick reveled in the Gach slaying.

 

"I would do the whole thing again knowing death row was waiting for me," Trawick, 56, wrote from Holman Prison.

 

Trawick confessed to kidnapping Gach, 21, from a Birmingham-area shopping mall in 1992. He took her to an isolated area where he beat her with a hammer, strangled her and stabbed her through the heart.

 

Gach's body was thrown off an embankment, where it was found the next day. Trawick was convicted in 1994, and he was convicted the next year in the slaying of Aileen Pruitt, 27, killed about four months before Gach.

 

Trawick has yet to exhaust his appeals, and no date for his execution has been set.

 

Gach's mother avoids listening to anything about Trawick. But it hurts her to know Trawick has a worldwide platform for his sadistic prose.

 

Free-speech protections prevent prison officials from blocking inmates' outgoing mail unless it presents a security risk or involves a crime in progress, said Amy Fettig, an attorney in Washington with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.

 

"Certainly I would understand victims being upset, and prison officials have a right to read mail," she said. But "just saying nasty things or having bad opinions is not a crime."

 

In one test of inmates' rights, a federal judge in May struck down as unconstitutional an Arizona law that made it illegal for state inmates to send out material to be posted on Web sites. The judge ruled the law was not "rationally related to legitimate penological objectives."

 

In Alabama, Gach and other victims' relatives met with the state prisoner commissioner last year to protest inmate Web sites. Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said Trawick's mail was screened extra closely for a time, but his writings have reappeared in new postings in recent weeks.

 

"I'm in shock. I feel like I have been here before," said Stephanie Gach's mother.

[Vern Gagne 0]

A big fuck you too this admirer.

[The Dames 0]

For the record...you bet that kind of shit wouldn't be allowed here.

 

He'd be banned quicker than Prince Paul.

 

Dames

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

OMG he's showing no remorse!

 

Perhaps we should start a campaign writing to him saying how we want this piece of shit to die a slow and painful death.

 

This sounds like a job for *da da da daaa* the Cancer Fairy!

 

 

On second thought, I better hold back considering his medical treatment will be paid for by the State...

[Vern Gagne 0]

Hopefully he'll be having his last meal real soon. He's been on death row for 12 years.

 

Know if we can do something about this admirer.

[Slayer 0]

For the record...you bet that kind of shit wouldn't be allowed here.

 

He'd be banned quicker than Prince Paul.

 

Dames

Do we have any convicts here at TSM right now?

[Guest El Satanico]

This is why she should've never checked out his website. Did she think whatever she found would be pleasing to her.

[Guest FrigidSoul]

You mean prisons don't have computer labs with all the latest technology like in Oz? DAMN YOU TV, YOU LIED ONCE AGAIN!

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Hopefully he'll be having his last meal real soon. He's been on death row for 12 years.

So he's got another 20 or so years to go...

[Guest JMA]

Shit, I live in Birmingham. It's times like these I wish John Walsh was in charge of the Criminal Justice System.

[Mole 0]

For the record...you bet that kind of shit wouldn't be allowed here. 

 

He'd be banned quicker than Prince Paul. 

 

Dames

Do we have any convicts here at TSM right now?

It wouldn't surprise me.

 

And this is fucked up.

[2GOLD 0]

For the record...you bet that kind of shit wouldn't be allowed here. 

 

He'd be banned quicker than Prince Paul. 

 

Dames

Do we have any convicts here at TSM right now?

 

"An indictment is not a conviction"

 

 

And this is some sick stuff.

[Vyce 0]

This guy deserves the absolute lowest rung of Hell.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

I don't want to turn this into an ACLU bashing thread (we've had enough of those) but this quote raised my eyebrows in a way that only a concerned Dwayne Johnson could comprehend............

 

Free-speech protections prevent prison officials from blocking inmates' outgoing mail unless it presents a security risk or involves a crime in progress, said Amy Fettig, an attorney in Washington with the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming this monster is able to get all of these Internet and Web priviledges because of efforts like the ACLU's Prison Project. Why is this monster getting these privileges and why is the ACLU rushing to this monster's aid (and many other scum bags) with "National Prison Projects?" Something to think about

[Guest El Satanico]

He doesn't have Internet access. As the article says, he mails it to a webmaster on the outside. There's no reason to refuse him mail priviliges over "hurtful" words alone.

 

Doing that would likely lead to it being harder to buy serial killer art. I hoped to own some at some point, but if flow of such stuff is stopped prices will skyrocket.

 

 

:realizes this will likely black list me, but also remembers that i don't really care:

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I, too, wish someday to collect serial killer art.

 

Paintings of their rotting corpse right after they met Old Sparky.

 

Oh, Yeah. El, consider yourself BLACKLISTED...

[Ravenbomb 0]

Shit, I live in Birmingham. It's times like these I wish John Walsh was in charge of the Criminal Justice System.

hell yeah, man, "Life's Been Good" was a great song.

[Guest El Satanico]

:gasps:

 

noooo...not the blaaaackliiist

 

aaanything but thaaat

[Guest Anglesault]

He took her to an isolated area where he beat her with a hammer, strangled her and stabbed her through the heart.

 

Gach's body was thrown off an embankment,

Good Lord.

 

Doing that would likely lead to it being harder to buy serial killer art. I hoped to own some at some point,

 

Ah...ha?

[Guest El Satanico]

Doing that would likely lead to it being harder to buy serial killer art. I hoped to own some at some point,

 

Ah...ha?

What...there was no joke...

 

I'd like to own at least one peice of serial killer art. Is there a something wrong with that?

[Guest Anglesault]

I'd like to own at least one peice of serial killer art. Is there a something wrong with that?

In an effort not to anger scary people, I'll say no.

[Guest El Satanico]

I'm a perfectly balanced good natured person, who has no desire to hurt anyone.

 

He's telling the truth...He's really not a scary person. Well there was that one time, but I won't go into that.