Team 4: Killers Look For Online Friends
Jim Parsons, WTAE Channel 4 Action News, March 2, 2004

Cold-blooded killers. They're on death row, locked in their cells 23 hours a day and cut off from the rest of the prison population -- but not from the rest of the world.

A Team 4 investigation discovers that death row inmates, including a convicted killer from Pittsburgh, are soliciting on the Internet.

The following investigative report by Team 4's Jim Parsons first aired March 2, 2004, on Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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Richard Allen Davis.

Danny Rolling.

Pittsburgh's Anthony Fiebiger.

They're all notorious killers who got death sentences. While they may be "dead men walking," they are also looking for pen pals on the Internet and trying to make some money on the side.

Fiebiger, 40, sits on death row at SCI-Greene, the state penitentiary in Waynesburg, Greene County. Six years ago, he confessed to the strangulation of live-in girlfriend Norma Parker and the brutal rape and torture murder of Marcia Jones, 16, of Mount Washington.

Even though Fiebiger is locked in his cell 23 hours a day, his recent statements can be heard from here to Germany. His messages are posted on at least three different Internet sites, all of them anti-death penalty sites.

On a German Web site, Fiebiger says he is "searching for pen-friends." He adds that he "loves cats and science and art."

On another Web site, Fiebiger's artwork is displayed. He apparently drew a portrait on death row and is trying to sell it, even soliciting help "to put it on eBay for auction." He says he paints "beautiful pastel portraits" and adds, "I also do wonderful paintings of Jesus."

Warren Aston: "He should not have that type of freedom."

Aston's sister was Norma Parker. Fiebiger confessed that he choked Parker to death in their Carnegie apartment because she woke him.

Aston: "Being able to go on a Web site and ask for penpals and try to peddle your art, that's a freedom he doesn't deserve, because he's taken away the lives and freedoms of two people."

Diane Rump: "Why should anybody give him a dime? I don't care who he can draw."

Rump was Marcia Jones' friend when they were teenagers. Fiebiger confessed to strangling Jones and leaving her propped against a tree. He returned later with a knife and stabbed her in the neck and face.

Rump: "Why is he allowed to get on the Internet to do this? Who's watching these people?"

Defense attorney John Elash says it is not what it appears to be.

Elash: "A death row inmate is probably the most restricted person in this country."
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections says death row inmates do not have computer access, but they are allowed to send letters to people who can post their writings on the Internet.

Bret Vinocur: "It's a match.com for killers. That's exactly what those Web sites are."

Vinocur, of Columbus, Ohio, is an advocate for missing children. He discovered the pen pal sites for death row inmates while he was doing research for his site, findmissingkids.com. He found personal letters on the Web from Florida serial killer Danny Rolling and California's Richard Allen Davis, who murdered 12-year old Polly Klaas.

Davis solicits for pen pals. "Greetings with a smile," he starts. "Could there be someone out in the world who would be with an open mind? Could there be anyone who could take the time to see for themselves just who I really am?"

Vinocur: "He raped and murdered a 12-year-old girl. He's lonely in prison? How does he think Polly Klaas felt when he left her up in the middle of a field while he convinced the cops that he didn't do anything wrong and she's in the dark? How did she feel when she was in the trunk of his car?"

Elash has three clients on death row.

Elash: "If they want to get on the Internet and try to talk to somebody to relieve the fear and anguish and stark reality of what they face, my god, I think it would be cruel and unusual punishment to stop them."

Vinocur is trying to launch a nationwide boycott to stop death row inmates from soliciting on the Internet. He's not targeting the Web sites themselves. Instead, he's going after Amazon.com, whose logo appears at the bottom of those sites.

Vinocur: "How can Amazon, with a conscience, in any way, be partnering openly with these Web sites?"
Amazon.com says it has 900,000 such partners, also called associates. They are sites that link their viewers to Amazon, in return for a percentage of whatever a visitor spends at Amazon's site. To Vinocur, that's an endorsement.

Vinocur: "They're making money off glorified killers who murdered innocent people. That's blood money."

An Amazon spokeswoman told Team 4 that Amazon prohibits some sites from being associates, but only those that promote obscenity, violence or other illegal activity.

Last year, Florida started banning inmates from soliciting for pen pals or trying to sell artwork. Similar rules in other states have been struck down by the courts.