from the front page of today's New York times
April 30, 1998
Online Trail to an Offline Killing
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[LINK] In This Article
Self-Help Group
Illusory Anonymity Is Seen on Internet
Suspect Described as Introspective
Related Article
The Steps in a Confession: Excerpts From E-Mail
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By AMY HARMON
B OWMAN, N.D. -- For nearly a year, Elisa DeCarlo had been logging on
to the Internet daily to type messages to an online support group
about her battle against alcohol. It did not matter that Ms. DeCarlo
did not know where most of the 200 or so other members of the group
lived, or even their names. All that mattered was that they were there
for her, and she for them, in a fight that some days sapped all of her
strength and sense of humor.
But on a Monday morning, March 23, sitting in her usual bathrobe
attire, drinking her usual cup of coffee as she scrolled through the
previous day's E-mail, Ms. DeCarlo, a 38-year-old comedian in
Manhattan, lost faith in her virtual community, she said in an
interview. Along with the typical postings from members about their
weekends was a message from a man she knew as Larry. In graphic
detail, Larry described how in 1995 he killed his 5-year-old daughter,
Amanda, here in the southwestern corner of North Dakota.
A Murder Confession on the Internet
Excerpts from E-mail posted by Larry Froistad and another member of
Moderation Management, a support group for problem drinkers.
'Amanda I Murdered'
DATE: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 12:50:22
TO: Moderation Management
FROM: Larry Froistad
" ... Amanda I murdered because her mother stood between us."
'You Murdered Your Daughter?'
"Okay, Larry, what do you mean, you murdered your daughter? Is this
emotional hyperbole or cold fact?. . ."
'Listened to Her Scream'
"...When I talk about killing my daughter, there's no imaginative
subcomponent.... I got wickedly drunk, set our house on fire, went to
bed, listened to her scream twice, climbed out the window and set
about putting on a show of shock, surprise and grief to remove
culpability from myself.... Those last two screams that I tell
everyone saved my life--they are wounds on my soul that I can't heal
and that I'm sure I'm meant to carry with me...."
In the message, posted at 12:50 P.M. on March 22, Larry recounted how,
distraught at the end of a bitter custody dispute with his ex-wife, he
had set fire to his home and trapped his daughter inside.
"The conflict was tearing me apart, and the next night I let her watch
the videos she loved all evening, and when she was asleep I got
wickedly drunk, set our house on fire, went to bed, listened to her
scream twice, climbed out the window and set about putting on a show
of shock, surprise and grief to remove culpability from myself," Larry
wrote, according to archives of the support group's E-mail, available
to any member on the Internet.
"Dammit, part of that show was climbing in her window and grabbing her
pajamas, then hearing her breathe and dropping her where she was so
she could die and rid me of her mother's interferences."
Ms. DeCarlo said she was horrified by the E-mail message, but she grew
further dismayed over the online debate that followed. While some
members of the group were appalled by Larry's account, others rushed
to his defense, trying to assure him that he was experiencing a
fantasy driven by guilt over his divorce. Others tried to comfort him
by telling him the crime was long past.
It seemed to Ms. DeCarlo that the nature of online communication --
which creates a psychological as well as physical distance between
participants -- was causing her friends to forget their offline
responsibilities to bring a confessed murderer to justice.
On March 24, amid an E-mail debate known as a flame war, Ms. DeCarlo
was one of three members of the support group to notify the
authorities. The police here in Bowman said Larry Froistad, a
29-year-old computer programmer living in San Diego, called them on
March 27 and confessed. Mr. Froistad has since been extradited to
Bowman, a town of about 1,800 people, and he is scheduled to be
arraigned on murder charges on Friday.
The courthouse is a few blocks from the slab of concrete and rusted
plumbing that is all that remains of the house where his daughter died
in a 1995 fire that was ruled accidental.
Vincent Ross, Mr. Froistad's lawyer, said his client would plead not
guilty. Mr. Ross said Mr. Froistad, who worked for the Sony
Corporation, might have been taking antidepressants at the time of the
March 22 posting on the Internet. Mr. Ross suggested that he might
dispute the validity of the E-mail and challenge its use as evidence.
"Any statements that Mr. Froistad allegedly made have to be taken in
light of his mental condition," Mr. Ross said, "and certainly there is
no evidence that Mr. Froistad killed his daughter."
For many of those who knew Mr. Froistad through the ether, his
unbidden declaration is testimony to cyberspace's singular capacity to
invoke trust among strangers. But the E-mail transcripts in the wake
of the confession also provide a glimpse into the interpersonal and
moral predicaments raised at a time when an increasing amount of
social interaction is taking place in electronic arenas, devoid of
cues like tone of voice and facial expression, and structured around
their own sets of rules and mores.
"My position here is that we, as a list, have two responsibilities
here -- to ourselves as members of this list community and to the
larger community beyond," read an E-mail on March 26 by Frederick
Rotgers, a psychologist who helped found the support group two years
ago.
"That may sound radical to some, but I believe it is an essential
feature of the Internet, and one that we must protect if it is to
continue to be a source of great support for people who are in need."
Dr. Rotgers said he had not notified the law-enforcement authorities
after being informed that someone else in the group already had,
because "since the child was already 'dead' no purpose would be served
in the form of protecting anyone for rash, emotional and poorly
thought-out action."
Self-Help Group for Problem Drinkers
D r. Rotgers administers the group, known as the M.M. List, as a
volunteer for Moderation Management, a nonprofit self-help
organization based in Woodinville, Wash., for people who consider
themselves problem drinkers but not alcoholics. He is director of the
program for Addictions, Consultation and Treatment at Rutgers
University.
Rather than turn Larry over to the police, Dr. Rotgers said he had
sent private E-mail to him with referrals to therapists near San
Diego.
"I had no basis for knowing whether it was true or not," he said in an
interview. "Neither did anyone else on the list."
Many on the M.M. List said they believed that Larry was simply
expressing his desire to be punished for surviving a horrible
accident. Perhaps, as he himself suggested in later postings and then
discounted, he had unconsciously invented a false memory. Others said
he might have done it, but that their role as a support group was not
to judge. The few who disagreed became the target of often vicious
"flame" attacks.
On the evening of March 22, a few hours after Larry's initial posting,
one participant wrote: "Oh, man, you are really challenging me. It
would be O.K. if you would just go away. This is just repulsive stuff
and I just can't deal with you. I personally will not read a post by
you again. You do not deserve anything!"
Someone else quickly responded: "To me, YOUR post is completely
unacceptable, especially in this forum. I am repulsed by YOUR post."
Jim Shirk, of Bremerton, Wash., said he had notified the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. When news of Larry's arrest reached the
group, one member called for the informers to come forward. Mr. Shirk,
59, who said he had been sober for 19 years and is a licensed
chemical-dependency counselor, sent the member a private E-mail
explaining his desire to remain anonymous.
Instead, the member posted the E-mail to the whole list, and sent Mr.
Shirk private E-mail back: "Just how big a pervert are you? I bet you
really get off talking to the F.B.I. Wow. Did you ask them if you
could see their guns?"
Others accused Mr. Shirk, a proponent of the Alcoholics Anonymous
approach to treating addiction, which calls for total abstinence, of
using the incident to tarnish the reputation of Moderation Management.
"You get a gut feeling for what's real and what isn't and it struck me
as very frightening," Mr. Shirk said in a phone interview. "What
really scared me was the part after he described everything he did,
where he says he wants another family. I felt both professionally
ethically and personally ethically that I had to do something."
Some members simply wanted to get back to the purpose of the group.
"Can we please talk about drinking? I need your help here," read one
posting a week into the exchange.
Illusory Anonymity Is Seen on Internet
S ome longtime Internet users have been communing in disembodied form
for years, with the ups and downs any real-life communities naturally
experience. On-line services like Echo Communications in New York and
The WELL in Sausalito, Calif., which serve as gathering places for
hundreds of discussion topics have weathered many a flame war, as have
Internet news groups.
"You do not transform when you log on," said Stacy Horn, author of
"Cyberville" (Warner Books, 1998), a book about Echo, which she
founded. Ms. Horn recalled that when one veteran member declared that
he was a Nazi, and offended many others with his anti-Semitic
postings, Ms. Horn required him to start his own topic area. People
flocked there, virtually, to argue with him.
The Froistad case is not without its offline version. In 1994, Paul
Cox was convicted of manslaughter in the murder of a couple in
Larchmont, N.Y. Members of an Alcoholics Anonymous group testified
that Mr. Cox had told them that he thought he might have killed the
couple in an alcohol-induced blackout in 1988.
Experts who study the sociology of cyberspace say the intersection of
the confidentiality ethic of self-help groups, and the sometimes
illusory anonymity of online communion, can make for particularly
difficult situations. Among those in the M.M. support group, a
frequent source of controversy has been that participants can drink
and post simultaneously -- as many believe Larry was doing that
Sunday. Spouses have been known to subscribe under a false name to
maintain their privacy themselves or, some have said, to keep track of
the other.
Yet the combination is also what has made the global computer network
such a boon to people seeking support on a wide range of issues, from
cancer patients to senior citizens to gay teen-agers.
"People will reveal more online than they might in person," said Sara
Kiesler, a professor at the Institute for Human Computer Interaction
at Carnegie Mellon University. "Psychologically, economically and in
every other way, it's cheap talk, people really enjoy it, and it feels
safe too. You're just talking to the screen. Sometimes people get
oblivious to the dangers and they say things they wouldn't have said
otherwise."
That may or may not help explain the question that still looms in the
minds of many of Larry Froistad's online and offline friends.
"What I can't get out of the thing is why would a guy up and write
something like that on the Internet?" said Rodney Redetzke, 35, a
mechanic in Bowman who helped Mr. Froistad tear down the remains of
his house after the fire.
While Bowman's police chief, Don Huso, reopened the investigation into
the fire after hearing from Ms. DeCarlo, he did not issue an arrest
warrant until Mr. Froistad called him directly five days after his
disturbing Internet posting.
"He said, "Don, I set the fire,'" said Mr. Huso, whose only other
contact with Mr. Froistad was several years ago when he had to tell
him it was against city ordinances to raise rabbits in his backyard.
"The memories I have of this is that I did it to destroy Amanda."
According to the E-mail transcripts and the criminal case file, Mr.
Froistad called Mr. Huso the day after Dr. Rotgers, the psychologist,
posted to the E-mail list that someone had gone to the police.
If convicted, Mr. Froistad faces life in prison.
Suspect Described as Introspective
R esidents here remember him as an introspective computer enthusiast
smarter than everyone else. In a town where any straying from the norm
is regarded with a certain suspicion, neighbors described him as
different.
"Larry was the kind of guy you could ask him a question and he'd come
back and answer you with another question," said Mr. Redetzke, the
mechanic. 'My wife would always say, 'Larry, come down to our level!'"
The son of a Naval Reserve officer, Mr. Froistad also joined the
Reserves after his divorce from his wife, Ann, in 1990. He returned to
Bowman two years later and fought and gained custody of Amanda. The
thick divorce file contains a report from a psychologist who
interviewed Amanda in those years.
Reached in Rapid City, S.D., Ann, who has remarried, declined to
comment on the case.
Among those in the M.M. support group, the furor has largely died
down. Its postings are now from people seeking advice on how to get
through their 30-day abstinence periods and querying the meaning of
alcoholism.
Audrey Kishline, the founder of Moderation Management, said the group
was considering not maintaining archives of the E-mail conversations,
and issuing a more strongly worded notice to new subscribers that
their words, once released on to the Internet, can never be considered
completely confidential.
But Ms. DeCarlo, the comedian, said she now attended only face-to-face
meetings of the chapter she leads in New York.
"Ultimately, we are alone," she said. "The closeness is for the most
part illusory. If Larry walked into a room, I wouldn't know him. On
line, they're just words on a screen.
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