Authors: Christopher Berry-Dee,Steven Morris
This cold-blooded killer who murdered in the furtherance of a robbery is not shy either. Henry Davis advertises on the internet for ‘potential friends’, modestly describing himself as ‘Florida’s Finest Chocolate’.
‘Hi, my name is Henry,’ he says. ‘I’m 35 years of age. I have been incarcerated for nearly 13 years on Florida’s Death Row. My desire to develop friendship beyond this edifice of political smoke and mirrors is, in part, because I need to dispel the myth that I am void of humanity and, in part, because most of my family and friends are either deceased or have faded away.’
Wrestling clumsily with his vocabulary and losing the battle, Henry continues: ‘My basic interests are Law, philosophy, and spirituality. My desire is to meet people who are objectively cogitative on which they can develop a mutually inspiring relationship through some engaging mental intercourse. I welcome women of all races. I weigh 210 lbs. Solid as a rock “smile”, healthy, compassionate, sincere, loving, honest and good-looking. For prompt response enclose SASE.’
Were he to reside in the UK, Henry would be guilty of contravening the Trades Descriptions Act, or, at best, of being
extremely economical with the truth, for ‘Florida’s Finest Chocolate’ is, after all, proclaiming his virtues from Death Row, where he awaits execution for first degree murder. He is also serving two life sentences, one for the use of a firearm in the execution of his civic duty as a robber and the other for burglary. Two more sentences, each of five years, seem almost too trivial to mention.
His lack of success to date in gaining a pen friend, a source of unhappiness for him, may be due to the prospective applicant’s having read the small print on this particular chocolate wrapper or, indeed, having failed to understand what he is talking about!
It goes without saying that thousands of well-meaning, totally honest people feel the need to use the internet to ‘adopt’ a prisoner on Death Row, or one serving a prison sentence, and good luck to you if you are so inclined. You will find, however, that most proclaim their innocence of the crimes for which they have been convicted; the majority are extremely cunning and, more often than not, will soon be looking for cash handouts.
By all means, surf the net and look up the websites that offer penpal facilities to these criminals – their criminal histories will not feature in most cases – and then, for further advice on specific US inmates, contact the relevant State Department of Corrections. They are all listed on the internet, and most have full details of the offenders, including their crimes, along with photographs.
And, if you bump into the likes of Death Row inmate Charles Ng – who tortured and slaughtered as many as 27 men, women and children – think again, because he wants
you
as a penpal, too.
‘I am writing because I am interested in seeking sincere friendship through correspondence and visiting with someone I can build an enduring and meaningful companionship with – someone with whom I can share good times, bad times, life, thoughts, feelings, experiences and passions from this dark hole of humanity.
‘Out in the free world I enjoyed such things as reading, learning new subjects, wilderness exploring, martial arts, movies, travelling, cooking, outdoor adventures such as mountain hiking/climbing, scuba diving and serving as an infantryman in the United States Marine Corps.
‘Throughout my life I have refrained from unhealthy habits such as smoking, drinking and recreational drug use. During my incarceration I enjoy such things as origami, spirituality, self-study, exercises, writing, reading and drawing. I am a self-taught artist who loves animals and strive to express artistically with an improvisational approach in whatever medium available to me.
‘I always feel a special kinship in my struggle for survival with those faced by the endangered animals I depict in my artwork. To me, art is a universal emotional expression of all cultures, and wildlife art a spiritual reference for all things wild and free; and a way for me to immortalize my love and intimacy to those who are dear and special to me. Life is fleeting and my fate is at best uncertain. Therefore, I desire to hear from new friends and reconnect with people who had touched my life and heart in the past, but with whom I have lost touch due to circumstances beyond my control.
‘I would be most grateful to be able to share the precious
time I have left in this world with honest, open-minded and good-hearted people who understand and empathise with injustices, sufferings, my struggle, my visions and yearnings, and who may be able and willing to lend helping hands along the way.’
And here’s the punchline:
‘In order to try and raise money for my day-to-day items and additional art materials I would be prepared to sell a small number of prints of any of my featured drawings. Thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you.’
‘I was exposed to pornography for years. It led me to my violent ways.’
S
ERIAL KILLER
T
ED BUNDY TO
D
R
J
AMES
D
OBSON ON THE NIGHT BEFORE HE WAS EXECUTED IN
F
LORIDA’S ELECTRIC CHAIR
T
he internet is a great place to be. Used wisely, with strict controls on which sites are suitable for our children, it can be entertaining, educational and it can bring folk of all races, ethnic groups, religions, pastimes and interests together. And it is now indispensable for global trade; so indispensable, in fact, that, if the internet collapsed tomorrow, the effect, in fiscal terms, would be a thousand times more devastating than the Asian tsunami or Hurricane Katrina.
Of course, the internet will not collapse. Segments of its cell-like
structure may do so under the onslaught of a virus, but, in its totality, the web cannot fail. It is here to stay, and millions of people rely on it, almost as much as on the air they breathe and the food they eat.
For good or for bad, the web is the primary means of global communication. It has become a multi-faceted God that we all worship. Conversely, there is the Anti-Christ, and this is what this book is all about.
The journey undertaken throughout this book has been a difficult one, and your authors have arrived at something resembling a conclusion – one that may find favour with many yet receive the disdain of others. But let’s not kid ourselves: access to the unfettered freedom and breadth of the web has produced a cyber environment where those with dark, subconscious desires can explore these impulses and even act them out, where the true seed of evil can propagate into flowers of destruction.
Sadly, the cases we have considered above are just the tip of the iceberg, for what follows will shock even the hardened soul.
An article in the
Wall Street Journal
of Monday, 3 May 2004 stated that, after carrying out a ten-year research study of 1,500 sexual addicts, Dr Carnes from Texas estimated that about 8 per cent of men and about 3 per cent of women in the USA are sexually addicted – figures that translate into over 15 million sex addicts.
Citing US Justice Department statistics, it said that in 1998 there were 28,000 X-rated websites, generating a revenue of $925 million in revenue, and only six years later there were ten times as many such websites, generating $10–20 billion. ‘Pornography in many forms is invading people’s homes and it is available 24 hours a day,’ the article concluded.
To even start to comprehend the sums involved, you will need to lie down, take a stiff drink or smoke something illegal about a foot long. Ten to 20 billion dollars! Let’s split the difference. Do you have any idea how much $15 billion is? Of course you don’t; nobody does. But for a bit of fun let’s imagine you are in a vault with that amount of money all about you and you are told that you can keep each dollar bill you can initial. Say, too, for the sake of argument that you could initial one dollar bill each second and that you worked without ever stopping. How long do you think it would take to count $15 billion? Go on, take a guess. Twelve weeks? Five years?
Well, starting in 2005, if you initialled a dollar bill every second you would make $1,000 every 17 minutes. After 12 days’ non-stop effort, you would acquire your first $1 million. So it would take you 120 days to accumulate $10 million. After 31.7 years you would become a billionaire, and in 2479 you would have counted your last dollar bill.
Reversing the procedure, if today you started handing back the bills one every second, you wouldn’t be destitute until 1530, when Queen Elizabeth I was around and a century before the Mayflower Pilgrims stepped ashore in America.
So the internet sex business is big, but how big?
In fact, this huge, multi-faceted industry is the biggest employer in the world. According to a National Research Council Report published in 2002, the cyber sex industry generates approximately $1 billion annually and this figure is expected to grow to $5–7 billion over the next five years, barring unforeseen change.
The two largest individual buyers of bandwidth in the world are US firms in the adult online industry. Almost from the
outset, e-business, especially when it involved sex, was the place to be. To give you a few examples: at the start of 1995, there were just 200 businesses on the web selling ‘erotica services’ and products, from condoms to pornographic videos. By 1997, it was 14,000. According to Naughty Linx, an online index, in 2004, in excess of eight million sites were selling sex products.
A search for sexual material on Yahoo between August 1995 and August 1996 revealed that in August 1995 the category ‘Sex’ had 391 listings for phone-sex numbers, adult CD-ROMS, X-rated films, adult computer software, live sex videoconferencing, prostitution tours, escort services and mail-order bride agencies. By August 1996, there were 1,676 listings – a four-fold increase in one year. In 2005, there were 170,000 listings. That is an average of 58 new sites being added each day.
In the UK, there are some 11 million single males. This figure is expected to increase to 16 million by 2010. One in five of them use a dating service, and those figures are expected to double within five years.
These ‘punters’ are serviced by no fewer than 366,000 British online dating agency listings, and Dating Direct alone boast 1.5 million male and female members on their home page. Worldwide today there are 44 million links to online dating agencies, compared with 13.1 million in March 2003.
Two hundred and fifty million people worldwide use the internet frequently, while an estimated 150,000 new users log on every day.
Figures for the year ending August 2004 show 3.95 million personal advertisements compared with fewer than one million for the previous year; and almost 7.5 million dating services, compared with 2.8 million in 2003.
Fifty-seven million Americans have internet access and 6.5 per cent of
all
male internet users are compulsive cyber-sex addicts hooked on porn sites, X-rated chatrooms or other sexual materials online.
In the UK, at least 550,000 male internet users are hooked on cyber sex.
Cyber sex is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction and it reinforces and normalises sexual disorder. A public health disaster is coming because very few are recognising it as such or taking it seriously.
The MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, 2000, shows that men prefer visual erotica twice as much as women. Women favour chatrooms twice as much as men. Women have a slightly lower rate of sexually compulsive internet behaviour, and 70 per cent keep their habit a secret.
There are over 120,000 websites – and these are just the advertised sites – dedicated to snuff rape and killings, cannibalism and necrophilia.
Every year many thousands of Western males travel to Eastern Europe, the Far East and Central and South America in search of cheap, most often sordid, sex. One company based in Miami, Florida, offers its clients tours to Costa Rica, the Caribbean and South America and advertises: ‘Whatever your personal preference, Latin, blonde, black, mulatto, petite, etc., [the girls] will be friendly, attentive and eager to please you.’
Sexually transmitted diseases caught through sex tourism are reaching epidemic proportions, adding to the 333 million new cases being reported worldwide each year.
Thanks to the criminals who use the internet, the United Nations estimates, between 700,000 and four million women and
children are now trafficked around the world for the purposes of forced prostitution, labour and other forms of exploitation every year. Trafficking is, on its own, estimated to be a $7-billion-a-year business. Victims of trafficking are subject to gross human rights violations, including rape, torture, forced abortions, starvation and threats of torture or murder of family members.
Some 2.5 million sites promote ‘Boy Sex’ and four million advertise ‘Extreme Sex’.
Despite a crackdown in recent years, the US Customs Service calculates that there are more than 100,000 websites offering child pornography – which is illegal worldwide. Estimates of the industry’s revenue range from about $200 million to more than $1 billion per year. These unlawful sexual images can be purchased as easily as music, DVDs or holidays on the internet. ‘Subscribers’ typically use credit cards to pay a monthly fee of between $30 and $50 to download photos and videos, or a one-time fee of a few dollars for single images.
The US National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reported on 8 October 2003, ‘More than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the internet every week. 140,000 child pornography images were posted to the internet according to researchers who monitored the internet over a six-week period. Twenty children were estimated to have been abused for the first time and more than 1,000 images of each child created and downloaded.’
And America’s National Criminal Intelligence Service wrote in August that same year, ‘More than half of all illegal sites reported to the Internet Watch Foundation are hosted in the United States. Illegal sites in Russia have more than doubled from 286 to 706 in 2002’
Professor Max Taylor, of Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe, stated in March 2003, ‘Demand for pornographic images of babies and toddlers on the internet is soaring. More babies and toddlers are appearing on the net and the abuse is getting worse. It is more torturous and sadistic than it was before. The typical age of children is between six and 12, but the profile is getting younger.’
The same report said, ‘Approximately 20 new children appear on the porn sites every month – many have been kidnapped or sold into sex.’
Canada faces the same problem. Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie of Toronto Police Force said, ‘In the last couple of years, we’ve just seen such young children on regular seizures – babies from 2- to 4-year-olds.’
‘There was a staggering 345 per cent increase in child pornography sites between February 2001 and July 2001,’ according to an August 2001 press release from a web-based internet filtering and monitoring company called N2H2. They also reported 403 child pornography sites, or 67 per month, for the six months April–September 2000. Such sites rose dramatically for the six months February–July 2001 to 1,391, or 231 per month. That’s an increase of 345 per cent at the rate of about eight per day.
Perhaps even more disturbing is to learn that there are just under ten million websites dedicated to teen sex, each containing thousands of photographs and hundreds of streaming video clips.
And there are also the collateral financial costs to consider. Billions of dollars and pounds are lost each year to all industries and governments through staff logging on during working
hours to surf the internet for sex. Individuals from all walks of life: the judiciary, police, the Church and teachers are hooked on pornography.
Officers from Operation Ore, the UK’s largest manhunt for men who visit child porn sites and download illegal material, have already arrested 46 police officers, and the team admit they have not scratched the surface yet. Up to 30 UK police officers a year are being arrested for sexual offences against minors. Most of these offenders had become hooked on internet porn and gone on to play out their fantasies in real life.
Millions are spent by law-enforcement agencies worldwide to detect and bring to justice those who traffic in women and children, and those who view internet child pornography. Astronomical sums are also spent by the judicial systems and the penal systems that have to administer justice and incarcerate offenders, when all of this revenue could be better spent elsewhere.
As we said, this is just the very tip of the iceberg. Unless we wake up, we face a cyber Armageddon.