America Online promised to dismantle a member’s two Web sites that feature the words and artwork of serial killers, including a piece in which a murderer describes his victims as “piles of garbage.” Similar sites also would be purged if any are found.
AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose said Friday the two sites would be removed from AOL’s system by Saturday in response to complaints by Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was taken from her California home and murdered in 1993.
“We take all complaints along these lines seriously,” she said. “When that content is deemed objectionable, we take it down.”
Klaas and Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer had planned to urge others to boycott AOL, the nation’s largest Internet provider, until it stopped allowing Sondra London of Jacksonville, Fla., to post the material on her Web sites.
Klaas particularly objected to the work of Keith Hunter Jesperson, known as the “Happy Face Killer,” who is serving three life sentences in Oregon for killings in the Northwest. Jesperson is charged with one murder in Wyoming.
“America Online is hiding behind freedom of speech in allowing this monster to have a public forum,” Klaas said during an appearance in Cheyenne, Wyo., this week to promote the Klaas Foundation for Children, which he established after his daughter’s murder.
