Pen Pals Prisoners Use The Internet To Trawl For Female Friends - And Perhaps Their Money

Kevin Boot’s girlfriend ditched him after he was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a young Spokane woman.

Now Boot is looking for another “sweet, special someone” in a syrupy Internet personal ad in which he compares relationships to rose seeds, saying they start out small and grow into “something beautiful.”

“I don’t play games or like them,” writes Boot, at Walla Walla State Penitentiary since 1996, when he was convicted of killing 22-year-old Felicia Reese. “I keep things real and honest. To have a good relationship of any kind, trust is a must.”

Boot is one of thousands of U.S. inmates looking for love - or money, friends or legal help - online. Letters penned during lonely lockdowns or even on death row now illuminate computer screens in countless households, giving inmate appeals for romance larger audiences than ever. Prison officials warn: Inmates who claim they want to steal your heart may be after your wallet.

Boot and most other prisoners can’t actually access computers. They rely on cyber cupids who charge them a fee to list their ads, complete with mailing addresses and photos, on inmate Web sites. Sometimes inmates advertise for free while pen pals in the free world pay for their mailing addresses.

While crime victims in some states have protested loudly, sites such as pennpals.org and outlawsonline.com appear to be thriving. Inmates who in former lives sought relationships on the back streets of Spokane are now recruiting correspondents from around the globe.

“I’m not so bad a guy, and everyone needs friendship,” 23-year-old Boot explains in a telephone interview.

Boot’s ad on cyberspaceinmates.com has netted several pen pals. He’s still hoping for a new girlfriend.

“It’d be nice,” he says. “I ain’t had one in awhile.”

Washington prison officials say the exchanges are legal but warn that anyone responding to the ads should beware.

“If I’m cynical, it’s because I’ve done this for many years and have seen many predatory inmates take advantage of innocent people,” says Cly Evans, spokesman at the Airway Heights Corrections Center.

“I’d venture to say in 90 percent of cases, inmates say, `Oh, by the way, I don’t have cigarettes. Can you send me $10?’ Some of these inmates are pretty smooth.”

Evans recalls a married inmate who persuaded five women pen pals to send money each month. And that was before Internet ads, which could greatly magnify the damage, Evans says. He estimates 200 Airway Heights inmates have online ads.

In Washington, inmates aren’t allowed to access the Internet, says Department of Corrections spokesman Veltry Johnson. Some take classes involving computers, but modems are prohibited.

A counselor at Walla Walla says inmates can get infractions, such as more cell time, if caught deceiving pen pals for cash. “You wouldn’t believe the ads some of these people put out. (They say) they’re tall, handsome, and you look at these guys and go, `Eeew.’ But you can’t infract a guy for lying.”

Airway Heights pen pal Rodney Wilson says he simply misses women. Female corrections officers don’t count. When someone slipped him a flier advertising cyberspaceinmates.com, he wrote an ad describing himself as a 27-year-old dad from Aberdeen who likes drawing and heavy women.

“I am kinda a ladies man, and being in here away from the female presence is very hard,” reads Wilson’s ad.

The convicted burglar mailed his handwritten ad and $10 monthly fee to the Missouri address on the flier and hoped he wasn’t getting ripped off. Weeks later, thanks to Rene Mulkey, a widowed mother who raises exotic pigs in Cameron, Mo., Wilson began getting letters.

Mulkey started her Web site several years ago with just five inmates. Now she says her venture keeps her busy up to 18 hours a day. Besides posting Internet ads for some 2,000 inmates, Mulkey, 37, prints out and mails hundreds of messages from pen pals to prisoners each day. Some pen pals write directly to prisoners, but those who want to keep their addresses private forward letters through Mulkey.

Mulkey says her concern for inmates developed after several acquaintances were incarcerated. Now she helps inmates correspond with new friends, attorneys, ministers and - occasionally - future spouses.

Mulkey shrugs off hate mail from those who disapprove.

“What people fail to realize is that because these men are criminals does not mean they lose every right,” says Mulkey.

Building relationships with caring citizens can foster empathy in prisoners, she says. “Before they carjack the next middle-aged lady that drives the Lincoln Continental, I want them to think about their pen pal who helped them, who talked to them.”

Priscilla Pletcher, the Pennsylvania woman who founded prisonpenpals.com, says she lists about 8,000 inmate ads, which result in dozens of marriages and countless friendships. Other pen pals help newly released inmates find jobs or homes.

Pletcher has fielded three death threats. “I’ve had people who write and say I should be raped and then see how much I like prisoners. Or that I should have a child killed and then see how much I like prisoners.”

Dwayne Woods, a death-row inmate from Spokane, listed a personal ad on Pletcher’s Web site in 1998.

A year earlier, a solemn Woods had asked jurors to sentence him to death in the murder of two young Spokane women. He beat Telisha Shaver, 22, and Jade Moore, 18, to death with a baseball bat in a Spokane Valley trailer. Prosecutors said he also stabbed 20-year-old Venus Shaver after she refused to have sex with him.

Woods’ online ad, which contained nine exclamation points, was anything but solemn. “Hello ladies, smile!” began the ad, in which Woods is described as single and charming with broad shoulders and a slim waist.

It continued: “I enjoy almost everything that requires two: dining out, long drives across the country or just sitting at home in front of the fireplace watching a scary movie or listening to some slow music!”

Pletcher said Woods’ ad expired when he didn’t renew the fee of $19.95 per year. But it was still available recently on the Internet.

Jade Moore’s mother, Terry, was among the women who read the ad with interest.

“I totally blew up,” says Moore. “I was so upset to think he had women all over the U.S. - or the world - who could write to him.”

Woods, she says, is “playing in fantasy land. He wants to have a possible future with someone? He’s got no future.”

There ought to be a law against posting inmate ads, says Mike Nelson, Felcia Reese’s cousin. “The Internet has become a major player in society, and I don’t think they have any right on it, advertising for anything,” says the Spokane man.

Inmate Web sites so incensed crime victims in Arizona that in July, the state became the first to pass a law forbidding prisoners to interact with “communication service providers.” That includes accessing the Internet through third parties such as Mulkey and Pletcher. Inmates violating it could be charged with a misdemeanor.

Arizona Department of Corrections workers had noticed a flurry of inmates soliciting money and legal help on Web sites, says Gary Phelps, the department’s chief of staff. “The Internet just opened up the whole wide world.”

Does the new law have a prayer of closing it again?

“We’re trying to put a criminal case together we could prosecute,” says Phelps. “I cannot tell you yet whether it’ll work.”

Victims groups in other states are watching closely. Justice For All, a victims’ rights organization in Houston, is considering proposing a similar law in Texas.

“We have several members who have found their perpetrators’ Web sites and were very upset,” says Charlene Hall, the organization’s vice president.

True-crime novelist Ann Rule was horrified when she came across an Internet ad describing a Salem, Ore., serial killer she’d written about. The ad says Jerry Brudos, now imprisoned in the Oregon State Penitentiary, hopes to meet “some nice people and maybe a special lady.”

Rule’s 1983 book, “Lust Killer,” describes Brudos as a sadist obsessed with women’s shoes and lingerie who sexually attacked his victims after they were dead or unconscious.

“Some women write to these guys, and they have no idea who they’re writing to,” says Rule, who lives in Seattle. “These are men whose whole operation is to con women, and they’re still doing it.”

After calling the prosecutor’s office and prison officials, Rule learned she could do nothing about the ad.

Women inmates seek pen pals, too. And some are guilty of abusing those relationships, says Karla Windsor, a 44-year-old Idaho woman convicted of murder. She knows women who promise numerous men future relationships in exchange for money.

But there are also honest Christian women like herself who just want friendship and encouragement, says Windsor. She requests money in her prisonpenpals.com ad only to buy stamps, colored pencils and occasional candy bars, she says.

“I’m not looking for romance. I’d like to hear from men because all I talk to in here are women,” says Windsor, who’s serving a life sentence for her role in the 1983 murder of Sterling Grammer in Caldwell, Idaho.

“It gives me something to look forward to and talk about instead of bitching and complaining about the jail.”

Sometimes, the inmates end up screening pen pals.

Windsor, for instance, stopped writing a Christian woman who “couldn’t seem to separate herself from the religion.” She also rejected a married man who said he’s scouting for a virtuous woman.

Blake Pirtle stopped writing a Quaker women who once corresponded with the late Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer cannibalized the people he murdered.

“Some strange people write to you,” says Pirtle, who slashed the throats of two Spokane co-workers in 1992 yet finds Dahmer’s crimes disgusting.

Kevin Boot found a Canadian pen pal with a penchant for vampires too odd for his tastes.

Prosecutors said Boot kidnapped Felicia Reese from a Spokane hotel parking lot and shot her three times in the face. His Internet ad doesn’t mention that.

“I figured if they knew I was in here for the length of time I’m here, they might be less interested in writing,” he says.

Eventually pen pals ask why he’s in prison. Then, Boot says he repeats what he told jurors in 1996: “I tell them my cousin did it.”

Most believe him, says Boot. Others just find prison pen pals exciting.

“They got kind of a boring life, kinda,” he says. “Most are from small towns.”

Nyna Logsdon’s mother warned her about writing to prisoners, worried they will show up on Logsdon’s doorstep someday. But the 19-year-old convenience store clerk in Texas added Kevin Boot to her pen pal list after an inmate friend played matchmaker.

“Every so often we’ll get weird and write a fantasy letter back and forth, smut letters, just to give him something to think about. But it’s mostly just, hey, how are you doing? Glad to be your friend.”

Boot has been honest about his past and believes he’s learned his lesson, Logsdon says. She can’t recall exactly how he explained his crime. But Logsdon believes it was auto theft or burglary - nothing major, she says.

When a reporter tells her Boot was convicted of aggravated murder, Logsdon hesitates. “I … I didn’t think it was that severe. Huh. That’s kind of trippy.”

She declares herself speechless, then continues. “I’ll still write to him. If I was going to judge people on the mistakes they’ve made, I wouldn’t talk to half the people I talk to.”

Jeanette White can be reached at (509) 459-5427 or by email at jeanettew@spokesman.com.