Under threat of a boycott from a nationally known child-protection activist and the governor of Wyoming, America Online has agreed to take down pages of a Web site featuring writings and art by a convicted serial killer, the Associated Press reported.
Marc Klaas, a full-time campaigner in the cause of preventing violence against children since the kidnapping and murder of his daughter, Polly, four years ago, suggested a boycott after the Web site was publicized earlier this week.
The pages are maintained by Sondra London of Jacksonville, Florida, who says she created the site as a way of gaining insight into the thinking of serial killers.
The content that drew the loudest objections is associated with Keith Hunter Jesperson, convicted of three killings in Oregon and wanted for one in Wyoming. Particularly galling to Klaas and Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer were Jesperson's "self-start serial killer kit" and writings in which he referred to his victims as "my piles of garbage."
The pages were created by London, to whom Jesperson and another imprisoned killer mailed material that she transcribed, formatted, and posted.
America Online spokeswoman Tricia Primrose told the AP that the objectionable content would be removed from AOL servers today.
"We came to the determination that the material on the site is offensive and objectionable and not something with which we wish to be associated," Primrose said.
