Man confesses to murder online
Larry Froistad, recently extradited from San Diego to North Dakota, was arrested after confessing to the murder of Amanda, 5, during a bitter custody dispute with his ex-wife. The unusual part: He confessed to the crime on the Internet.
Froistad was a member of Moderation Management, a support group for problem drinkers. Some of the group's members hold meetings over the Internet, discussing problems and post words of encouragement to one another.
The members of the group weren't quite prepared for the shocking e-mail message Froistad sent March 22. Froistad claimed that three years earlier, he killed his daughter in Bowman, N.D., during a bitter custody dispute. He described in grim detail how he set his house on fire.
"When she was asleep," Froistad wrote, "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."
Elisa DeCarlo of New York City was one of three
members of the group who turned Froistad in to the
authorities. "I screamed, that was my first reaction and the
next morning after consulting with another member of
Moderation Management, and my own conscience, I faxed
the San Diego police."
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Froistad later recanted his confession, saying he made up the story under the influence of anti-depressant drugs. His lawyers refused to talk to NBC news.
The house where his daughter died is now a bare concrete slab. The local volunteer fire department originally ruled the fire an accident, caused by an electrical short.
Prosecutor Steve Wild says he believes the confession. "He implicated himself in the death of his daughter," Wild told NBC News.
"Subsequently, we obtained additional information that corroborated his story." But Dr. Morris Chalfetz, a noted expert on alcohol abuse, said the confession may be suspect. "People who have severe alcoholism problems are self-destructive," said Chalfetz, "so any kind of thing could come out of them."
Many members of the support group say it was wrong to break the group's confidentiality and turn Froistad in, raising all sorts of questions about whether the Internet is a good place for recovery groups to meet.
Howard Rheingold, a Net-savvy author and columnist, says there's a cautionary tale here. "I think that's one of the things that this story indicates is that there is still a lack of awareness among people who use the Internet that their words get spread very far."
So the Internet has now made it possible for a man in San Diego to confess to a crime in North Dakota and for people as far away as New York to turn him in to authorities. Meanwhile, Froistad's lawyers are expected to argue that the confession should be thrown out because e-mail messages can be faked.