July 31st, 2008 at 6:00 am
The artwork created by a notorious Canadian killer is being offered for sale on an American website called Murderabilia which promotes criminals as celebrities.
At least half a dozen pieces of artwork produced by cult killer Roch Theriault at the Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick are up for auction on MurderAuction.com.
Items like oil paintings, signed hand prints, pastels and even short poems written and colored by Theriault are up for bid.
Theriault is serving a life sentence after being convicted of brutal murder in 1993. He was the charismatic leader of a tiny religious group near Burnt River, Ontario between 1977 and 1989. Theriault chopped off the hands of one of his concubines and killed his wife by disemboweling her.
The art being auctioned is abstract or contains inoffensive images such as flowers, and dates from October and November 2007. Minimum bids range from US$20 to US$500.
The three-year-old website is one of the earliest to create a specialized marketplace for crime memorabilia, which has generally been banned from mainstream sites such as EBay.
MurderAuction.com founder Tod Bohannon makes no apologies, saying it’s merely a branch of the well-established hobby of collecting celebrity autographs.
Bohannon, 30, began collecting criminals’ signatures at age 13, when he first wrote to notorious prisoners. His large collection now includes a few choice Theriault pieces, as well as some prison memorabilia from Canadian child-murderer Clifford Olsen.
His advice for crime victims who might object to the website? “If my site’s hurting you, just don’t go to it.”
Theriault is still visited regularly by some of his former cult “wives,” who have moved to New Brunswick to be close to him and have borne him more children following conjugal visits.
What do you think of a site like this selling so called artwork created by notorious American and Canadian killers? I think it’s sick and disgusting.
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June 3rd, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Isn’t it odd and perhaps ironic how convicted murderer Paul John Fitzpatrick said about Death row last March when he was before a judge in Largo, Florida.
He said Death row “is the calmest place I’ve ever been in”.
He was hoping to avoid a mere life sentence, which would place him in the general prison population. “I probably found the most peace I’ve ever had in my whole life (in his previous experience) on death row,” he said. “It’s just a lot easier doing time with murderers than it is with fools.”
The ironic part? The judge gave him life.
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March 4th, 2007 at 1:04 am
If you spent Valentines all alone look no further .. maybe www.hotprisonpals.com will have a just the right man for you. Yep. Some of America’s most desirable felons are lining up to send you love letters, poems and even proposals of marriage.
Some of the men are getting out soon while others are until 2023. If you like space in your relationships this might just be perfect.
The idea for hotprisonpals came from New York pop artist Sam Wagner, who began writing to a friend in jail several years ago. The prisoner then asked Wagner to write to his cell mate who had stopped receiving letters from his family.
Requests for letters from lonely prisoners kept coming, until Wagner was sending a monthly letter to more than 100 inmates.
With no access to the Internet, letters are often the only contact U.S. prisoners have with the outside world.
“Prisoners have real abandonment issues. Friends and family often stop writing after a couple of years,” said Wagner’s business partner, Jason Rupp, who built the Web site in 2003.
“The letters they get through the site are crucial to their well being. They need to know someone on the outside cares.”
The inmates, both straight and gay pay $19 each to have their photos and a short note on the site. Female inmates have been invited to join hotprisonpals but so far none have joined.
“We don’t require that prisoners say what crime they committed,” said Rupp, a 30-year-old photographer who runs the site from his home in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
“We take everybody. If they are murderers or rapists they are not going to put that in the ad.”
“Sometimes the messages get a little racy and we like that,” said Rupp. “We pride ourselves on having the hottest prisoners on the Internet.”
Pen pal friendships often lead to prison visits and serious long-term relationships.
The prison marriage of Erik Menendez — convicted with his brother Lyle of the 1989 murder of his wealthy parents in Beverly Hills — has helped generate interest in prisoner dating.
Menendez married a woman with whom he had corresponded for years from jail. A book by his wife Tammi, “They Said We’d Never Make It”, heavily romanticizes the unconsummated relationship.
“It’s a thrill for women. These are good looking guys and they can seem really exotic from the outside,” said Rupp. “It’s a fantasy. You don’t see any of their flaws.”
“We have scoured the prison floors and checked each bunk bed, both top and bottom, looking for the men that you have dreamed about,” the site says.
Ladies? Get your pens ready.
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![Dumb and Dumber (Unrated Edition) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DC1fWNH0L._SL75_.jpg "Dumb and Dumber (Unrated Edition) [Blu-ray]")
