Paul R. Hollrah, O.E.
Confessions of an Axe Murderer
March 10, 2010

A recent case adjudicated in a Cleveland County, Oklahoma courtroom is evidence of the corrupt cesspool that now passes as a criminal justice system in our country.

Our "victim” in this case is a 50-year-old amateur writer named Chris, who has published his fiction on his own Internet website. Over a period of a year or two, Chris developed a sizable following among those who enjoyed his episodic horror tales...several of whom contacted him periodically.

One of those was a young woman (first initial "C”) who said she was a devoted fan. She contacted him often, sometimes on a daily basis, and as the months passed the two became close Internet friends and their communications became ever more personal...even sexual in nature...and when "C” finally confessed that she was just 14 years old, Chris found that hard to believe. After all, how could a young woman of such tender years have knowledge of incredibly erotic sexual adventures, complete with explicit descriptions of sexual acts, that would make even Larry Flynt blush?

"C” explained that her mother was involved in a lesbian relationship and that she and her mother lived with her mother’s partner. She explained that, on occasional weekends when her mother and her "significant other” wished to have a weekend alone, she was sent to spend the weekend with friends, an unmarried heterosexual couple. She confessed that on those occasions she shared a bed with the young couple and was sexually abused by the adult male family friend.

"C” also confessed to having carried on lurid sexual relationships with a great many men, of all ages, from all parts of the country, since she was thirteen years old. It was suddenly clear to Chris how the young woman, who referred to herself as an "Internet slut,” had gained such a vast store of carnal knowledge. At that point the wisest thing Chris could have done would have been to say goodbye to the young woman, forever...but he didn’t; he was captivated by her and he came to look forward to their daily exchanges, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with sex. However, when "C” discussed a possible meeting, Chris had the good sense to decline.

Although Chris had never met the young woman and could not be certain that she was, in fact, fourteen or fifteen years old...she could have been a thirty-five year old woman or a forty-five year old man, posing as a young female...he assured her that in no event would they ever meet until he could be certain that she was at least eighteen years of age. When the girl sent him a photograph, attempting to convince him of her age, he realized that his correspondent could have been a thirty-five year old woman, sending a photograph of her fifteen-year-old daughter.

The Internet relationship ended on January 1st, 2007. However, upon arriving home from work on February 22nd, 2007, Chris found his desktop computer missing and a single sheet of paper on his desk in the space where he normally kept his computer. The paper was an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) search warrant and it was accompanied by the business card of the agent who searched his apartment.

Without contacting an attorney, Chris called the agent and set an appointment to meet with him the next day. The OSBI agent assured Chris that they would just talk and that he would not be arrested. The next day Chris drove to the OSBI offices in Oklahoma City and met with the agent whose name appeared on the warrant. He told the agent every detail of his Internet relationship with "C.” And although he was at the time the sole suspect in whatever "crime” the OSBI felt had been committed, Chris was never informed of his rights by anyone at the OSBI. Apparently al Qaeda suicide bombers are entitled to be "mirandized,” but American citizens are not.

As the OSBI continued their investigation they learned that Chris had been entirely truthful with the agent. The case was turned over to the Cleveland County District Attorney’s office where it lingered for months. Finally, in July 2007, Chris was charged with three counts of having made an indecent proposal to a minor child. However, one of the counts was dismissed when OSBI agents found that another young woman who had sent a series of email messages to Chris...attempting to lure him to her home by posing as a 15-year-old girl ...was, in fact, a 28-year-old Duncan, Oklahoma woman. Chris also refused to meet with her. She has not been charged with attempted entrapment.

When Chris was released on $5,000 bond, he retained a former Cleveland County sex crimes prosecutor to represent him. And inasmuch as he had never met the girl in question, had not touched her, and could not be certain that she even existed, his attorney offered to negotiate with the district attorney’s office to have the charges reduced in exchange for a $7,000 retainer.

If Chris insisted on a jury trial, so that he could be allowed to confront his accuser in court, the attorney’s fee would be $25,000. Unfortunately, Chris had only $5,000, just enough to buy him a referral to a $40.00 per week sex crimes psychotherapist and a suggestion that he plead guilty to the two remaining charges.

While he waited for his case to make its way through the Cleveland County court system Chris attended (and still attends) weekly sessions with a small group of convicted sex offenders who had committed overt sex crimes against minors. And when Chris spoke openly and honestly of what had happened in his Internet relationship with "C,” the therapist scolded him for not admitting sufficient guilt.

Finally, after waiving a jury trial and entering a guilty plea to the two remaining charges, the date for Chris’s sentencing was set. The only witness called during trial was the psychotherapist, who testified that Chris was not a pedophile, that he was a "situational” offender who had responded to a single unique situation and that it was highly unlikely that he would ever again engage in a sexual exchange with a minor.

On March 9, 2009, Chris was sentenced to two fifteen-year terms in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (sentences suspended), five years supervision by an Oklahoma DOC probation officer, and a $1,000 fine...which turned out to be an $1,800.00 fine. He was convicted of being a Level-1 sex offender, meaning that, for a period of fifteen years, he would be required to register with local police authorities wherever he lives. Nevertheless, for as long as he lives he would carry the stain of being a convicted felon...guilty of sex offenses against a minor child.

When Chris registered with the local police department following his sentencing, the detective who investigates sex crimes in Norman informed him that he was just one of many men who had been entrapped by girls as young as twelve and thirteen who were allowed unsupervised access to the Internet.

There are many lessons to be learned from what Chris has experienced. He has learned, for example, that life is not always fair...that sometimes our offenses can be very serious and the punishment very small, while at other times our offenses can be very small but the price we must pay is very great. For the rest of his life, Chris will dread having to complete job applications where he will be asked the question, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”

He has also learned that all of the criminals in the justice system are not on the defendant’s side of the bar. After being subjected to constant attempts by his first probation officer to lure him into violating the terms of his probation, and after being subjected to semi-annual polygraph sessions in which he was required to describe his most private sexual fantasies...the kind of fantasies that all adults have but rarely, if ever, speak of...he has learned that the Department of Corrections has its own set of rules, independent of court findings.

He was informed that the Department of Correction determined that he was to register, not as a Level-1 offender, as the court decreed, but as a Level-3 sex offender...a violent, repeat criminal. The change in his conviction status from a Level-1 offender to a Level-3 offender requires that, for the rest of his life, he will be required to register as a sex offender, a breed of criminal more loathed than an axe murderer or a suicide bomber. Given the indifference of the court system, it will not be easy for Chris to have this matter corrected.

In October, 2008, when his employer learned that Chris had felony charges pending against him, he was immediately terminated from his position as a high-speed data circuit project manager and local-service subject matter expert for an Oklahoma City telecommunications firm. Then, in August of 2009, an anonymous person telephoned the corporate offices of the restaurant chain at which he was working as a waiter and informed them that a registered sex offender was working at their Norman, Oklahoma location.

When the corporate HR staff verified his conviction they telephoned his supervisor, demanding that Chris be terminated immediately. Chris’s supervisor argued on his behalf, explaining that Chris was always "the first one in and the last one out every day,” but to no avail. The company demanded his immediate termination.

Since then, Chris has been unable to find any other gainful employment because the officer who served as his probation officer until late December 2009 threatened him with prison time if he used a computer to search for a job.

He now lives in a trailer park, a half-way house for violent criminals emerging from the prison system. His presence there is the one humane act that he owes to the kindness of his first probation officer.

But while we can all empathize with Chris for the terrible series of events that have intruded upon his life, the most important lesson to be learned is for the parents of computer literate minor children. Parents must learn that, no matter how young and innocent their children may seem, to allow their minor children unsupervised access to a computer and the Internet is, in itself, child abuse of the first order. Post-pubescent children are a walking crime, waiting to happen.

By allowing her 15-year-old daughter to have unlimited and unsupervised access to a computer and the Internet, the mother of the girl with whom Chris became involved is, herself, guilty of child abuse. By allowing her minor daughter the opportunity to play adult sex games with total strangers, she is as guilty of child abuse as if she had dropped her daughter off in a "red light” district and said, "Have a good time.”

Chris is a good man, a doting father to his 17-year-old daughter, who does not deserve what he has experienced at the hands of our criminal "justice” system. The only way he could be sure that justice is done is if "C’s” mother and her sexually abusive friend stood side-by-side with him before the bar. Clearly, "C” is not the kind of young woman the legislature had in mind when they wrote the laws forbidding sexual contact or sexual communications with minors. She is now eighteen, but one wonders how many more victims she leaves in her wake.

How do I know so many details of this case? I know the details because the man whose life has been ruined because of a senseless Internet exchange with a young woman he did not know and has never met...is my son. Chris had every right to expect that someone...the OSBI agent who investigated his case, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted him, his defense counsel, or the judge...would have seen to it that justice was served in his case, but they didn’t. They all failed in their responsibility to temper justice with mercy.

At age 50, Chris is now engaged in the very difficult task of creating a new life for himself...finding menial work to do and a place to live. And no, Chris is not an axe murderer or an al Qaeda terrorist. But it’s all but certain that he would have received far better treatment from the justice system if he were. His story is about the corruption that infests our justice system...all dressed up in black robes, suits and ties, and high heel shoes...and how a single brush with the law and the courts can turn an otherwise law-abiding citizen into something more than a mere convicted felon. It can turn any citizen into a modern-day bogey man, shunned by society.

Yes, Chris is now a registered sex offender. If an axe murderer who has been released from prison moves into your neighborhood, he can live in the house next door to you and never have to inform anyone about how many people he has killed. But if Chris moves into your neighborhood he must inform the local authorities, who will then inform you, that a college educated, law-abiding citizen who allowed his life to slip out of focus for a brief time in his life, is a registered sex offender and now lives next door to you.

Okay, Bill O’Reilly. You claim to be "fair and balanced.” You like to get tough with lenient judges and do everything in your power to ruin their careers...and rightly so. So let’s see what you do with the other side of the coin.