Man charged for killing sex offenders

Published: 12:12PM Friday September 09, 2005 Source: Reuters

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A 35-year-old Washington state man was charged with double murder on Thursday after telling police that he had decided to hunt down and kill two sex offenders listed in an online sex offender registry.
   
Michael Mullen told police that he decided to find and murder sex offenders in Bellingham, Washington, 140 km north of Seattle, after the high-profile arrest of a sex offender in Idaho in July.
   
"He provided information about the murders that only the person responsible should have known," the Bellingham Police Department said in a statement.
   
Mullen, who turned himself in on Monday, killed two men who were roommates in a house in Bellingham on August 27, possibly as revenge for being molested as a child, Police Lieutenant Craige Ambrose said.
   
"He had claimed being abused as a juvenile during our interview with him," Ambrose said.
   
Mullen asked police, "Can I have a speedy trial?" during a preliminary hearing, according court officials.
   
"I would like to plead guilty," he said at the hearing.
   
Sex offenders in most US jurisdictions are required by law to register with local police when they take up residence, and such information is often provided on a Web site for community residents.
   
The prosecutor's office for Whatcom County said that Mullen would face arraignment on Sept. 16.
   
Police learned on August 27 that Victor Vazquez, 68, and Hank Eisses, 49, had been killed by a man posing an FBI agent, according to a public notice.
  
 Police believe Mullen confessed to the murders in an online journal on AOL before turning himself in. In one Internet archive, someone identifying himself as Michael Mullen claims responsibility for the murders and adds "they are not the last to be executed unless things change for the better."
   
Mullen also told police that he began looking for sex offenders after Joseph Duncan, a convicted sex offender, was arrested on July 2 in Idaho for abducting an 8-year-old girl and her 9-year-old brother after killing their mother, brother and mother's boyfriend.
   
"Mullen also said that he had planned the murders for sometime and that on July 13th, 2005, he had accessed the Whatcom County Sheriff's sex offender Web site and from that, selected at least one of the two victims," the statement added.
   
Mullen is being held in Whatcom County Jail with bail set at $1 million.

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