by Rob Csernyik Mar 28 2018
Stephen Marshall was driving through rural Maine under the cover of night with three guns by his side and a laptop with 34 names and addresses he’s found online. It was the early hours of Easter Sunday in 2006 and 20-year-old Marshall, a dishwasher from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia was paying a rare visit to his father in Houlton, Maine, a town near the Canada-US border. His father was asleep and had no idea that Marshall had taken his truck after quietly slipping out a window.
Around 3 AM, Marshall reached his first stop: about two hours southwest in the town of Milo, Maine. Fifty-seven-year-old Joseph Gray was in his living room asleep. He’d been up late watching Forensic Files with his wife. She was woken up by the sound of their dogs barking. Gray was shot and killed by Marshall through the living room window as she stood by, helpless.
Over the next few hours it’s believed that Marshall drove by at least four other homes, but it isn’t until just after 8 AM, that he meets his second victim.
Twenty-four-year-old William Elliott answered the door of his mobile home in Corinth, Maine after Marshall knocked. Even after Elliott crumpled to the floor, Marshall continued to shoot him. As the Toyota pickup peeled out of the driveway, Elliott’s girlfriend took down the license plate as her boyfriend lay dying.
Grey and Elliott were among around 2,200 names on Maine’s online sex offender registry in 2006. Marshall was able to access their photo, name, address, identifying characteristics—even their place of employment. And he wasn’t the only one checking them out. The registry was the state government’s most popular website at the time receiving over 200,000 hits a month…
Read the full article at Vice.com: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ne9ew7/how-sex-offender-registries-can-result-in-vigilante-murder
The Registry Report 