ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 27, 1996 TAG: 9605300024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.
SOURCE: MICHELLE LOCKE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOTE: Below
IN ONE ENTRY, Marc Klaas wrote, ``Some day, I hope to fix my eyes upon the killer as they pump lethal drugs into his veins in San Quentin's death chamber.''
For six hours a day, up to four days a week, Marc Klaas sits in a courtroom and listens to the horrifying details of the last few hours of his daughter Polly's life.
Then he goes home and pours his thoughts out into cyberspace.
``It's very therapeutic. I can't even imagine just sitting there day after day and doing nothing but listening to this testimony,'' Klaas said during a break in the kidnap and murder trial of Richard Allen Davis.
Klaas has been posting accounts of his court experiences on his Internet Web site since testimony began April 16.
Many of the entries talk about the strain of sitting quietly while the tragedy replays in all its horrifying detail.
``There is no room for anything but the processing of nightmarish information,'' Klaas wrote.
Klaas and his parents walked out of court, rather than face the wrenching details of Polly's autopsy. But they have stolidly endured everything else, including Davis' videotaped confession, punctuated with profanities and a hollow, echoing laugh, and X-rays showing 12-year-old Polly had six baby teeth when she died.
``The killer laughs throughout the videotape and I want to shout, yet I must sit unflinching and stone-faced for fear of causing a mistrial. Every day my family is drawn into the world of murder, mayhem, rape and depravation and there is no way out,'' Klaas wrote.
The day some of Polly's possessions were shown in court - a purse, a pair of tights - Klaas showed little emotion beyond a clenched jaw and a hand pressed to his eyes.
But later, he wrote about the ``little things that broke my heart.''
In one entry describing a day that Davis turned around and stared at him, he wrote, ``I reciprocated and gazed into the empty eyes of death ... Some day, I hope to fix my eyes upon the killer as they pump lethal drugs into his veins in San Quentin's death chamber.''
The trial journal is being posted on a site sponsored by the Klaas Foundation for Children, a group created by Klaas to push for stricter child protection laws and educate on safety issues.
Daniel Weitzner of the Center for Democracy and Technology said the page seemed ``a really interesting use of the Web. It shows how valuable the Internet can be as a public forum.''
The center is posting some trial information of its own, updates and transcripts from its constitutional challenge to the Communications Decency Act that would censor indecent or offensive conduct on the Internet.
Davis has confessed to killing Polly, and his lawyers, who are to begin their case Tuesday, say they won't deny it. However, they maintain there's no evidence Davis sexually molested Polly.
Davis told police he was high at the time of the kidnapping and doesn't know why he took her at knife point from a slumber party in her bedroom Oct. 1, 1993.
Prosecutors tried to show that he was following a perverse pattern set years ago in attacks on women. Davis got prison time for those attacks, but never served more than eight years at a stretch.
In an interview outside the San Jose courthouse where Davis is being tried, Klaas said he plans to keep going as unofficial chronicler of the case.
He Klaas said he hopes to educate those who visit his web site and possibly help other families who may be girding for the ordeal of sitting in court with their child's alleged murderer.
``There's no school for this,'' Klaas said.
The Web site address is http://www.klaaskids.inter.net/
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB