MURDER CONFESSION LAUNCHES INTERNET DEBATE.

Byline: Amy Harmon The New York Times

For nearly a year, Elisa DeCarlo had been logging onto the Internet daily to type messages to an online support group about her battle against alcohol. It did not matter that she did not know where most of the 200 or so other participants in the group lived, or even their names. All that mattered was that they were there for her, and she for them, in a fight that some days sapped all of her strength and sense of humor.

But the morning of Monday, March 23, sitting in her usual bathrobe attire, drinking her usual cup of coffee as she scrolled through the previous day's e-mail, DeCarlo, a 38-year-old comedian in New York City, lost faith in her virtual community.

Along with the typical postings from members about their weekends was a message from a man she knew as Larry. In graphic detail, Larry described how three years ago he killed his 5-year-old daughter, Amanda, here in the southwestern corner of North Dakota.

In the message, posted at 12:50 p.m. on March 22, Larry recounted how, overcome by a bitter custody dispute with his ex-wife, he had set fire to his home and trapped his daughter inside.

``The conflict was tearing me apart, and the next night I let her watch the videos she loved all evening, and when she was asleep I got wickedly drunk, set our house on fire, went to bed, listened to her scream twice, climbed out the window and set about putting on a show of shock, surprise and grief to remove culpability from myself,'' Larry wrote, according to archives of the support group's e-mail, available to any member on the Internet. ``Dammit, part of that show was climbing in her window and grabbing her pajamas, then hearing her breathe and dropping her where she was so she could die and rid me of her mother's interferences.''

The e-mail message struck DeCarlo as horrifying, but she grew further dismayed over the online debate that followed.

While some members of the support group were appalled by Larry's account, others rushed to his defense, trying to assure him that he was experiencing a fantasy driven by guilt over his divorce. Others tried to comfort him by telling him that the crime was long past.

It seemed to DeCarlo that the nature of online communication - which creates a psychological as well as physical distance between participants - were causing her friends to forget their off-line responsibilities to bring a confessed murderer to justice.

On March 24, in the midst of of what is known on the Internet as a flame war, DeCarlo was one of three members of the support group to notify law enforcement officials.

Bowman police said Larry Froistad, a 29-year-old computer programmer in San Diego, called them March 27 and confessed. Froistad has since been extradited to Bowman, a town of about 1,800 people, and he is scheduled to be arraigned on murder charges Friday. The courthouse is a few blocks from a slab of concrete and rusted plumbing where his daughter died in a fire that was ruled accidental at the time.

The support group, run by Moderation Management, a nonprofit self-help organization based in Woodinville, Wash., for people who are problem drinkers but not alcoholics, is one of hundreds of such groups on the Internet.

Trusting strangers

For many of those who knew him through the ether, Froistad's unbidden declaration is testimony to cyberspace's singular capacity to invoke trust among strangers. But the e-mail transcripts in the wake of the confession also provide a glimpse into the interpersonal and moral predicaments raised at a time when an increasing amount of social interaction is taking place in electronic arenas, devoid of cues like tone of voice and facial expression, and structured around their own sets of rules and mores.

``My position here is that we, as a list, have two responsibilities here - to ourselves as members of this list community and to the larger community beyond,'' read an e-mail March 26 by Frederick Rotgers, a psychologist who helped found the electronic mailing list two years ago and administers it as a volunteer for Moderation Management. ``That may sound radical to some, but I believe it is an essential feature of the Internet, and one that we must protect if it is to continue to be a source of great support for people who are in need.''

Rather than turn Larry over to the police, he said, he chose to send private e-mail to the obviously troubled man, referring him to therapists near San Diego.

``I had no basis for knowing whether it was true or not,'' he said in an interview. ``Neither did anyone else on the list.''

Some didn't believe him

Many on the list believed Larry was simply expressing his desire to be punished for surviving a horrible accident. Perhaps, as he himself suggested in subsequent postings, he had subconsciously invented a false memory. Others allowed he might have done it, but that their role as a support group was not to judge. The few who disagreed became the target of often vicious written attacks known in Internet parlance as ``flames.''

On Sunday evening, a few hours after Larry's initial post, one participant wrote: ``Oh man you are really challenging me . . . it would be okay if you would just go away. . . . This is just repulsive stuff and I just can't deal with you. . . . I personally will not read a post by you again. . . . You do not deserve anything!''

Came the quick response from another member: ``To me, your post is COMPLETELY unacceptable, especially in this forum. I am repulsed by YOUR post. . .''

Turning him in

Jim Shirk, 59, went to the FBI. When news of Larry's arrest reached the group, someone called for the squealers to come forward. Shirk, of Bremerton, Wash., who said he had been sober for 19 years and is a licensed chemical dependency counselor, sent the person private e-mail explaining his desire to remain anonymous.

Instead, the person posted the e-mail to the whole list, and sent Shirk private e-mail back: ``Just how big a pervert are you?'' it read. ``I bet you really get off talking to the FBI. Wow. Did you ask them if you could see their guns?

``You get a gut feeling for what's real and what isn't and it struck me as very frightening,'' Shirk said of his decision, in a phone interview. ``What really scared me was the part after he described everything he did, where he says he wants another family. I felt both professionally ethically and personally ethically that I had to do something.''

And some members simply wanted to get back on point. ``Can we please talk about drinking? I need your help here,'' read one post a week into the digital firestorm.

Experts who study the sociology of cyberspace say the intersection of the confidentiality ethic of self-help groups and the sometimes illusory anonymity of online communion can make for particularly sticky situations.

Yet the combination is also what has made the global computer network such a boon to people seeking support on a wide range of issues, from cancer patients to senior citizens to gay teens.

``People will reveal more online than they might in person,'' said Sara Kiesler, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Institute for Human Computer Interaction. ``Psychologically, economically and in every other way, it's cheap talk, people really enjoy it, and it feels safe, too. You're just talking to the screen, sometimes people get oblivious to the dangers and they say things they wouldn't have said otherwise.''

In a town of about 3,000, nearly 90 miles from the nearest city, the notion of pouring out one's innermost thoughts to strangers is, in fact, not a total anathema. But while Bowman police chief Don Huso reopened the investigation into the fire after hearing from DeCarlo, he did not issue an arrest warrant until Froistad called him directly five days after his disturbing Internet posting.

``He said, `Don, I set the fire,' '' recalled Huso, whose only other contact with Froistad was several years ago when he had to tell him it was against city ordinances to raise rabbits in his back yard.

According to the e-mail transcripts and the criminal case file, Froistad called Huso the day after Rotgers posted to the e-mail list that someone had gone to the police.

Vincent Ross, Froistad's attorney, said his client would plead not guilty.

On the Moderation Management list, the furor has largely died down. The posts there now are from people seeking advice on how to get through their 30-day abstinence periods and querying the meaning of ``alcoholism.''

Audrey Kishline, the list's founder, said the group is considering no longer maintaining archives of the e-mail conversations, and issuing a more strongly-worded notice to new subscribers that their words, once released onto the Internet, can never be considered completely confidential.

But DeCarlo said she now only attends face-to-face meetings of the chapter she leads in New York. ``Ultimately, we are alone,'' she said. ``The closeness is for the most part illusory. If Larry walked into a room, I wouldn't know him. Online, they're just words on a screen.''