Thrusday, Jan. 13, 2000 
(This is an unedited, uncorrected transcript.) 
Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription.

BILL RITTER, ABCNEWS 

Think about this the next time you’re walking down the street: What if someone were watching you, and you didn’t know it? I don’t mean just making eye contact or checking you out. I mean really watching, following you, finding out where you live, where you work, what time you go home. What scares me about this story is that it proves, gruesomely, just how easy it is for a stranger to find out personal information about any one of us. And like so many things today, it can be done simply and quickly over the Internet. That’s exactly what happened to 20-year-old Amy Boyer of Nashua, New Hampshire.
(VO) It turns out somebody was secretly watching her. Through the Internet, he had found out where she lived and where she worked. And then he stalked her.

BETHANIE WALTERS She was pretty. She was good-looking, she was so smart. She had so much going for her.

BILL RITTER (VO) Amy Boyer was the all-American girl. Attractive, great personality, a good student who took time to tutor others. After graduating Nashua High School in New Hampshire, Amy worked part-time at this orthodontist office as an assistant.

TIM REMSBURG She was in her last year of dental hygiene school. She was ready to take on the world.

BILL RITTER (VO) But what Amy didn’t know was that for more than four years, someone was watching her every move, stalking her and plotting to kill her. He wrote it all down in detail. “I drove down the street and took pictures of all the houses,” he wrote. “When I saw that house and realized Amy was asleep in there, endorphins flew. I have never felt that kind of rush in my life. I am going to kill Amy Boyer. My obsession for her will never die, but she will. She will die.” And it happened here last October 15th. Friend and co-worker Heidi Holden left work the same time as Amy and another colleague. As they approached the street, Amy said good night to her friends and got into her parked car. But before Amy could pull away from the curb, her friends watched in horror as Amy was ambushed.

SERGEANT DONALD CAMPBELL They noticed a Nissan Sentra come speeding up the roadway.

HEIDI HOLDEN And pulled right up beside Amy’s car, driver’s side to driver’s side.

DONALD CAMPBELL They both indicate that they saw an arm come out of the window of the Nissan Sentra.

HEIDI HOLDEN All of a sudden I just heard, ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.’

DONALD CAMPBELL And he started firing into the car.

HEIDI HOLDEN She had no idea what hit her.

BILL RITTER (VO) Amy was hit at least 11 times with bullets from a semi-automatic handgun. She was rushed to the emergency room, but it was too late. It didn’t take police long to identify the killer: 21-year-old Liam Youens. After shooting Amy, Youens took his gun, put it in his mouth, and then pulled the trigger. Amy’s stepfather and mother, Tim and Helen Remsburg, were devastated.
You had never heard the name Liam Youens before?

TIM REMSBURG Never. Never heard the name before in my life.

BILL RITTER But is it possible that she could have known him and didn’t tell you?

HELEN REMSBURG Absolutely not.

BILL RITTER (VO) It turned out Youens was a former high school classmate of Amy’s and member of the same church youth group. Amy’s best friend, Bethanie Walters, says Amy probably didn’t even know Liam’s name.

BETHANIE WALTERS He was the kind of boy that we would have maybe seen on the street together and said, ‘Oh, yeah, he was in the youth group together. What’s his name? I can’t remember.’

BILL RITTER (VO) But why would Liam Youens kill Amy Boyer? Sergeant Donald Campbell of the Nashua Police Department investigated the case, and it began at Youens’ house. In his room, Campbell found a computer, and stored in that computer’s memory would be the answers to this murder mystery.

DONALD CAMPBELL We find a—a file in there that’s an—is a—an Internet Web file. And it’s entitled “Amy Boyer.” And it was the Amy Boyer Web site.

BILL RITTER Run by...

DONALD CAMPBELL Run by Liam.

BILL RITTER (VO) Liam Youens had built at least four elaborate Internet Web sites, each one dedicated to Amy Boyer. It was like a shrine. Pictures of Amy, her vital statistics, and spelled out for the whole World Wide Web to see, a premeditated murder plot.
How long did Liam claim to have planned Amy’s death?

DONALD CAMPBELL He went back as far as the 10th grade with her. Which would go back ’95 in that area.

BILL RITTER And she had no idea?

DONALD CAMPBELL No. What starts off as—as a love attraction becomes an obsessive hate for her. He believes through his writing that Amy is aware of his affections for her. And that she is purposely taunting him with relationships with other boys, other kids in school, and is doing so to mock him.

BILL RITTER (VO) When Youens was 15, he overheard Amy talking to someone else on the school bus. It set him off. He wrote, “God, I love her. Oh, great, now I’m really depressed, hmm. Looks like it’s suicide for me. Car accident? Wrists? A few days later I think, ‘Hey, why don’t I kill her, too?’” Liam Youens’ intent was also red-flagged in a more public venue. On the Nashua High School’s alumni Web site, Youens describes his occupation as obsessed stalker/murderer.

TIM REMSBURG It’s a very hard thing to live with now, knowing that all this information was out there that should have been brought to my attention, and it wasn’t ever brought to my attention.

BILL RITTER (VO) We don’t know how many people actually read Liam Youens’ writings. And we don’t know why those who might have didn’t do anything about it. What we do know is that Liam Youens was a loner. He lived with his divorced mother, and at various times, several of his five older siblings.
As far as you can determine, did he have any close friends?

DONALD CAMPBELL None.

BILL RITTER Was he involved in any kind of extracurricular activities at school?

DONALD CAMPBELL None.

BILL RITTER Ate lunch by himself?

DONALD CAMPBELL By himself. Standing in the corner.

BILL RITTER Every day?

DONALD CAMPBELL Every day. And that’s what we know through talking to people that had contact with Liam. His own family members indicated to us that they were not very close to Liam, that Liam was a very solitary person and they left him to himself.

BILL RITTER (VO) So much to himself, says Sergeant Campbell, that Youens’ mother couldn’t remember the last time she was in his bedroom, where Liam spent all his time.
You walk into Liam’s room, what did you find? What di—what did it look like?

DONALD CAMPBELL It was a mess. It doesn’t look as though it had been cleaned in—in a long period of time. There were six rifles leaning up against the wall, almost displayed, and there was a large amount of ammunition on the floor.

TIM REMSBURG I just can’t believe that no one noticed. Not mom, not sisters, not Web site companies. No one noticed this young man was headed for trouble. And so was Amy.

BILL RITTER (VO) Youens’ family members refused to talk to me. But they had to talk to Sergeant Campbell. He says Youens played violent video games, Quake and Doom. He also frequented Internet sites like these, dedicated to serial killing and mass murder. And he also fantasized about killing other classmates, including Amy’s best friend, Bethanie.

BETHANIE WALTERS He wrote that I had a look on my face that made him want to kill me.

BILL RITTER (VO) Youens also wrote about shooting another former classmate. “I attempted to kill Owen on numerous occasions,” he wrote on his Web site. “I drove to the University of New Hampshire four times and once got right to his door, but chickened out. Then more recently I went there with my Glock to shoot him, failed again.” But Youens’ main focus was Amy. And in order to kill her, he first had to find her. And to do that, he used the Internet and Internet search companies that made it quick, easy and cheap, less than $200, to find out all he needed to know about Amy.

TIM REMSBURG He’s got her correct Social Security number, date of birth, registration numbers to her car, address, phone number, where she works, which is all public information.

BILL RITTER (VO) Liam Youens himself was surprised at how easy it was find out all about Amy on the Web. “It’s actually obscene,” he wrote, “what you can find out about a person on the Internet.”

BRETT FAUSETT If Liam Youens had walked into the Nashua detective agency, the detective sitting behind the desk could have looked at him and said, “This guy’s a nut. I don’t want any part of this.”

BILL RITTER (VO) Internet lawyer Brett Fausett believes personal information is too easily available over the Web.

BRETT FAUSETT Over the Internet, you don’t have that ability to judge someone’s demeanor, and judge whether you think this is someone you want to do business with. You’re just opening up a—a door and allowing anyone who wants to come through it to do so.

BILL RITTER (VO) And Amy’s stepfather agrees. Since her murder, he’s been on a privacy crusade.
Any indication in all these files that you’ve read, that these companies—these search companies ever asked, ‘Kid, what are you gonna do with this information?’

TIM REMSBURG I asked the owner that very same question.

BILL RITTER Of the search company?

TIM REMSBURG He said to me, ‘Sir, we are a—basically a private investigating firm. Why would we ever call the person that we’re investigating and say to them, ‘Hey, we got a guy looking for your Social Security number. You know, should we give it to him?’

BILL RITTER (VO) Liam Youens’ Web sites were destroyed at the request of the Nashua police. But Remsburg says that was too late for Amy, and now he’s pushing hard for government regulation of Internet sites.

TIM REMSBURG There should be some responsibility here, not into policing it, but at least to notify the proper authorities. Notify the parents, notify the young lady that this person’s stalking you.

BILL RITTER (VO) But Brett Fausett, the Internet expert, says, technically that’s not yet possible.

BRETT FAUSETT The idea we have some kind of intelligent software that can call the sane, rational Web pages from the threatening ones is really a mistake, and it’s a common mistake.

TIM REMSBURG It’s not fair. This young lady was one of the most beautiful people that I have ever met in my life, and to be fortunate enough to—to, you know, to be her father was an honor. I—I just know that I—I have to do something. It’s not going to bring Amy back, nothing is going to bring Amy back. So I can either go crawl in a hole and die, or fight for everyone else out there.

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN Tim Remsburg has already begun the fight. He and Amy’s mother have set up a memorial fund against violence, and they are working to pass a law that would make the selling of personal information on the Internet a crime.










Victimized…Internet Style
Man Uses the Web to Plot and Kill Unsuspecting Woman 

Amy Boyer was killed by a high school classmate. He had never talked to her, but he used the Internet to watch her every move. (Courtesy of the Boyer Family) 

Jan. 13 — To those who knew her, Amy Boyer of Nashua, N.H., was a hard-working success story, a sweet 20-year-old who worked two jobs and was on her last year of dental hygiene school. To Liam Youens, Boyer was a fantasy, a high school classmate he never spoke to but nevertheless obsessed about for more than four years. 
Last October, he shot and killed Boyer, then, turning the gun on himself, committed suicide. It was after the slaying that police discovered that Youens had used the Internet to spell out his murder plot in elaborate Web sites dedicated to Boyer. Even more disturbing, he used the Internet to access her private information, buying her Social Security number and work address, enabling him to watch her every move. 
20/20 Downtown’s Bill Ritter explores the potential dangers of the Internet, as he speaks to Amy’s stepfather, Tim Remsburg, who is outraged at what he says is a lack of regulation that led to her death.
“[Liam Youens] didn’t write this thing in a diary in his bedroom, he wrote it on the World Wide Web” Remsburg says. “There should be some responsibility here.”
Ritter also speaks with Internet lawyer Brett Fausett, who says the problem with easy access to private information on the Internet is that online, companies cannot check to whom they are selling the information.
“If Liam Youens had walked into the Nashua detective agency, the detective behind the desk could have looked at him and said, ‘This guy’s a nut’” Fausett says. “Over the Internet, you don’t have that ability to judge someone’s demeanor. … You’re just opening a door and allowing anyone who wants to come through it to do so.”

Amy Boyer Memorial Fund 
If you would like to help Amy’s family in their efforts, they have established a fund at the following address:
Amy Lynn Boyer Memorial Fund Against Criminal Violence 
c/o Bank of Boston 
157 Main Street 
Nashua, NH 03060 












Our reporter dared a private eye to dig up dirt on him. The results are terrifying to anybody who worries about prying eyes or credit card scamsters. What can you do to protect yourself? 

The End of Privacy 

By Adam L. Penenberg 

Next 
THE PHONE RANG AND A STRANGER CRACKED SING-SONGY AT THE OTHER END OF the line: "Happy Birthday." That was spooky--the next day I would turn 37. "Your full name is Adam Landis Penenberg," the caller continued. "Landis?" My mother's maiden name. "I'm touched," he said. Then Daniel Cohn, Web detective, reeled off the rest of my "base identifiers"--my birth date, address in New York, Social Security number. Just two days earlier I had issued Cohn a challenge: Starting with my byline, dig up as much information about me as you can. "That didn't take long," I said. 

"It took about five minutes," Cohn said, cackling back in Boca Raton, Fla. "I'll have the rest within a week." And the line went dead. 

In all of six days Dan Cohn and his Web detective agency, Docusearch.com, shattered every notion I had about privacy in this country (or whatever remains of it). Using only a keyboard and the phone, he was able to uncover the innermost details of my life--whom I call late at night; how much money I have in the bank; my salary and rent. He even got my unlisted phone numbers, both of them. Okay, so you've heard it before: America, the country that made "right to privacy" a credo, has lost its privacy to the computer. But it's far worse than you think. Advances in smart data-sifting techniques and the rise of massive databases have conspired to strip you naked. The spread of the Web is the final step. It will make most of the secrets you have more instantly available than ever before, ready to reveal themselves in a few taps on the keyboard. 

For decades this information rested in remote mainframes that were difficult to access, even for the techies who put it there. The move to desktop PCs and local servers in the 1990s has distributed these data far and wide. Computers now hold half a billion bank accounts, half a billion credit card accounts, hundreds of millions of mortgages and retirement funds and medical claims and more. The Web seamlessly links it all together. As e-commerce grows, marketers and busybodies will crack open a cache of new consumer data more revealing than ever before (see box, p. 188). 

It will be a salesman's dream--and a paranoid's nightmare. Adding to the paranoia: Hundreds of data sleuths like Dan Cohn of Docusearch have opened up shop on the Web to sell precious pieces of these data. Some are ethical; some aren't. They mine celebrity secrets, spy on business rivals and track down hidden assets, secret lovers and deadbeat dads. They include Strategic Data Service (at datahawk.com) and Infoseekers.com and Dig Dirt Inc. (both at the PI Mall, www.pimall.com). 

Cohn's firm will get a client your unlisted number for $49, your Social Security number for $49 and your bank balances for $45. Your driving record goes for $35; tracing a cell phone number costs $84. Cohn will even tell someone what stocks, bonds and securities you own (for $209). As with computers, the price of information has plunged. 

You may well ask: What's the big deal? We consumers are as much to blame as marketers for all these loose data. At every turn we have willingly given up a layer of privacy in exchange for convenience; it is why we use a credit card to shop, enduring a barrage of junk mail. Why should we care if our personal information isn't so personal anymore? 

Well, take this test: Next time you are at a party, tell a stranger your salary, checking account balance, mortgage payment and Social Security number. If this makes you uneasy, you have your answer. 

"If the post office said we have to use transparent envelopes, people would go crazy, because the fact is we all have something to hide," says Edward Wade, a privacy advocate who wrote Identity Theft: The Cybercrime of the Millennium (Loompanics Unlimited, 1999) under the pseudonym John Q. Newman. 







We Know Everything About You

Online information brokers dig up and sell just about anything about you.

by Tom Spring, PC World 
January 28, 2000, 3:21 p.m. PT 
It ended in murder, and it started on the Internet. 

So says Tim Remsburg, father-in-law of Amy Boyer, a New Hampshire woman who was tracked and murdered last October by a cyberstalker. 

Remsburg places part of the blame for his daughter-in-law's death on Docusearch.com, which sold Boyer's Social Security number for $45 to Liam Youens. 

Youens used that information to find out where Boyer worked. He went there, shot her to death with a semiautomatic handgun, and then turned the gun on himself. 

"I don't see how do-anything-for-a-buck information brokers can sleep at night knowing they've got Amy's blood on their hands," Remsburg says. 

But Docusearch.com, which declines comment on the matter, broke no laws. 


The Business of Breaking Barriers


Culling data from scattered public and private sources is not only legal, but part of a flourishing industry. Private businesses have created a burgeoning trade out of plucking information from commercial databases, which are easy and fast to access. 

Docusearch.com charges $49 for a Social Security number, $45 for a bank balance, $35 for driving records, and $49 for unlisted phone numbers. 

TR Information Services advertises on its Web site that it can deliver anyone's monthly bank or credit card statement for $95. A1 Trace promises a list of anyone's stocks, bonds, and mutual funds--including account numbers--for $309. 

I tested one detective service located online. A.S.A.P. Investigations delivered my Social Security number, physical descriptions of my wife and myself, details of the cars we own, and nearly every former address and employer of mine. Within an hour. 

A.S.A.P Investigations says it rounded up my personal profile at a half-dozen Web sites selling my past for a price. "We can find out anything," says Robert Reichert, the service's president. 

Reichert doesn't offer his services to the general public. Most of his clients are lawyers looking to recover hidden assets from deadbeat parents and creditors looking for debtors who've skipped town, he says. 

"Anyone can start a business, call themselves a private investigator, and hang a shingle online," he says. 

And that is exactly what's happening. 




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