`Dead Man' Talks From Death-Row Cell -- Condemned Killer Chronicles Prison Life On Internet Web Page

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - Dean Phillip Carter is a dead man talking.

The inmate of California's death row has been posting his thoughts on life and death on the Internet, with the help of a friend outside prison.

"Hello, my name is Dean, I am sitting here in my cell on Death Row in San Quentin Prison," was how Carter started his first column in what he called an effort to give "a reasonably coherent account of what it is like from where I sit."

Carter, 40, faces a death sentence for killing four women in Southern California. Prosecutors say Carter went on a crime spree in 1984, raping and murdering five women and sexually assaulting two others. Charges in one of the killings were dropped.

He has not discussed his case in his columns, save for denying he committed the crimes.

Alex Bennett, a San Francisco disc jockey who's helping Carter go on line, said he advised keeping the case out of the column, partly so readers would look at it without prejudice and partly to avoid complicating Carter's appeals.

In his nine columns so far, Carter has written on everything from a much-anticipated steak dinner one Christmas ("I suspect that the damned cow died of old age") to lying in the dark composing last letters to friends.

Along with the minutiae of prison life, Carter writes some evocative descriptions of life on the row - the "constant roar of over 500 men," and the "underlying aroma that is always there."

His latest column, posted Jan. 8, discusses the difficulty of facing the holiday season in prison, and adds: "Personally, I ignore it the best that I can, but it seems to get to some of the guys. They found some guy in his cell hanging."

"It's a real baring of one's soul in all of this," Bennett said. "It's just unique in that it doesn't ask for pity, it doesn't ask for clemency."

Carter is not the first inmate to roam the Internet, although previous efforts have tended to focus on 11th-hour appeals, said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Last year, Girvies Davis unsuccessfully appealed for clemency in Illinois via the Internet with the help of his attorneys; he was executed in May. Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an ex-journalist condemned to die for killing a Philadelphia policeman, also have exchanged news on the Internet.

Carter mails his columns to Bennett of KITS-FM on a more or less monthly basis, and Bennett posts them on the World Wide Web area of Internet.

Kevin Washburn of the victim's-rights group Citizens for Law and Order said he recognized that Carter retains some rights to free speech, but had reservations about his Web page, called "Dead Man Talkin'."

"I don't know that we want to turn our prisoners loose on the Internet and allow them the freedom of access to the global communication process," he said.

"Obviously we don't really like what he's saying, but there's nothing we can do to stop him," said Lt. Joy Macfarlane, spokeswoman for San Quentin State Prison, home to California's death row.

Carter signs his first name only and intended to remain anonymous, Bennett said.

That got tougher in December when the c-net computer network selected the page as one of its "Best of the Web."

That has left Carter thinking about leaving cyberspace now that his identity has been revealed, Bennett said.

Bennett got to know Carter after the inmate wrote to him some years ago complimenting him on his show.

Bennett, who opposes the death penalty, said he's glad he made the connection.

"It's been a fascinating trip," he said.

Dead Man Talkin' can be accessed at:

http://monkey.hooked.net/ monkey/m/hut/deadman/deadman.html