Murderer Now Real `Pen Pal' -- Randy Roth Tolls The Internet

WOODINVILLE

Click on an Internet browser, type "Randy Roth" in the search field, and several listings appear, including one Randy Roth who is looking for friends.

Whether you'd want to be that Randy Roth's friend is questionable, because the former Woodinville man is a murderer, serving 50 years in prison for drowning his fourth wife in Lake Sammamish to collect on a $385,000 life-insurance policy.

Roth's Internet presence is only one of thousands available around the country in the latest evolution of the age-old concept of pen pals. Roth's plea for companionship, along with ads from more than 80 other Washington state prisoners is at: http://www.PrisonPenPals.com

Contacts with men and women prisoners in more than 40 states are on that Web site, usually illustrated with photographs and personal messages.

In the Washington state site, illustrated with a waving green state flag, the prisoners looking for new friends include Roth, Jeffrey Spisak and Greg Vandouris.

Roth is perhaps the most notorious. Roth's wife of less than a year, Cynthia Baumgartner Roth, 34, drowned in Lake Sammamish July 23, 1991. Roth claimed their raft was tipped over by the wake of a passing speedboat and she went under before he could save her.

His 1992 King County Superior Court trial included evidence about his second wife's fatal plunge off a Skamania County cliff in 1981. The day after her death, Roth called his insurance agent to

put in a claim.

The jury also heard from Roth's third wife, who said she felt he tried to sink a raft they were taking down a river, and from another woman who testified he was planning to marry her until he found out she was uninsurable.

On Roth's Internet site, he's pictured in a dark-blue shirt. His ad, which began appearing in July, says:

"I am a white male, 43, 5'9", 180 lbs, with brown hair and eyes. I am honest, considerate, athletic, educated and sincere. I have a great sense of humor and don't play games. As you will have noticed by now,

"I am currently incarcerated. I hope that this will not discourage you from writing."

Spisak's posting says he is a Monroe resident and a "friendly, honest man seeking you as friend to correspond with as pen pals, possibly more. I am 37 years old . . . non-smoker, non-drinker and I use no drugs. I have many interests."

The former Federal Way security guard neglects to mention that he was convicted of possession of child pornography in 1991 and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, then convicted of child molesting in 1996 and sentenced to 6 1/2 years.

Vandouris is at the Airway Heights Correction Center, where he tells how he's looking for someone "with the same likes and interests that I can correspond with. I'd like to meet a woman between 20 and 40 who loves to have fun and enjoys the outdoors."

He doesn't mention his 1990 and 1995 convictions in Spokane on drug charges and other counts.

The ads explain that the prisoners don't have access to computers and can't be reached directly via the Internet. They give instructions on how to reply to the messages.

All of the Web sites were prepared not by inmates but by their friends or relatives, said Mary Christensen, public-information officer for the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. "They have friends on the outside with computers" who assemble the needed materials from mailed photographs and letters, she explained.

The sites are not illegal and probably can't be prohibited because of First Amendment rights, Christensen said, and the costs of creating and posting such sites usually are negligible - $15 to $50 a month.

One Walla Walla inmate who's active in legal appeals has a full Web site under his own name, she said, but paid for by his father.

"There's a very strong network on the outside," Christensen said.

Peyton Whitely's phone message number is 206-464-2259. His e-mail address is: pwhitely@seattletimes.com