Fugitive spammer dead in apparent murder-suicide

IDG News Service - Convicted penny-stock spammer Eddie Davidson has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, apparently after killing his wife and 3-year-old daughter in his hometown of Bennet, Colo., the Department of Justice said Thursday.

Davidson had been a fugitive from the law since walking away from a federal minimum-security prison camp in Florence, Colo., on Sunday. He had been serving a 21 month sentence after pleading guilty to criminal spam charges late last year.

Another person, a teenage girl, was shot, according to local reports, but survived the incident. Authorities also found an infant, unharmed, at the scene of the shootings.

Davidson's wife had been in the car with him when he left the Florence prison, about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs, on Sunday. He had last been seen in Lakewood, Colo., where he got a change of clothes and cash, according to the Justice Department.

Called the Colorado "Spam King," Davidson earned millions of dollars between 2003 and 2006 by operating a spamming operation, called Power Promoters, out of his home. He would change the header information in his messages to make it appear as if they had come from legitimate companies such as AOL and then send them out to hundreds of thousands of addresses.

Davidson sent the messages on behalf of an unnamed Houston company, court filings state. He was asked to promote about 19 penny-stock companies, including one called Advanced Power Line Technologies in 2006 and 2007. He would earn fees based on the trading volume of the stocks he was promoting.

The business was lucrative: The Houston company paid Davidson about $1.4 million for his services, court documents state.

Between 2003 and 2006, when his primary source of income was spam, bank deposits into Davidson's account totaled about $3.5 million.

"What a nightmare, and such a coward," said U.S. Attorney Troy Eid in an e-mailed statement. "Davidson imposed the 'death penalty' on family members for his own crime."