Imprisoned Killer Seeks Mercy via Internet

Brandon Hein has his own Internet Web page, which isn’t that unusual except that Brandon lives in state prison.

Pleading for help through the Internet, the murderer’s friends and family have built a Web site devoted to the goal of shortening his prison sentence to something less than life without parole.

“Who is Brandon Hein?” asks the home page for the Oak Park youth convicted with three other people of murdering an LAPD detective’s son during a brawl over a small bag of marijuana.

The answers come in linked hypertext: an orderly collection of photos, letters and articles, punctuated with drawings Hein made in prison and a poem by his mother.

The site opens with “A Letter From Brandon,” promising, “There is much I can offer society. My life is just beginning. . . .”

It lays out a history of James Farris III’s murder, the trial and critics’ arguments against Hein’s no-parole prison sentence.

And it closes with an appeal for Web-watchers to pray, write letters and help support the campaign to get him released.

Hein, who was 18 at the time of the murder, isn’t the only criminal with a Web site. Two sites advocating freedom for mass murderer Charles Manson and for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Philadelphia activist convicted of killing a policeman, have been posted on the Internet for some time.

In this case, the victim’s father, James Farris II, says Hein’s Web site appears to be little more than a bold attempt at an image make-over.

“This makes him look like a good kid,” said Farris after reviewing paper copies of the Web pages Wednesday.

“[But] every suspect that I’ve ever arrested and almost all of them that you see in jail, they’re always trying to put themselves on their best behavior, trying to make themselves look great, when most of them aren’t,” he said. “The record shows that when people are put out on parole, they start doing the same things they were doing before, whether it’s larceny, murder, prostitution or selling dope.”

Prosecutors said the four defendants were part of a loose group of gang wannabes known as the Gumbies.

In May 1995, Hein and three other youths set out on what authorities called a small crime spree. They stole alcohol from an acquaintance, took a wallet from an unlocked car and terrorized its owner.

Then, intent on stealing some marijuana, they stormed the backyard of Mike McLoren in Agoura Hills. A bloody brawl ensued, during which 16-year-old James Farris III was stabbed to death and McLoren was badly wounded.

A judge handed down life-without-parole sentences to Hein, 19-year-old Tony Miliotti, also of Oak Park, and 19-year-old Jason Holland, of Thousand Oaks, who wielded the knife. His brother, 16-year-old Micah Holland, was sentenced to 25 years to life--the maximum allowable punishment for his age.

The Rev. Richard Detrich of the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village said that at first he too was glad to hear that the four youths had been sentenced to prison for the slaying. But when Hein’s family sent a prayer slip through his church office, asking that prayers one Sunday be offered for Brandon, Detrich said he took a closer look.

He talked about the case with Hein’s family, and after learning more about it, became convinced that a Web site could help clear his image, and perhaps win him a lighter sentence.

“I think there’s a great injustice here, and the Web page is kind of an attempt to communicate to the community that Brandon Hein may not be everything that he’s portrayed to be by the press or the judge,” said Detrich, who helped build the site and write the case history. “We’ll let the people decide.”

The Web site echoes arguments made by Hein’s attorney, Jill Lansing, who said Wednesday that Hein does not deserve a lifetime prison sentence for his role in Farris’ death.

“He never had a weapon, and he never hurt anybody,” she said. “There was a fistfight in a dark room and there was a puncture wound with a pocketknife in which all the bleeding was internal. . . . Everybody was trading blows [and] to treat that as some terrible act is just wrong.”

Hein, she says, “feels awful about it.”

Christopher Blake, the San Diego attorney preparing to appeal Hein’s conviction, said: “Obviously, his family and friends have the right to put whatever out on the Internet that they see fit.”

But Farris’ father considers the effort an attempt to revise history, and an unpleasant surprise.

“There’s no doubt in my mind this kid’s putting himself on his best behavior, trying to show himself to be a nice kid,” Farris said. “There’s nothing nice about a kid who, when my son is dying, sitting on a bed, this kid walks up and smashes him in the face over and over and over again. He had cuts on his hands to substantiate that, and my son’s braces were all busted up and twisted.”

Farris added: “We’re talking about mean, vicious kids here, and they’re going to try everything they can to get this kid out of prison. I don’t want him out of prison. I don’t want to have to face him again. I don’t want society to have to face him again.”

The site can be found at https://www.brandonhein.com

Times staff writer Miguel Bustillo contributed to this story.