Two Spammers Shot Dead 0600 Hrs 02 November 1999 Two spammers were found dead in New Jersey, USA on October 28th. The murders were reported as execution style killings by CNN. Investigators had not pinpointed any motives or suspects. However the Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye was quoted on CNN as saying that the attack likely was at least partly tied to the pair's penny stock Web operation, www.stockinvestor.com, or other ventures. The stockinvestor.com operation was responsible for spamming millions of e-mail accounts. Opinion on www.slashdot.org varied from outright applause for the action to concern for the victims and their families.

The pair, Alain Chalem and Mayir Lehmann were found face down having been shot in the back of the head. One was shot in the chest and the other had also been shot in the knee. If these wounds were inflicted before the pair were killed, the killers could have been looking for information before killing them.

Lehmann had been charged last year by the Stock Exchange Commission, with others, with distributing false information about companies. The charge was in relation to Electro Optical System Corp. The share price of the company rose from $0.50 to over $5.00 in one day. Though investors had lost over $10 Million in the scam, Lehmann had agreed in January to pay a penalties of $630,000.

The stockinvestor.com site seemss as dead as the spammers.

It returns a "The system cannot find the file specified" message.

The domain is registed to a Panamanian company and the site is apparently based in Hungary. Authorities suspect that aim of this was to avoid scrutiny from the SEC.

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