Washington State Sex Offender Vigilante Dies In Prison

On April 15, 2007, Michael Mullen, 36, the Washington State prisoner convicted of having committed vigilante murders of two registered sex offenders, was found dead in his cell at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen, Washington. Mullens was alone in his cell when he died and the death was deemed a suicide.

In 2005, Mullens murdered two Washington State registered sex offenders whose addresses he discovered through the Whatcom County online sex offender registry. [PLN Feb. 2006, p. 40]. He said he was angered by another Washington State registered sex offender’s commission of three murders and sex offenses against two children in Idaho. After the vigilante murders, before he turned himself in a week later, Mullens sent a list of sex offenders he intended to kill to local newspapers.

Mullens was sentenced to 44 years in prison, but had said he would welcome the death penalty so he could beat the man who committed the Idaho offenses into the afterlife and hold him accountable for his crimes. Mullens had recently written the Seattle Times and stated that during his arrest and trial he had just wanted to die. He also complained of having been moved from prison to prison since arriving in the prison system, claiming that the constant moving prevented him from adjusting to incarceration. Mullens had also sent out numerous letters to law enforcement officials and other media outlets threatening to kill more sex offenders.

Sources: Seattle Times; Bellingham Herald; www.kndo.com