By Greg Moran
STAFF WRITER SD UNION-TRIBUNE
May 15, 1999
VISTA -- In another cautionary tale from cyberspace, a
30-year-old Portland, Ore., man was charged with attempted murder
yesterday in connection with an attack on a Vista woman
whom he met via the Internet.
Thomas William Abney also was charged with residential
robbery and auto theft. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and is
being held without bail in the Vista jail.
In an interview after the hearing, Prosecutor Christine
Trevino said Abney had been staying at the 43-year-old woman's
apartment in Vista since May 7, when he apparently flew
in from Oregon.
The two had met via an Internet chat room, she said. They had been corresponding since early April.
Trevino said the woman was bidding goodbye to Abney at
the door of her apartment on Maryland Drive on Wednesday,
and nothing seemed amiss. Suddenly, he attacked her,
she said.
The prosecutor said Abney threw the woman on the bed and
then choked her into unconsciousness. When the woman
woke up, Abney again attacked and choked her, Trevino
said.
Finally, the prosecutor said, Abney attacked the woman with a claw hammer, striking her in the head and causing a concussion.
The woman also suffered other injuries, including a broken finger and puncture wounds to the chest, according to the prosecutor.
Trevino said investigators don't know if the puncture wounds were inflicted by the claw hammer, or possibly by another weapon.
Abney also is accused of taking the woman's car keys and
driving off in her car. She was able to call 911 and report the attack
and tell them Abney was on his way out of town.
Harbor Police traced Abney to an airliner at Lindbergh
Field where they pulled him off a plane scheduled to depart for Portland,
Trevino said.
The woman was hospitalized but has since been discharged.
Chat rooms are electronic gathering places where people
can engage in online conversations with one person or several at once.
Friendships and even marriages can result, but there
also have been cases where an on-line relationship has turned ugly when
the chatters meet face to face.
In detailing the allegations against Abney, prosecutor
Trevino also offered what is fast becoming the standard warning issued
by authorities in these kinds of cases:
Be careful about who you invite into your home. Just because
you met someone online does not preclude you from taking
defensive measures you would otherwise take when meeting
other strangers.
"People need to take the same precautions meeting people
over the Internet as they would take meeting new people in another
place," said David Rubin, a supervisor in the District
Attorney's Office.
Trevino could not say why the victim would have invited
a man she knew only through computer messages into her home for
the weekend.
"At this point, we haven't asked her why she would do something like that," she said.
However, the prosecutor said, the woman told authorities she and Abney had been getting along well.
"They had an enjoyable, relaxed and friendly weekend," she said. "And he was heading out the door" when the attack happened.
The attempted murder charge carries a maximum sentence
of life in prison. Abney entered his not guilty plea via closed-circuit
television from the Vista jail, but stayed off camera
during the brief proceeding.
Trevino said she knew little about Abney, except that
he has a federal conviction for forgery and has been discharged from the
Navy.
Copyright 1999 Union-Tribune Publishing Co