HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Readers from around the country are weighing in on the local crime drama surrounding two reportedly gay men accused of involving a son in child pornography.
Carl Philip Herold Bond Hearing 12.17.13
Carl Philip Herold, 32, faces charges of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, allowing his child to be depicted in pornography, sodomy, sexual abuse and aggravated child abuse. He showed up for trial Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 17, after a judge raised Herold's bond to $1 million cash. (Sarah Cole/scole@al.com)
The story, which surfaced weeks ago, gained a larger audience the past few days after a Madison County judge raised the bonds of the accused, Carl Philip Herold and Charles Dunnavant, to $1 million.
Herold, 32, faces charges of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, allowing his child to be depicted in pornography, sodomy, sexual abuse and aggravated child abuse. District Judge Alison Austin issued a similar order Monday raising to $1 million the bond against Dunnavant, identified as Herold's domestic partner and suspected partner in the alleged crimes.
Herold left Wyoming to come to Huntsville earlier this year. He teaches a series of free interactive online programming classes and tutorials for beginners called, Computer Science for Everyone. His site on reddit.com, CarlHProgramming shows he has 14,581 readers. He also has dozens of instructional videos posted on his YouTube channel, Carl Herold, which has nearly 5,000 subscribers.
Some readers posted comments on the YouTube videos to voice anger or simply post links to articles warning about the criminal charges he faces. For example, Liam Teague, wrote: "This man is a sick paedophile who abused his own son and filmed it for a child pornography ring. Letting an older man have sex with his son. BE AWARE".
The site apparently was not updated for a while, but a user identified as "Muffinut," issued a statement on reddit.com, saying he realized a lot of people depended on the instructional videos, so he is trying to preserve the Website,
www.computerscienceforeveryone.com. He wrote the following:
"A few people have messaged me with their intent to entirely abandon Carl's lessons and ignore his worth as a human being, and considering these words and the general situation, in an act of good faith, I think it's best to keep Carl's lessons alive and ignore the situation for the time being until a verdict has been reached. There is no point in a witch hunt."
One of the site's followers, symbiosychotic, who expressed alarm at the "unexpected" reports, wrote ". . . the content's value is not connected to the moral worth of the human being who created it. Many great figures from history contributed incredible value to humankind, while in their time being known as some of the most worthless (expletive) to walk the Earth, had you interacted with them in person."
The AL.com article had drawn more than 250,000 page views early Thursday night and was averaging more than 1,000 new views every 10 minutes for much of Thursday before tapering off after 6 p.m. It has been reposted on Huffington Post, New York Daily News, WorldNetDaily and scores of other online news outlets.
Many readers of the story have declared outrage over what Herold and Dunnavant were accused of perpetrating. Many debate whether homosexuality is the ultimate culprit for the alleged crimes. Some have suggested proper punishment for such a crime, with several saying the death penalty would be too lenient. A few are urging people to put aside their eagerness to punish and think of how to help victims of pedophilia.
As for the charges, during the bond hearing Huntsville Police Department investigator Chad Smith testified investigators came across numerous photos depicting sexual torture involving a child. He said investigators had an interview with the child, now 9, and he led investigators to his father. Herold spoke to investigators for several hours, Smith said, and implicated Dunnavant. Dunnavant faces charges including sexual torture, sodomy, aggravated child abuse and transmitting or exposing a person to a sexually transmitted disease.
Smith also testified the child did not attend school in Huntsville and investigators could find no medical records for the child.
