This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor,"December 4, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Back of the Book" segment, a group called FamilyWatchdog.US lists information about convicted sex offenders on its Web site. On November 14, William Thornton from Idaho who was convicted of lewdness involving a child, left this message on the organization's voicemail:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
WILLIAM THORNTON, CONVICTED OF LEWDNESS WITH CHILD: You (expletive deleted), you have me listed down as being a child molester. My problem was with a teenager, not a child, a teenager. But you've got me on a red dot.
I'm going to go down to your business. I'm going to burn the whole (expletive deleted) place to the ground. Grrrrr! And I know where you live. I'm going to take your (expletive deleted) house and burn it down, too (expletive deleted)!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: All right. Joining us now from Louisville, Kentucky, is Steve Odell the president of Family Watchdog. — That's a crime, what he just did.
STEVE RODDEL, PRESIDENT, FAMILY WATCHDOG.US: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: So what did you do after you got the tape?
RODDEL: We just — we bundled it up, Bill, and we called the — called the local police epartment and had them come out and they took a report. And you know, they — we let the law enforcement handle it.
O'REILLY: OK. Now what — have they charged him? Has he been arrested? Do you know where the disposition of the case is right now?
RODDEL: The last I was told, they were still trying to make contact with him.
O'REILLY: They don't know where he is?
RODDEL: I think that they called his house, because he — he was, either fortunate for us or unfortunate for him, but he made the call from his home phone.
O'REILLY: Yes, this guy is obviously unhinged and, you know, you've got to watch guys like this.
RODDEL: Oh, absolutely.
O'REILLY: Because anybody who would do this from his home phone — this, that and the other thing. Now, do you know what he did? He was convicted with lewdness with a child under 16. Do you know what he did?
RODDEL: What I understand is that it was a — he had some sort of an encounter with a teenage male that was under 16.
O'REILLY: OK. So he's claiming that it wasn't a child, you know, the usual.
RODDEL: Right.
O'REILLY: You guys here at Family Watchdog, I mean, you're doing this to every convicted sex offender in the USA. You're listing where they live and who they are and what they did.
RODDEL: Yes. What we're doing is we're capturing all the information that the states provide. So if a state puts information out about sex offenders in that state, then we make that information available. Some of them we aren't able to put out because the state doesn't make that information available.
O'REILLY: Yes, some states won't, but most states will now. So you're like a centralized agency. If I want to know if there's a sex offender in my neighborhood, I go to your Web site, and I punch in where I live or my ZIP code or however you do it and then it pops up where everybody lives and what they did? Is that it?
RODDEL: Absolutely. And one of the benefits to FamilyWatchdog.US is we see offenders across state lines. So when an offender moves from one state to another, we're able to see that offender and actually map them in their new state if they've been registered in the old state.
So even if the new state doesn't show that offender, the fact that the old state showed them means that their neighbors, their new neighbors still have access and can still see that offender.
O'REILLY: Now Vermont and other states don't cooperate at all. Which state do you think is the worst? Did you make...
RODDEL: The absolute worst, Bill, is Minnesota. Minnesota has over 14,000 registered sex offenders, and they put 104 of them on their public registry.
O'REILLY: And the rest of them, [they] don't know where they are. Can't get information?
RODDEL: No. The state has decided that they're not a sufficient threat to make their information available to the public.
O'REILLY: Ahh. So the state decided that?
RODDEL: Yes. And if you do the math on that, that's almost one percent of their male adult population is sex offenders.
O'REILLY: OK. But that's a restorative justice state, just like Vermont is.
RODDEL: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: That the — OK. We don't want to get into that now. Mr. Roddel, listen, track this guy, you know, stay safe. Because again, these guys, they're — you know, anything can happen. So we'll follow up. Let us know what happens.
RODDEL: All right. Thanks a lot, Bill.
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