CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – An Internet information broker has agreed to pay $85,000 to a Nashua woman who sued the company over her daughter’s murder.

Amy Boyer, 20, was leaving work in October 1999 when she was shot to death by a former high school classmate who then killed himself.

Liam Youens, who chronicled his obsession with Boyer and his plot to kill her on a Web site, had paid Docusearch Inc., about $150 to get her Social Security number and other information, including her work address.

Docusearch claimed none of the information it provided was private, but Helen Remsburg sued the Ashburn, Va., company in U.S. District Court four years ago, arguing it invaded her daughter’s privacy and broke other laws in helping Youens find her.

Tim Remsburg, Amy’s stepfather, said he and his wife wanted their day in court but grew frustrated with the court system. “This has never been about money,” he said Wednesday. “There’s just so many things that are still wrong, but we had to make a decision. We needed to get our lives back and focus on putting this behind us a little bit.”

Remsburg said the couple will continue to honor Amy’s memory by spreading her story to the public and policy makers. And he believes the lawsuit, though it never went to trial, received enough publicity that information brokers such as Docusearch now think twice about selling private information.

The family accomplished part of its goal when the state Supreme Court ruled last year that private investigators or information brokers have legal obligations to people whose information it sells.

“Information brokers such as Docusearch will have to pay attention to whom they are providing people’s private information,” said David Gottesman, the couple’s lawyer. “We have said from the beginning that Docusearch laid a red carpet for Mr. Youens right to Amy’s place of employment, and she never knew it was coming.”

Gottesman argued that Docusearch should have notified Boyer that Youens was requesting the information, and made sure he had a legitimate reason for seeking it. But Docusearch said it would have a duty to someone whose information it sells only if it knew the sale would increase the risk of a violent attack. A lawyer for the company did not return a phone call Wednesday.

Helen Remsburg urged parents to remain vigilant about information on the Internet that might put their children at risk.

“If only we had typed our daughter’s name into any search engine, the Amy Boyer Web site that was posted by her killer would have come up, and we could have called the police,” she said in a statement. “This may never have happened.”

AP-ES-03-10-04 1515EST



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