Child Killer's Journal Could Keep Him Confined

March 16, 2011— -- Rhode Island prosecutors and prison officials are using a convicted child killer's gruesome journals to make the case that he should be involuntarily committed if he is granted early release from prison this summer.

Michael Woodmansee, 52, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after he reached a plea deal in the murder of a 5-year-old boy. But because of a law that allows prisoners to have time shaved off their sentence for good behavior, Woodmansee could be released this summer, after serving just 28 years of his sentence.

The possible early release has caused outrage in Rhode Island, and the young victim's father even said he would kill Woodmansee if he is released in August.

On Monday, the South Kingstown Police Department handed over Woodmansee's private journal pages to the Rhode Island Department of Corrections as part of the effort to keep Woodmansee from becoming a free man.

Two court-ordered psychiatrists will read the journal, conduct face-to-face interviews and review Woodmansee's voluminous prison records before making independent recommendations to the Department of Corrections.

The journal contains descriptions relating to the brutal murder of 5-year-old Jason Foreman that are so graphic, the court ordered the journal sealed when Woodmansee was sentenced in 1983.

"It is a booklet, several pages in length. It is written in paragraph form," said South Kingstown Police Chief Vincent Vespia, one of only a handful of people who have read it. "I will not tell you what was in it, but I will tell you that it was a horrible, horrible crime, among the most gruesome investigations I have ever participated in and I've been around the block a few times."

The victim's father, John Foreman, said the police have told him that Woodmansee describes in the journal how he had "stripped the bones" and "eaten my son's flesh."