Spam King 'goes postal' on own family

The tragic but now familiar story of disgruntled US postal workers unloading the contents of machine-guns into their colleagues heads and chests while lobbing grenades about the office took a bizarre twist yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa when it spread to the world of the Internet. Herman Gothlicks, a Spam e-mailer who referred to himself as 'The Net's Friendly Postman', was arrested after four members of his family were found murdered in his caravan.

The victims of the apparently motiveless crime were Mr Gothlicks' wife, aunt, uncle and grandmother, who had all been living with him and his children for the past year. Neighbours said that they saw no unusual signs as Mr Gothlick had been following his normal routine that morning of sending thousands of e-mails to complete strangers offering to extend their penises or make them stay harder for longer. Then there had been four loud bangs followed by screams.

Police were called to the address, but Mr Gothlicks had already fled to a nearby outhouse. A stand-off ensued, but the 500lb Mr Gothlicks emerged after three hours as he could no longer stand the gnawing hunger.

As he was dragged away in handcuffs, an eye-witness overheard him tell police: 'They drove me to it...sending me hateful e-mails and making threatening phone calls...suburban Moms protesting outside my house and throwing things at my kids...trying to sue me and shut down my business...they made me do it...I couldn't take the stress anymore...they could have just pressed delete like all the rest...'