Officials probe killer's art sold online

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, May 15 (UPI) -- Manitoba is investigating if a Web site selling art by a killer who beheaded and dismembered his victim is breaking the law, Justice Department officials said.

Sydney Teerhuis, convicted in December 2008 of killing Robin Greene inside a Winnipeg, Manitoba, hotel in July 2003, received a life sentence, with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Can Art Coast to Coast, whose site shows three paintings it says Teerhuis made, describes itself as a small company that "helps local artists sell their work on the Internet," especially artwork by the homeless and the incarcerated.

Greene had been stabbed, beheaded, castrated, dismembered and disemboweled, prosecutors said.

A necklace belonging to actress Susan Sarandon stolen from the Winnipeg shoot for the 2004 film "Shall We Dance" with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez was also found at the crime scene, police said.

Teerhuis said in letters he wanted his name to go down in infamy along with serial killers he idolized such as Jeffrey Dahmer, court documents showed.

Justice officials are seeking to determine if the Can Art Coast to Coast site violated the provincial Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act, Al Cameron, manager of the province's public safety investigation unit, told Canwest News Service.

The law's intent is not to prevent criminals from expressing themselves, Cameron said. It is "to prevent them from financially exploiting the notoriety of their crime."

"There has to be a tie-in that the original crime is being exploited for that purpose," he told the news service.

This is the first investigation under the 2005 law, Cameron said.

If the law has been violated, the Justice Department can order all profits to be paid to the department, he said.