Walter Harlan "Mike" Echols (April 1, 1944 – January 10, 2003) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author who wrote several books, mainly dealing with child sexual abuse

Child sexual abuse

Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...

. His books include I Know My First Name Is Steven, which chronicles the story of Steven Stayner

Steven Stayner

Steven Gregory Stayner was an American kidnap victim. Stayner was abducted from the Northern California city and county of Merced, California at the age of seven and held until he was 14, when he escaped and rescued another victim, Timothy White, in 1980...

, and Brother Tony's Boys, which tells the story of Brother Tony Leyva

Brother Tony Leyva

Mario Ivan "Tony" Leyva Jr., most commonly known as Brother Tony Leyva, was a Pentecostal preacher and convicted pederast and child molester. His crimes are covered in Mike Echols' book Brother Tony's Boys: The Largest Case of Child Prostitution in U.S. History: The True Story.-Biography:Mario...

, a Pentecostal revivalist preacher and pederast.

Echols infiltrated NAMBLA and wrote of his experience in I Know My First Name is Steven. He published the names and addresses of 80 members on his website.

Echols was known for researching the Internet for pedophile chat room

Chat room

The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...

s and forums. There he would post comments considered rude and harassing, and often publicly "outed" pedophiles' and ephebophiles'

Ephebophilia

Ephebophilia is the sexual preference of adults for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid 20th century, and has been more recently revisited by Ray Blanchard. It is one of a number of sexual preferences across age groups subsumed...

 real identities. Echols created a website called Better a Millstone, for the purpose of organizing his attacks against pedophile and ephebophile activism. After his death in 2003, Better a Millstone survived for a year and eventually folded. The site's name is a biblical reference:

It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
—Luke 17:2

Mike Echols died in 2003 at age 58 in the Monterey County

Monterey County, California

Monterey County is a county located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, its northwestern section forming the southern half of Monterey Bay. The northern half of the bay is in Santa Cruz County. As of 2010, the population was 415,057. The county seat and largest city is Salinas...

 Jail in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 from a pulmonary embolism

Pulmonary embolism

Pulmonary embolism is a blockage of the main artery of the lung or one of its branches by a substance that has travelled from elsewhere in the body through the bloodstream . Usually this is due to embolism of a thrombus from the deep veins in the legs, a process termed venous thromboembolism...

. He was in jail for failing to appear in court after being charged with indecent exposure

Indecent exposure

Indecent exposure is the deliberate exposure in public or in view of the general public by a person of a portion or portions of his or her body, in circumstances where the exposure is contrary to local moral or other standards of appropriate behavior. Indecent exposure laws vary in different...

, among other crimes.