HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Readers from around the country are weighing in on the local crime drama surrounding two reportedly gay men accused of involving a son in child pornography.

Carl Philip Herold, 32, faces charges of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, allowing his child to be depicted in pornography, sodomy, sexual abuse and aggravated child abuse. He showed up for trial Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 17, after a judge raised Herold's bond to $1 million cash. (Sarah Cole/scole@al.com)

The story, which surfaced weeks ago, gained a larger audience the past few days after a Madison County judge raised the bonds of the accused, Carl Philip Herold and Charles Dunnavant, to $1 million.

Herold, 32, faces charges of producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, allowing his child to be depicted in pornography, sodomy, sexual abuse and aggravated child abuse. District Judge Alison Austin issued a similar order Monday raising to $1 million the bond against Dunnavant, identified as Herold's domestic partner and suspected partner in the alleged crimes.

Herold left Wyoming to come to Huntsville earlier this year. He teaches a series of free interactive online programming classes and tutorials for beginners called, Computer Science for Everyone. His site on reddit.com, CarlHProgramming shows he has 14,581 readers. He also has dozens of instructional videos posted on his YouTube channel, Carl Herold, which has nearly 5,000 subscribers.

Some readers posted comments on the YouTube videos to voice anger or simply post links to articles warning about the criminal charges he faces. For example, Liam Teague, wrote: "This man is a sick paedophile who abused his own son and filmed it for a child pornography ring. Letting an older man have sex with his son. BE AWARE".

The site apparently was not updated for a while, but a user identified as "Muffinut," issued a statement on reddit.com, saying he realized a lot of people depended on the instructional videos, so he is trying to preserve the Website, www.computerscienceforeveryone.com. He wrote the following:

"A few people have messaged me with their intent to entirely abandon Carl's lessons and ignore his worth as a human being, and considering these words and the general situation, in an act of good faith, I think it's best to keep Carl's lessons alive and ignore the situation for the time being until a verdict has been reached. There is no point in a witch hunt."

One of the site's followers, symbiosychotic, who expressed alarm at the "unexpected" reports, wrote ". . . the content's value is not connected to the moral worth of the human being who created it. Many great figures from history contributed incredible value to humankind, while in their time being known as some of the most worthless (expletive) to walk the Earth, had you interacted with them in person."

The AL.com article had drawn more than 250,000 page views early Thursday night and was averaging more than 1,000 new views every 10 minutes for much of Thursday before tapering off after 6 p.m. It has been reposted on Huffington Post, New York Daily News, WorldNetDaily and scores of other online news outlets.

Many readers of the story have declared outrage over what Herold and Dunnavant were accused of perpetrating. Many debate whether homosexuality is the ultimate culprit for the alleged crimes. Some have suggested proper punishment for such a crime, with several saying the death penalty would be too lenient. A few are urging people to put aside their eagerness to punish and think of how to help victims of pedophilia.

As for the charges, during the bond hearing Huntsville Police Department investigator Chad Smith testified investigators came across numerous photos depicting sexual torture involving a child. He said investigators had an interview with the child, now 9, and he led investigators to his father. Herold spoke to investigators for several hours, Smith said, and implicated Dunnavant. Dunnavant faces charges including sexual torture, sodomy, aggravated child abuse and transmitting or exposing a person to a sexually transmitted disease.

Smith also testified the child did not attend school in Huntsville and investigators could find no medical records for the child.

The following are examples of the reaction from around the country.

AL.com, 130 comments

ASharpton782 -- All gays are deviant.....that is not up for debate...God settled it It gets back to the Bible......Do you beleive what God says about gays in Romans 1? Or do you know better than God does? History bears out that once homosexuality takes root in a society, then end of that societys prominence is very near (see Rome). Truth is a very difficult thing to accept for those who have not humbled themselves before Almighty God of the Bible.

mltiger1 -- I think it's very sad that this thread degenerated into an "All gays are bad" thread. Clearly, any man who would not only subject a child to sexual torture but have no hesitation in torturing his OWN child is evil incarnate. Don't blame gay people for this POS. I'll be interested to read about what sort of life Herold was running from in Wyoming. Poor, poor child. How can he ever recover and love and trust again? Where is his Mom?

New York Daily News, 76 comments

-- If true, there is no punishment too cruel for these two creeps.

mgraber1234 -- When in God's name are crimes like these going to become a capital offense? Why is this kind of crime never a topic of politicians when they are running for office? This 9 year old boy is one of probably millions of kids. What they are doing is 1000 times worse than murder. Truly. Just off these animals already.

Huffington Post, 82 comments

No Qixie (NOQixie) -- Putting aside my abhorrence of what these men did to an innocent child, I have to say that it is good these stories are getting press coverage. I mean, if it makes one person think twice about acting out their sick fantasies. This sort of behavior has been going on for-ever - now the word can get out and the word is (to me) that really no one should trust any one alone with their child(ren). Sad, I know, but true.

Charlene J

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-- I'm so tired of these sick stories. so tired of these depraved 'individuals' What is this thing we call ourselves. human. If this is a human, count me out.

WorldNewsDaily, 31 comments

GrantLV --Anybody with an education, which is nobody who follows this paper, knows that the rate of pedophilia is the same for straights and gays. Pedophilia is a serious crime and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, no matter who does it.

Jose P -- A & E soon to give him million dollar contract to replace Duck Dynasty?



GregoryH -- There are all sorts of defects people can have that don't make them bad people. For example, an innocent child can get cancer. We still love and accept them, but nobody goes around trying to convince people that a child's brain cancer is "normal." Now consider homosexuality. Putting a penis in a vagina can create a baby. Putting a penis in an alimentary canal apparently creates a world wide pandemic that kills millions of people. I still love and accept gay people, but it strikes me as insane to try to convince the world that homosexuality is "normal." It is not normal, it is a human defect. It doesn't make them bad people, but it is not "normal."