In 1989 Westley Allan Dodd kidnapped, sexually molested, strangled and then hanged 4-year-old Lee Iseli. That same year he stabbed two other young boys to death in a park. This Christmas, as children decorated trees and waited for Santa Claus, I interviewed Dodd while he waited to be hanged in Walla Walla State Penitentiary.

Westley Allan Dodd became famous on a nationally televised show entitled "Monsters Among Us." On the show Dodd described himself as having been "born without feelings . . . . Maybe it's my birth defect."

During the seven-hour interview, I learned a lot about the monster with no feelings, much of it surprising.

I was surprised that the mundane details Dodd offered of his behavior as a child molester seemed more frightening than the gross details of his murders. Dodd told me that-like Willie Sutton, who robbed banks because "that's where the money is"-he often attended Disney movies because "that's where the children go."

I was surprised by how much contempt Dodd had for a criminal justice system that, until he actually committed murder, treated his sexual offenses lightly. He had first exposed himself to younger kids when he was 13 and, though caught, suffered no consequences. "I really don't know why it started, but I see why it progressed," he said. "Exposing myself wasn't exciting any more. I got away with it. So I said, `Well, I need to be touched.' After that I needed to touch someone else. And things kept building. At the same time, the police kept saying, `OK, thanks for confessing. Now go home and leave us alone.' So I got the idea that nobody cared what I did."

Once in prison, Dodd cooperated with the families of his victims in a lawsuit against various political entities for letting him get away with so much. "I think state agencies should be held accountable for their incompetence. If you add up all the prison time I was given but never made to serve, I'd be in prison until 2026. . .and those boys would still be alive."

Although the criminal justice system failed to stop him, several children had. In his prison cell Dodd wrote a nine-page pamphlet called "When You Meet a Stranger," advising children on the power they possessed.

The pamphlet begins, "My name is Wes. . . . I am a stranger to you. I am the kind of stranger you should stay away from. . . . We can be nice to you, and maybe give you money or play games with you, or we might be very mean. When we are nice, it is so we can trick you into doing something bad." The pamphlet is divided into sections subtitled, "RUN!," "SCREAM!," "YELL!" and "BE A HERO!"

Dodd mentioned with pride that some parents had written to thank him for writing the pamphlet, and that some teachers were using it in their classrooms. Some, however, had questioned his motives. " `You're just a killer. Why do you care?' they ask me. I don't know what to say."

In recalling his own childhood, Dodd's voice revealed an edge of bitterness. "All I can say is I grew up in a house that only had roommates. There was no family. . . . People ask me about my mother and I can't tell them anything about her because I don't know her."

Did he ever cry? "I've cried for the boys I killed. Sometimes I think back and just start crying. Half the time I don't know why." But, Dodd insisted, "I never really feel pain."

Yet, while in prison, Dodd had become preoccupied with donating his organs to the living. Because the American Medical Association prohibits doctors from participating in executions, condemned prisoners are effectively prohibited from making such gifts.

After a television appearance in which he offered his organs, Dodd struck up a correspondence with a woman whose father had died for lack of a kidney. The woman's son, an 8-year-old named Noah, also began writing to Dodd.

The child, whose father left him when he was very small, had grown to love him, Dodd said. Last year Noah sent him a Father's Day card which Dodd had put on his wall. "Noah doesn't want me to die," Dodd said.

But Wes Dodd insisted on dying and had refused all appeals. "Getting everything over with will be a relief. I never had any reason to live. When I look in the mirror, I see someone who destroyed a lot of kids and a lot of families. And I destroyed myself."

If death didn't scare him, what did?

"Feelings." Dodd paused. "The feeling that I might kill again. It's a real struggle. World War III is going on inside me. I'm not sure how I feel or how I'm supposed to feel." For the first time in the interview, Dodd's flat monotone broke.

" I think about Noah. I love that kid. He's the same age Lee (Iseli) would be now . . ." Dodd's voice trailed off.

"Is that why you want to die?" I asked.

"I just want to make the pain go away. Make the pain go away."

Then, to my surprise, the monster put his head down and wept.