AUGUSTA – Even as police were verifying Monday that the man who shot two sex offenders found their names and addresses on the state’s online sex offender registry, legislators who helped create the registry said its benefit to the public far outweighs the potential harm to convicted offenders.

“People in communities all over the state have the right to know when a sexual predator is moving into their community,” said Rep. Pat Blanchette, D-Bangor, co-chairman of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. “Once you are convicted of a crime, it is a public record. I am concerned, a little worried, that they shut down this registry because of these murders.”

Maine’s sex offender registry was inaccessible online for about a day and a half as investigators probed any link between Stephen A. Marshall, the suspected gunman from Canada, and the victims who were shot to death Sunday at their homes about 20 miles apart.

The two victims – Joseph L. Gray, 57, of Milo and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth – were among 34 names Marshall, of Nova Scotia, had looked up on the state Web site, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The Web site was taken offline temporarily as experts with the state’s Computer Crimes Task Force investigated and determined that Marshall had visited the sex registry site because he typed in his name to receive extra information, including street addresses, according to McCausland. The Web site was restored by early Monday afternoon.

In some cases, the task force has been able to track down the location from which a computer was used to gain access to a Web site and what information was viewed or downloaded. McCausland said he had no further information on what investigators uncovered.

Officials in Boston, where Marshall committed suicide Sunday night after being cornered by police, found a laptop computer and two handguns on the bus he rode from Bangor.

All states have sex offender registries, and almost all of them post the information online. In Maine, the sex offender registry is designed to let people know of child molesters and other sex offenders in their midst. The Maine online registry provides a photo of each of the more than 2,200 convicted sex offenders in the state. Each listing contains the offender’s name, the town of residence, date of birth and place of employment. More detailed information, such as a home street address, can be obtained if the computer user types in his own name and address to get it.

Gray was included on the Maine registry because he was convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault on a child under the age of 14 before he moved to Maine, McCausland said. Elliott has a conviction in Maine for having sex with an underage girl, he said.

Public Safety Commissioner Mike Cantara said Monday there was a discussion before the sex registry Web site was taken offline, with officials weighing the need to do a thorough analysis and “mining of data” with the loss of public access to the Web site for as long as it took to complete the probe.

“We took it down to allow a forensic investigation in this case,” Cantara said. “It’s not unlike how we would handle a crime scene at a town hall where we would have to stop public access until we completed the investigation.”

Cantara said he fully supports the state posting the sex offender registry online as a matter of public safety.

But similar cases in other states have raised concerns about such sex offender registries being made available online.

A Web site in the state of Washington was used to identify two convicted child rapists who were murdered last summer by a man posing as an FBI agent. The killer pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced to more than 44 years in prison.

Sen. Dean Clukey, R-Houlton, who serves on the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee with Blanchette, agrees with her that the Web site provides information that can protect the public from sexual predators.

“I think the safety of the children in the state far outweighs the risk,” he said Monday. “I think it is a very good tool for the public, and I wouldn’t want to see it down for long.”

Blanchette said the legislative panel spent several meetings over the last year looking at the issue of how to deal with sex offenders and protect the public from repeat offenders.

“I do think we need to look at how we list offenders,” she said. “There is a big difference between sexual predators and what I call hormonal offenders.”

She explained that consensual sexual acts between 18- and 16-year-olds, for example, are illegal and wrong but are far different from the violent, repeat rapist or sex predatorwho preys on children. Under current state law, however, such offenders also are listed on the registry.

“I think that is worth looking at,” Clukey agreed. “We need to focus our efforts on protecting our kids.”

Blanchette said the Legislature just last month directed the Department of Corrections to review how sex offender cases are handled in Maine and to examine the possibility of creating a “Forensic Board” composed of psychiatric experts to assess the potential danger jailed sex offenders might pose to the public upon their release.

“As part of that the department should take a look at how we operate the registry,” she said.

The results of the department’s review will have to be considered by the next Legislature, whose members will be elected in November.