Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Richard Hernandez’s Alleged Murderer Incompetent to Stand Trial?

Richard Hernandez (l), and Seth Winder, courtesy of Dallas Voice

Richard Hernandez (l), and Seth Winder, courtesy of Dallas Voice

Denton, TX: Seth Winder, 29, prime suspect in the horrific dismemberment of out gay Dallasite, Richard Hernandez, has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial and is being remanded to a mental health facility for treatment.

silence-of-the-lambs-adv-c

Hernandez, out gay resident of a portion of far north Dallas in Denton County, was slain in a grisly, Silence-of-the-Lambs-style fashion in his apartment in early September 2008.  Investigators found tissue from Hernandez’s internal organs in a bathtub, but his body has never been found.  Informed sources speculate that his dismembered body was disposed of in a Dumpster, and subsequently buried in a landfill.

Winder was first suspected of the murder when he allegedly used debit cards belonging to Hernandez some days after the murder.  Blood-coated evidence was found by police at two campsites where Winder spent time.  They also recovered a camera in Winder’s father’s home that preserved “pornographic images” of Seth Winder in Hernandez’s apartment.

Derek Adame, Winder’s court-appointed defense attorney, told reporters that his client was being sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment because he seemed not to understand the charges against him and had trouble communicating to build a defense on his behalf.  A Denton County judge ordered the committal, finding Seth Winder mentally “incompetent with a probability of recovery.”

Winder’s father, Rodney Winder, estranged from his son because of what he described as Seth’s “schizophrenia,” says that he tried unsuccessfully to get Seth committed for years because of his behavior.  His father related Seth’s obsession with knives, and his disturbing pattern of chopping up snakes, spreading the pieces on the lawn at his father’s house.

Michel Foucault, French 20th c. philosopher

Michel Foucault, French 20th c. philosopher

Michel Foucault, the renowned French philosopher, was among the first to note the role madness plays in recent history.  In his works, Madness and Civilization, and History of Madness, Foucault makes the point that madness is a social construct reflecting each era’s notions of what is pathological.  What we call “sanity” may well be the sum of all of our societal madness.  If Seth Winder is proven to have cut Richard Hernandez to pieces, we are left to wonder what role the homophobia of church and society played in his actions.  Foucault suggests that social depravity is a perverse implantation.  As long as homophobia is part of the social fabric of American life, the line between “sane” killers of LGBT people and “insane” ones will remain blurred.

English madhouse, 18th c., by William Hogarth

English madhouse, 18th c., by William Hogarth

To his father, Seth Winder’s madness is “bona fide,” as he told the press.  To friends and relatives of Richard Hernandez, his madness is crazy like a fox. Rudy Araiza, gay longtime friend of Hernandez, told John Wright of the Dallas Voice, “I honestly believe that he knew what he was doing, and now this is his way of not paying for his actions or serving time.  This guy is just buying himself some time.”

When will Seth Winder be competent to participate in his own defense and to stand trial?  Psychiatrists will have to make that determination to the satisfaction of a judge.  This case points up the symptoms of a society so ill that it may determine an individual delusional when he dismembers a gay man, but may go on to accept the everyday irrational hatred of LGBT people as moral and sane.  Until a final judgement is made on the mental capacity of Seth Winder, there is one thing both his father and Hernandez’s friends agree upon: he must remain behind bars [Thanks to Dallas Voice journalist John Wright for fine reporting on this story].

April 27, 2009 Posted by unfinishedlives | Decapitation and dismemberment, Evisceration, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, Texas, Torture and Mutilation, gay men | | 10 Comments

Project Activity — Fall of 2008

In the fall of 2008, the Unfinished Lives Project agreed to participate in community events in Texas and North Carolina remembering victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes. In September, our project director traveled to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he served as a panelist at the Park View Project’s documentary film premier dedicated to the life of Talana Quay Kreeger. While there, Dr. Sprinkle also gave an Unfinished Lives presentation to St. Jude’s Metropolitan Community Church. October marked the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder in Laramie, Wyoming. Our project joined a Matthew Shepard remembrance held at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, and then participated in the “Hope, Not Hate” remembrance at the University of Texas in Austin. These and other project activities are included below.

September 2008 – Wilmington, North Carolina – From September 26-29, Dr. Sprinkle was the guest of Family Tree Productions, independent filmmakers creating a documentary about the life and death of Talana Quay Kreeger, 32, savagely disemboweled by long haul trucker Ronald Thomas in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1990.


Talana Quay Kreeger

(photo courtesy of Tab Ballis)


Ronald Thomas

Dr. Sprinkle keynoted the premier of the trailer of “Park View,” the film documenting Talana’s death in this North Carolina port city. Tab Ballis is the Producer/Director of “Park View,” and Linda Warden is Associate Producer/Editor.


The waterfront at Wilmington, North Carolina


Linda Warden, Steve Sprinkle, and Tab Ballis

St. Jude’s Metropolitan Community Church, pastored by Rev. Amanda McCullough, hosted the event. St. Jude’s was founded soon after Talana’s murder because LGBT people had been turned away by all but one church in Wilmington as a site for her memorial service. Gay people vowed never to be in that situation again.


St. Jude’s Metropolitan Community Church


Steve Sprinkle and Amanda McCullough

Talana was a carpenter, and a regular at the Lesbian bar, the Park View Grill, on Carolina Beach Road. She was remodeling the bar, drinking beer, and playing pool on the night of February 22, 1990 when Alabamian Ronald Thomas offered her a ride after closing hour to Hardee’s just a mile up the road to get some late night breakfast. Thomas was to drop off a load of oranges at Hoggard High next morning. Instead, he pulled his rig off the road to a remote dead end, and assaulted and raped Talana, smashing her dentures, and manually disemboweling her.


The Park View Grill


Talana Kreeger’s murder site


Details from Talana Kreeger’s autopsy report

(photo courtesy of Tab Ballis)

October 2008 – Austin, Texas – On Sunday, October 12, a coalition of Austin’s LGBTs and African Americans sponsored “Hope, Not Hate,” a public remembrance and vigil marking the 10th Anniversary of the hate killings of James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard. Our director, Dr. Sprinkle, keynoted the event at University Baptist Church exactly ten years after Byrd’s and Shepard’s hate crime murders in Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyoming, respectively.


Candlelighters at “Hope, Not Hate” in Austin, Texas


Steve Sprinkle delivers the “Hope, Not Hate” keynote address

Among the committee organizers for the “Hope, Not Hate” event were Rev. Karen Thompson, of Metropolitan Community Church in Austin; Colonel Paul Dodd, U.S. Army (ret.), of the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network; and Paul Scott, Executive Director of Equality Texas.


Steve Sprinkle, Rev. Karen Thompson, and Col. Paul Dodd


Paul Scott and Steve Sprinkle

Todd Harvey, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, has been deeply involved in the Unfinished Lives Project, and was also present for the event.


Unfinished Lives Project supporter, Todd Harvey

Better than 150 people participated in the vigil and candlelight ceremony. Together with Dr. Sprinkle, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo also made remarks at the event.


Candles in remembrance of Matthew Wayne Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.

October 2008 – Fort Worth, Texas – Rev. Harry Knox, Director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program, spoke at Brite Divinity School and TCU for the “Erase the Hate Campaign,” remembering the 10th Anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death.


Harry Knox and Brite Divinity School’s Dr. Namsoon Kang

Harry made a wonderful, powerful contribution to the equality movement on TCU’s campuses. Dr. Sprinkle served as Harry’s host and participated throughout the events of the week.


TCU’s Dr. Harriet Cohen and Harry Knox


Harry Knox and Shelly Newkirk, Vice President of the TCU Gay/Straight Alliance

November 2008 – Austin, Texas – Dr. Sprinkle was a presenter at the Open Circle GLBT Retreat held at University Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, on November 15, 2008. His presentation was “Journey of Reconciliation: Soul-Weariness.”

November 2008 – Fort Worth, Texas – Unfinished Lives project director Stephen Sprinkle spoke at the Transgender Day of Remembrance held at Agapé Metropolitan Community Church in Fort Worth, Texas, on November 20, and gave a presentation entitled “Innocent Blood: Guarding the Memories of Our Slain Transgender Sisters and Brothers.” The title and subject of the presentation was inspired by an Icon written by Fr. William Hart McNichols, entitled Jesus Christ: the Seraphic Guardian of the Blood, and dedicated to Petty Officer Allen Schindler and the Thousands of Victims of anti-LGBT Hate Crimes.


Jesus Christ: the Seraphic Guardian of the Blood

by Fr. William Hart McNichols

December 8, 2008 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Art and Architecture, Asian Americans, Evisceration, Lesbian women, North Carolina, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Popular Culture, Project Activity Summaries, Remembrances, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, Wyoming, gay men | | No Comments Yet