Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Lesbian Sister Threatened With “Execution” For Going Home On Christmas

Gordon Bissonnette, 46, threatened to murder his lesbian sister if she went to their mother's home on Christmas. He is now in custody.

Gordon Bissonnette, 46, threatened to murder his lesbian sister if she went to their mother’s home on Christmas. He is now in custody.

Plainville, Connecticut – A homophobic man has been arrested for repeatedly threatening to kill his lesbian sister on Christmas Day.  Gordon Bissonnette, 46, of Plainville, Connecticut was reported to local police in the early hours of Christmas by his mother, according to Gay Star News.  Clelie Bissonnette said her son had sworn to kill her lesbian daughter Corinne if she came to the holiday gathering at her home.  His brother, Brian, also went to police with eight voicemails from Gordon recorded since the beginning of December, in which the 46-year-old said he would “execute” is sister if he saw her on Christmas.

Among the messages threatening to murder his sister, Gordon Bissonnette allegedly said:

“If she [expletive deleted] with my child again, I will execute her myself,” he said, according to the police report.

“Corinne, if she goes against me, there will be bullets flying. She cannot talk to me. I wanna execute her. I will kill a gay.”

He allegedly added: “I’ll put a bullet in both [Corinne’s and her spouse’s] heads. If they turn my daughter gay, I’m gonna kill them both. I’m gonna blow their brains out.”

According to FoxCT.com, Bissonnette believed his 18-year-old daughter was being adversely influenced by his sister and her spouse.  

In yet another message, according to EDGE On The Net, Bissonnette declares that he is at “war” with his sister over her homosexuality, and asks his brother to help “destroy” their sister Corinne’s  Christmas.  

Investigators reported to the press that Bissonnette admitted to the voicemails, but claimed he didn’t recall making them because of his heavy drinking.  The police report also details how Bissonnette confessed to planning a smoke bomb attack on the home of his sister and her spouse during the holidays to cause them “to freak out.”  Bissonnette is charged with second-degree intimidation, second-degree threatening and second-degree harassment. He is being held on $75,000 bond, pending trial in Bristol Superior Court on January 24.  

December 27, 2013 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Christmas, Connecticut, death threats, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, Slurs and epithets, women | , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lesbian Sister Threatened With “Execution” For Going Home On Christmas

Marine Murdered in Possible Anti-Gay Hate Crime

Philip Bushong, 23, called homophobic slur and stabbed to death by a fellow U.S. Marine

Washington, D.C. – A U.S. Marine was attacked and stabbed through the heart by a fellow Marine who allegedly ignited the fight by calling him an anti-gay slur.  Philip Bushong, 23, was fatally stabbed with a pocket knife on Saturday in the Barracks Row section of D.C. by 20-year-old Michael Poth, according to reports in WTNH News. Gravely wounded, Bushong was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died about an hour later. The stabbing took place near the Marine Barracks and the home of the U.S. Marines Commandant–a bustling section of the U.S. Capitol with shops, restaurants, and residences that is normally thought to be safe because of its proximity to the military barracks.

Witnesses told DC police that Poth called Bushong the homophobic slur as the two Marines passed each other on the sidewalk at about 2:40 a.m., according to the Washington Post.  Bushong, who apparently had never met Poth, took exception to the slur, and the fight erupted in front of a sporting goods store. The DC Metro Police are taking the lead on the investigation of Bushong’s murder, assisted by the Naval Crime Investigative Service.  Poth was charged Monday with second degree murder, according to WJLA News 7. Bail was denied at the request of representatives of the Marine Corps, and Poth will go to court the next time on May 15. Defense attorneys allege self-defense on their client’s part. When Poth was arrested by Marine guards and told that Bushong was on his way to the hospital, he allegedly told them, “Good! I hope he dies!” Carolyn Eaves, a worker a block away from the scene of the crime, told News 7, “Sad. Two families… now destroyed “We have to learn not to call people names, you know. Got to be on our Ps and Qs all the time. Sad.”

Because of the report of the homophobic slur, hate crimes protocols are being observed in the investigation, and the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the Metro Police have been brought in.  The Advocate reports that OutServe, the first openly gay and lesbian active duty military advocacy organization in the nation, issued a statement on the killing over the weekend.  In part, the statement reads: “We are troubled by the specter that this might have been a hate crime; if so, we anticipate the authorities will pursue it to the fullest extent of the law. This is particularly upsetting since, overall, gay and lesbian Marines have been accepted and treated equally in the force since repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ We look forward to the results of a swift and thorough investigation of this tragic incident.” 

Bushong, a Marine since 2007, was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.  A native of Enfield, Connecticut, he was described by friends and fellow Marines as a fun-loving person who enjoyed his life. Funeral arrangements in Connecticut have not been released to the public at the time of this report.

Hate speech has the capacity to inflame young men, in particular. What prompted one Marine to sling an anti-gay epithet at the other is not known, but neither young man is believed to be gay. The language of violence attached to homophobia is still strong enough to infuriate people like no other speech in our time, and turn otherwise sensible people into combatants, as in this awful case in the nation’s capitol. The Marines have traditionally been felt to have a higher degree of homophobia than the other armed forces, but recent accounts seemed to indicate that the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was going well in the Corps. It seems there is much work left to do, however, until young men like these no longer feel that accusations of homosexuality are intolerable to their manhood.

April 24, 2012 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Connecticut, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Metropolitan Police (D.C.), OutServe, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings, U.S. Marines, Washington, D.C. | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Marine Murdered in Possible Anti-Gay Hate Crime

Gay Panic Murder of Homeless Disabled Man in Connecticut

Matthew O'Brien-Veader, on trial for the brutal murder of a homeless disabled man he believed made a sexual advance toward him.

Waterbury, Connecticut – Police officials say that a Waterbury man savagely murdered a homeless disabled man living in the same abandoned factory because of an alleged sexual advance.  Matthew O’Brien-Veader, 23, took shelter in the derelict warehouse along with his alleged victim, 39-year-old Joed Olivera, in June 2009.  During his sleep, O’Brien-Veader believed that the older disabled man attempted to have sex with him, and flew into a homophobic rage, according to the Republican American. Police arrested O’Brien-Veader June 12, 2009, and charged him with the grisly murder. He was bound over for trial in superior court, which finally began in Waterbury this week after a series of delays.

Court documents say that O’Brien-Veader attempted to throw Olivera down a flight of stairs, beat Olivera with his own pair of crutches until they shattered, and then repeatedly stabbed him with a dagger before throwing Olivera’s body through a jagged hole in the floor to the room below.  Others in the factory found Olivera’s body atop a jagged pile of junk, covered with a piece of plywood. One man who saw the mangled body of the homeless victim was so disturbed by the scene that he testified in in Waterbury Superior Court Tuesday to running out of the building and smoking marijuana to calm his nerves. O’Brien-Veader’s friend, Jason Benoit, testified that O’Brien-Veader had a deep aversion to LGBTQ people, and had told him that all gay people should be rounded up and dropped on a deserted island. According to the Hartford Courant, the defendant could receive a life sentence if found guilty.

O’Brien-Veader sat quietly beside his attorney as the case, postponed until over two years after the homicide, unfolded in the Waterbury courtroom. By invoking the gay panic defense, suggesting that the victim was responsible for his own murder, the defense hopes to cloud the minds of jurors enough to lighten the sentence, should their client be found guilty.  The recent King-McInerney gay killing in Oxnard, California gave the gay panic defense new life in American courts.  Defense attorneys for McInerney, a teen who confessed to the execution-style shooting of his teenaged gay classmate, Larry King, in front of a room full of witnesses, argued that unwanted sexual advances pushed McInerney to pull the trigger.  The ploy succeeded in reducing the conviction from murder to manslaughter.  O’Brien-Veader’s defense team is hoping that enough residual heterosexism and homophobia exists in jurors to bring a similar result for their client.

January 5, 2012 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, Connecticut, gay panic defense, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, LGBTQ, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, stabbings | , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

   

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