For Courageous Mothers of LGBT Murder Victims, There is No Closure

Pat and Lynn Mulder at USF, Stephen Coddington photo for the Times
Families of LGBT hate crimes murder victims are on the front lines of grief and loss when a homophobic attack takes the life of someone they love. This is especially true of their mothers. That powerful truth was driven home for me again by learning of Pat and Lynn Mulder’s courageous appearance at the Hate Crimes Awareness Summit held this week at the University of South Florida. Pat shared the story of how her beloved son, Ryan Keith Skipper, lived and died at the hands of brutal, anti-gay attackers in rural Polk County Florida on March 14, 2007. The popular 25-year-old Skipper was stabbed over 19 times, and left to bleed out on a lonely dirt road in Wahneta, a rural town in the Winter Haven region. One of his murderers, Joseph “Smiley” Bearden has been sentenced to life without parole earlier this year, and a second alleged killer, William D. “Bill Bill” Brown is to stand trial on October 12. Reporting on the Summit, Alexandra Zayas of the St. Petersburg Times, relates how Pat had to overcome her reluctance and nervousness about speaking in front of crowds about the worst tragedy in her family’s history. “The worst thing in the world that can happen to you has already happened. There’s nothing else to be afraid of.” Speaking with passion and the conviction that no family should ever have to endure what hers has, Pat and her husband Lynn have tirelessly reached out to others bereaved by unreasoning hatred. Barely a year after her son’s murder, Pat traveled to Fort Lauderdale to see Denise King, mother of African American youth Simmie Williams, Jr., who was shot for being transgender by attackers who have not yet been identified or apprehended. At at town hall meeting dedicated to the memory of 17-year-old Williams, Pat introduced herself to Mrs. King as Ryan’s mother, and enfolded her in an embrace that King later said was deeply meaningful to her. Speaking to the Times about that moment, Pat said, “It’s beyond being women. It’s beyond being different races, different backgrounds. It has nothing to do with that. It’s the hearts of two mothers,” Pat said. “For a moment, there’s someone who’s helping you hold up your pain.” The real unsung heroes of the effort to win passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act are women like Pat Mulder and Denise King who became “accidental activists” for the sake of their children who died so senselessly. Elke Kennedy, mother of Greenville, SC victim, Sean William Kennedy, Pauline Mitchell, mother of Navajo two-spirit son, F.C. Martinez, Jr. of Cortez, CO, Pat Kuteles, mother of U.S. Army Pvt. Barry Winchell, murdered at Fort Campbell, KY, Kathy Jo Gaither, sister of Sylacauga, AL victim Bill Joe Gaither, and, certainly, Judy Shepard of Casper, WY who is currently touring the nation to promote passage of the LGBT hate crimes bill named for her son Matthew, are but a few outstanding examples of women whose love overcame untold obstacles to add their voices to the chorus of Americans, gay and straight, who want anti-queer violence to come to an end forever. These courageous women and many other family members around the nation have become the most effective spokespersons for human rights because of their unsought-for mission to stamp out hate from the American vocabulary for all people, especially LGBTQ folk who are so much at risk. How do mothers do it? Pat Mulder says that for parents of gay murder victims, there is no closure, only the determination to turn up the volume on what hate crimes do to families.

~ Stephen Sprinkle for the Unfinished Lives Project
Protest Calls for Passage of NC Hate Crimes Protections for LGBT Tarheels
New Hanover County, NC – In the wake of a violent attack on two gay men in Wilmington, NC in July, protestors gathered Thursday to repeat their call for the passage of hate crimes protection for LGBT North Carolinians. Chaz Housand and Chet Saunders were beaten outside a popular bar on Front Street in Wilmington after celebrating their graduations. Three suspects are charged with the attack, which witnesses say was accompanied by virulent anti-gay slurs as the two men were beaten senseless and left on the sidewalk. Both sustained considerable injuries, and investigators on the scene suggested that more serious harm might have been done had witnesses not intruded on the attackers. Tab Ballis, an independent documentary film maker and local human rights leader told WWAY News, “In downtown there is a lot of general violence, but this violence by three assailants was directed towards these two men because of the perception that they were gay.” Protestors point out that North Carolina is one of sixteen states that does not protect LGBT people against hate crimes, and they want the State Legislature to pass a statute criminalizing anti-LGBT bias crimes in the Tarheel State. Assistant District Attorney James Blanton told WWAY News that though North Carolina does have laws protecting people from attacks against them because of race, religion, or country of origin, “Sexual orientation is not one of the protected classes. If someone commits a misdemeanor assault based on the fact that the victim has a different sexual orientation that they’re not satisfied with, it would not bump it up to a felony.” The Safer Communities Act, North Carolina State House Bill 207, would provide protection based on victims’ sexual orientation, as well as for gender and disability. Human rights advocates are concerned that the three alleged attackers will not face appropriate punishment for their actions because the statute is not yet law in North Carolina. Ballis went on to say, “Hate crimes are based on fear, ignorance, and misunderstanding. And I think we all believe that folks that pay taxes deserve to be safe in their own community.”
Justice for Jimmy Lee Dean: Both Attackers Now Sentenced

Jimmy Lee Dean, Victim of Brutal Attack
Dallas, TX – The second man who nearly beat Jimmy Lee Dean to death in July 2008 has been sentenced to 75 years in prison. Bobby Jack Singleton, 30, faced his fate August 27 in Dallas County’s 194th District Court. The co-defendant in the case, Jonathan Russell Gunter, 33, received a 30-year sentence for the crime in March of this year. The Singleton sentence means that the jury understood the severity of the crime against Mr. Dean, who has been permanently disfigured and lost his entire sense of smell due to the attack. The earliest Singleton can be paroled is 37 1/2 years under Texas law. There is no penalty attached to an LGBT hate crime in Texas, though the Dallas Police who investigated the attack, which occurred just a block off the major LGBT entertainment strip in the city, treated the crime as anti-gay from the beginning. Had the Matthew Shepard Act been law at the time of the case, there would have been another recourse for law enforcement to take. Dean said that he was satisfied by the sentence. Testimony in the trial revealed that the co-defendants had drunk five pitchers of beer at a North Dallas bar before getting up the courage to travel to the Oaklawn/Cedar Springs area to rob gay people because the perpetrators were “low on cash” and believed gay men could be more easily robbed. Gunter took a gun with him and brandished it at Dean, a 17-year resident of the Oaklawn neighborhood, on a darkened section of Dickason Street. Singleton, however, did most of the severe damage to Dean as he lay unconscious on the sidewalk,

Gunter (l), Singleton (r)
kneeing him, kicking him, and stomping on his face with his boots while yelling anti-gay slurs at his helpless victim. The jury heard taped phone conversations between Singleton and his half-sister while he was in jail awaiting trial, in which he laughed about Dean’s nose hanging on by a flap of skin, and claimed that he was going to pretend he was gay so that the punishment might be lighter on him. “All I got to do is fill out one of them homosexual cards and prove that I’m a faggot, too,” he said. He went on to his half-sister that if he were sentenced to prison, he could just tell the corrections officers that he was “not really a fucking faggot” so that he could skip being housed in protective custody. Dean said to Dallas Voice reporter John Wright, “This [sentence] sets a precedent for anything like this that happens. He also said that no one should be a target of violence for any reason, including one’s sexual orientation. What now remains to be done is support for Mr. Dean in the months and years that follow this trial. LGBT presence at both the Gunter trial and the Singleton trial was sparse. Dean and his longtime roommate, Thomas Bergh, are contemplating moving to Oklahoma, away from the scene of the attack. Dean told reporters that when he walks along Dickason Street these days, he has to walk down the middle of the street, and not on the sidewalk where the two Garland, TX men nearly killed him. Like so many victims before him, Dean will live with the nightmares and the physical consequences of the attack for the rest of his life. It is not enough for the LGBT community to shrug shoulders now that that last trial has been held, and assume Dean can just go from this point vindicated. Dallas has to face its hate-crime problems, as the Dean case, and the Richard Hernandez case have both shown in recent months. One way to do that is to get support for Jimmy Lee right from here on out.
NC Gay Bashings Alarm Wilmington and Greensboro

Chaz Housand shows gay bashing injuries (Paul Stephen photo for StarNewsOnline)
Wilmington, NC – Protesters are calling for hate crime protection for the LGBT community in New Hanover County, the heart of Coastal Carolina country, after two gay men were brutally beaten unconscious last month. Three men shouting anti-gay slurs attacked Chaz Housand and Chet Saunders as they walked out of the door of a popular Front Street bar in the early morning of July 17, according to witnesses at the scene. StarNewsOnline reports that just after 2 a.m., witnesses flagged down a police officer to tell him that two young men had been beaten. Both Housand, 22, and Saunders, also 22, had no recollection of the attack. “The last thing I remember,” Housand told reporter Dave Reynolds, “I was walking out of the door. Then I remember waking up in the hospital.” The only thing the victims can think motivated the attack was their sexual orientation. The recollection of the eyewitnesses, and the severity of the wounds inflicted on the two gay men seem to substantiate that suspicion. According to the police incident report, a witness remembered one of the suspected attackers shouting, “This is our town!” as he struck Housand and Saunders. Three suspects were arrested by the police in short order and charged with the assault: Jong Tae Chung, 27; Melvin Lee Spicer, 25; and Daniel Minwoo Lee, 21. While North Carolina does not have a hate crime law that covers sexual orientation, District Attorney Ben David told Star News that a judge may very well increase the charges from a misdemeanor to a felony in light of the brutality of the attack and the extensive injuries sustained by the victims. Bones in Housand’s face were broken and he suffered deep cuts above his eye and around his mouth. Saunders suffered a concussion and internal bruising, and he has still not recovered the motor skills needed to use a knife and a fork to feed himself as of July 27. Housand, who had been celebrating his birthday with his friend just before the attack, told reporters that as a university student, he had been involved in social action to change North Carolina’s hate crimes statute to include sexual orientation, but never imagined he would be personally involved in a hate crime. Public Radio, WHQR FM, reports that the downtown beating last month ignited protests by LGBT people and straight allies outside the New Hanover County Courthouse August 24. Outraged by the bashing, locals are calling on the state to protect LGBT citizens. Some in the LGBT community are convinced that the attack was hate-motivated due to the hallmark overkill of the assault. Lynn Casper, one of the courthouse protesters, said that everything about the bashing indicates that it was about homophobia, and gay people in Wilmington are frightened. “I’ve heard a lot of people talk in the queer community,” Casper told reporters. “They’re a lot more scared now.” Wilmington, the largest city on the Carolina coast, is no stranger to anti-LGBT murder. Lesbian Talana Quay Kreeger, 32, was manually disemboweled by a trucker in 1990. Tab Ballis, a local documentary filmmaker, is working to complete a film telling her story, called “Park View.” Now, LGBT people across the Tarheel State are worried that bias crimes against anyone perceived to be gay are on the rise. In Greensboro, the largest city in the Piedmont, a 25-year-old Pilot Mountain man was attacked on July 4 by a group of young men yelling anti-gay epithets. Matt Comer of Q Notes reports that the as-yet unidentified victim was merely thought to be gay by his assailants who targeted him as he left a popular gay night club with two gay friends. The victim was struck on the back of the head and knocked to the ground. His friends ran to find help. Greensboro Police have arrested Tyren Hassan McNeill, 25, and charged him with felony aggravated assault.
Green’s Murderer Gets 25 Years for Transgender Hate Crime

Dwight DeLee on Trial
Syracuse, NY – Dwight DeLee, a 20-year-old construction worker from Upstate New York was sentenced Tuesday to the maximum of 25 years in prison for the hate killing of transgender woman, Lateisha Green. Green, 22, was a Male to Female transgender person, shot to death by DeLee last November as she and her brother sat in a car outside a house party. Since the age of 16, Green had lived as a woman, wearing women’s clothing, and taking her female name, Lateisha, in preference to her male birth name, Moses. In determining that DeLee’s crime was manslaughter rather than murder, the court found that he had not intended to kill Green in the attack, but only to terrorize and injure her. Two aspects of the sentence are of particular note for the LGBT community as it seeks justice for Lateisha and all at-risk transgender persons. First, the sentence was the maximum amount of time prescribed by New York law for the crime of manslaughter, indicating the seriousness with which the court took the case. Second, in sentencing DeLee for an anti-transgender hate crime, Judge William Walsh noted the deplorable bias-motivation of the crime. The jury found that Green was indeed selected for a violent attack based on her perceived gender presentation and gender identity, the hallmark of a transphobic hate crime. This verdict and sentence are believed to be only the second in the United States explicitly against the perpetrator of an anti-transgender violent crime, the first being the conviction and sentencing earlier this year of Allen Ray Andrade to life without parole for the hate crime murder of 18-year-old Greeley, Colorado transgender Latina, Angie Zapata.
Transgender Woman Raped, Assaulted with Wooden Coat Hanger in Murder Attempt

Trinidad, CO – The Pueblo Chieftain and the Examiner.com report that on July 15, 2009 a transsexual person was attacked in a hate crime reminiscent of the murder of Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old transgender woman who was bludgeoned to death in Greeley, CO last year. The victim, a 25-year-old M to F person in transition was lodging in the Trinidad Motor Inn awaiting consultation on gender reassignment surgery when she was targeted by a suspect identified as Marcus Lee Watlington. No age or hometown of the suspect has been announced by the Trinidad police. Police have reported that Watlington denies any part in the crime. According to reports on the scene, the victim was pushed into her motel room by the attacker after answering her door. He verbally denigrated her because of her identity, and proceeded to force sex acts on her. He then raped her, using a wooden coat hanger to assault her sexually. To finish the job, the attacker then plunged the victim in a full tub of water in the bathroom, and attempted to execute her by tossing an electric hair dryer into tub with her. The breaker blew, preventing a fatality. Frustrated in his attempt to murder the victim, the assailant dragged her back to the bed, bound her with a phone cord, slapped her repeatedly, and warned her not to come back to Trinidad because her “kind” were not wanted there. The victim stayed bound in the bed until she was discovered late the next morning. Her description of the attacker was detailed, and according to police, fit Watlington “to a T.” Anti-trans hate crimes are notable for their brutality and for the abject disregard of the humanity of the victim, and transgender persons are particularly vulnerable to anti-gay as well as anti-trans bias, according to the Colorado Anti-Violence Program (CAVP). If charged with the crime, Watlington would face sexual assault, attempted murder, and “false imprisonment” charges. The Chieftain noted that Trinidad, which is a center for transsexual reassignment surgery, has a larger than usual population of transgender persons who are drawn to the town because of the famed practice of Dr. Stanley Biber. The surgical practice, now run by Dr. Marci Bowers, carries out as many as four sexual reassignment surgeries a day, making Trinidad known as “The Sex Change Capital of the World.” Local police report that crimes against transgender persons are rare in the town of 9,000. While it is still unclear about whether hate crimes charges will be filed in this case, Colorado does have a hate crime statute that covers anti-transgender crimes. Allen Ray Andrade, found guilty of the murder of Zapata earlier this year, was sentenced to life in prison by the Colorado hate crimes law, and is believed to be the first person to be successfully prosecuted under such a statute in the United States. The Unfinished Lives Project awaits further developments in this case.
Senate Passes DOD Bill with Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Amendment Attached
Washington, DC – Last night the U.S. Senate passed the mammoth Department of Defense Appropriations Bill with the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act attached as an amendment. HRC Backstory explains the process of reconciliation that this version of the bill will undergo in the Senate-House Conference Committee. According to HRC Senior Policy Analyst David Stacy, “During the month of August, while the Congress is in recess, House and Senate staff will work out differences between the House and Senate bills. Most of these decisions are unrelated to hate crimes and can be worked out at the staff level. Key decisions will be made by Senators and Representatives when they return in September. Most important among these will be the final decision about whether to keep the Matthew Shepard Act. Beyond that threshold question, which we fully expect will be an emphatic “YES,” decisions will have to be made about the amendments passed by the Senate this week.” This is great cause for celebration since LGBT people are very close to having federal protection in an unprecedented way in our history. Not only does this legislation honor Matthew Shepard, for whom it is named. It also remembers and honors thousands of other LGBT hate crimes victims for whom this legislative act is a vindication of sorts. But while there is reason for rejoicing, the ultimate passage of anti-LGBT hate crimes legislation is not a done deal yet. The DOD bill did attach other amendments, such as the Sessions Death Penalty amendments, designed to make the Matthew Shepard Act less palatable to sponsors and the public. The protections provided in the bill for LGBT people are limited, if still important and historic. Hate crimes against us are on the rise, and the old bromide activists rehearse, that as the younger generations take the reins of culture and government, the war against LGBT people will be over, is just not borne out by the facts. If younger Americans are more open statistically toward LGBT people and our relationships, then why is the profile of the people who actually kill us men from teenage to mid-30s, for one thing? So, we must keep at this work. Those of us who believe in justice cannot rest. Those of us who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes. [Illustration thanks to Advocate.com].
~ Stephen Sprinkle, Director, Unfinished Lives Project
Decorated Sailor Charged with the Murder of Gay Sailor August Provost

August Provost pic on his MySpace page
San Diego, CA – The U.S. Navy says that a decorated petty officer has been charged with murder and other offenses in the June 30 slaying of gay Seaman August Provost at Camp Pendleton, California. Jonathan Campos, 32, has been in military custody since July 1, when the smoldering remains of Seaman Provost were found inside the guard shack where he stood sentry on the night of his murder. Campos, a Lancaster, CA native, enlisted in the Navy in 2001. He is a military fuel-system technician who had received numerous decorations, including the Good Conduct Medal. He has been charged with murder and arson, as well as charges of wrongful possession of a firearm, unlawful entry to a military base, carrying a concealed weapon and stealing military property. Forensic evidence shows that Provost was shot multiple times with a .45 calibre pistol. The sentry shack was then torched with Provost’s body inside in order to destroy evidence of the crime. The Navy continues to deny that the victim was killed because of his sexual orientation. Instead, naval investigators for NCIS contend that Provost surprised Campos as he was seeking to gain entry to the anchorage where hovercraft were docked in order to set one of them afire, and that Campos shot Provost at that time. Provost’s family and friends, along with gay rights activists, believe that his sexual orientation played a factor in the murder. His aunt has told the press that her nephew complained to her about being repeatedly harassed for his homosexuality, and that he had one prime antagonist on base at Camp Pendleton. Though it is not known whether Campos is that antagonist, both he and Provost served in the same unit, Assault Craft 5. Ben Gomez, head of the San Diego chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights, a national LGBT servicemembers organization, said to San Diego 6 that he and other LGBT activists believe Seaman Provost’s murder was a hate crime. They contend that he was killed after having an argument about his sexuality with an antagonist on base. They do not find the Navy’s claim credible that Provost was a “random” victim. While the Navy largely bases their claim that sexual orientation did not play a part in Provost’s murder since he had never filed a complaint with his superiors about being harassed for being gay, family and the LGBT community counter that he could not have felt safe approaching his commanders at Camp Pendleton because of the threat posed to his continuing military service because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT). Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from California and Provost’s native Texas are calling for a full investigation into the case.



Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. 


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August 5, 2009 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Blame the victim, Florida, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Media Issues, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Blame the victim, Florida, gay men, Hate Crimes, Law and Order, Media Issues, Pensito Review, Special Comment, stabbings | 2 Comments