Infamous Lesbian Murder Case Cracked in Texas: Alleged Shooter Arrested After Two-Year Investigation
David Malcolm Strickland, suspect in the lesbian murder assault case (EDGE photo).
Portland, Texas – Nearly two years after teenage lesbian lovers were abducted and shot on a steep grassy hillside in this South Texas coastal town, a 27-year-old suspect has finally been arrested, according to Portland, Texas law enforcement authorities. David Malcolm Strickland was arrested Friday and charged with the capital murder of Mollie Olgin, 19 at the time of the shooting, and for the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon of Kristene Chapa, 18, whom he allegedly shot in the head at the same time. Chapa survived, though the damage to the left side of her brain left her unable to walk, sit, or stand. Only with years of therapy and surgery has Chapa been able to reacquire her balance and mobility. In addition to these charges, the shooter has been charged with aggravated sexual assault. Details are still emerging from the investigation, and further charges may be brought, according to authorities. Strickland’s wife, Laura Kimberly, 23, has also been detained by Portland Police, and faces charges of tampering with evidence.
“I hope that it gives [the victims, their families, and community members] some closure knowing that this person is taken off the street,” Portland Police Chief Gary Giles said to NBC News. “It is one day before the two-year anniversary. We’ve been working very hard to make sure we get him as soon as possible. A series of fortunate events has led us to this point and I’m just very happy that we could help in — at least at this point — in bringing him to justice.”
Strickland was apprehended in the Helotes suburb of San Antonio on Friday by Texas Rangers and U.S. Marshals. Texas Rangers, U.S. Marshals, and Portland Police officers took Strickland’s wife into custody. Robert R. Almonte, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Texas told NBC News, “My sympathies and condolences to the victims and their families who had to endure this wicked act of violence. [Strickland] is a stone cold killer who thought he got away with murder, but will finally pay for his crime.”
The reconstructed murder event that took place in Portland remains chilling, even after two years. Chapa, now 20 years old, said she went with Olgin on Friday night, June 23, 2012 to Violet Andrews Park, to see where Olgin had been baptized. The suspect forced the teenagers at gun point down a steep incline where he bound them, sexually assaulted them, and shot them both, leaving them to die. A couple out bird watching the next morning discovered the victims. Olgin had died of her wounds, but Chapa, who had clawed her way out of the sharp, thorny brush, survived, and was rushed to a medical center for emergency surgery. Chapa returned to the scene of the crime to assist investigators. She recounted to a reporter how difficult it was for her to go back to the place where her lover died so cruelly. “I felt every cut, every thorn go through my hand,” she said of the brush she fought to get out of, pointing to the scars still plainly visible on her arms. “I kept thinking, ‘I’ve got to get help.’”
Sergeant Roland Chavez of the Portland Police Department discussed the investigation with reporters. DNA evidence from finger prints around the crime scene initially belonged to over 250 suspects, Chavez said. Then the slow process of singling out the shooter had to go step-by-step. Investigators wanted to make sure they had the right man before making the arrest, else they feared Chapa would only be victimized again by a false ID. The shooter used a .45 caliber handgun on the teenagers, sometime between 11:30 p.m. and midnight on Friday, June 23, 2012. The teenagers had no prior knowledge of their attacker, which complicated the case, making it even seem more brutal and bizarre. Neither did the suspect have a previous criminal record, providing officers another hurdle to overcome. Chavez speculated that the shooter may have fantasized about such a crime long before the actual event, and worked himself up to doing it over time. The birdwatching couple who discovered Olgin and Chapa stumbled across the gruesome scene at about 8:30 a.m. the next day.
R to L: Mollie Judith Olgin (deceased), and Mary Kristene Chapa, teen victims of brutal shooting two years ago this month.
Authorities are still at a loss to explain the motive for the crime at this point. They have consistently ruled out anti-lesbian hatred as a motive, but the suspicion that homophobia and certainly heterosexism may have played a part in targeting the couple just won’t go away. Hate crimes against women are particularly difficult to sort out, since homophobia is so often a weapon of sexism.
Chapa still struggles to open and close her left hand. The bullet destroyed the area of her brain controlling motion on her left side. Her wounds left her an invalid, much like a stroke victim. Hard work, support, and courage are paying off. Though she will never regain total mobility, Chapa told reporters that she knows she will almost get there, if she just keeps up the struggle. Worse for her is the loss of her girlfriend, Mollie Olgin. “Every day I think about her,” she said of Olgin. “I pray for her, just for her to watch over me.” Since the attack, Chapa has reached out to other victims of gun violence and paralysis, like the families devastated by the Newtown School shooting in Connecticut. “I opened up myself to them and just told them how my story is similar, I just put my feelings in there,” she said to NBC News, also saying that she hopes “to meet more victims who have been shot because we relate. I’m pretty sure we’ve been through a lot of the same things and have felt the same ways.”
She and her parents are still appealing to the public to help fund Chapa’s rehabilitation, care, and recovery. Her family has exhausted their resources, and though a good deal of money has been donated these past two years, it hasn’t been enough. Chapa says that she and her folks are “pretty much alone” in the effort to finance her health care. The funding site originally set up to assist with Chapa’s care has been discontinued without public explanation.
After a news conference arranged by the Portland Police Department to announce Strickland’s arrest, Chapa reflected on her feelings. Though she told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times she felt safer now that the suspect was in custody, the pain and loss are still there for her. “It will never take back the pain and hurt he did to our families. And it won’t bring Mollie back,” she said. “Right now for both our families this is very hard.”
San Patricio District Attorney Michael Welborn believes they have their man. “We feel we have a very strong case to put forth,” he said. “We fully believe that we are going to bring justice to these two young ladies and their families.”
Gay Student Condemned By Church Dies By Suicide
Ben Wood, 21, bullied by Church Youth Leader, takes his own life.
Asheville, North Carolina – William “Ben” Wood was 21 when he died on the floor of his dorm at UNC-Asheville. Friends who found him said that he was drawn up in a fetal position on May 8, 2013, having slashed open his veins. The loss of this sensitive, justice-seeking young gay man is a tragedy by most accounts–his friends and school mates say he was a fine student, but in recent months his grades and school performance had plunged. The university junior couldn’t deal with the prospect of going back to his neighborhood in Asheville without being a student any longer, according to his mother’s account in the Reconciling Ministries Network Blog. As a teen, he had been irreparably wounded by a Youth Leader at his home church as he prepared to go on a Mission trip with his friends from the United Methodist Youth Fellowship.
His mom, Julie Wood, recounts how the misguided Youth Leader singled out her son for being gay in front of his peers. The leader said, “You all know, we all know, that Ben is gay. Who here is comfortable being around him?” Demanding a response from each youth in the group, the Leader then said, “Do you understand that Ben is going to hell?” Once again, the Youth Leader pressed each youth for an answer about Ben. Crushed, exposed, and broken by the experience, Ben came home while his UMYF friends left on the bus for the Mission Trip. His mother, who stalwartly contends that their home church is a loving and supportive place, says that this was the trigger experience she believes led to the suicide of her son a few agonizing years later. Mrs. Wood writes:
“Ben was told that he was not worthy of going on the mission trip. He had been shamed, humiliated, and betrayed. He was told that he did not deserve to be a part of the group. He was no representative of God.
Out of our front window, I saw the goldish colored Caviler abruptly whip into our driveway. Ben ran up the porch steps and stood in the doorway. One look, and I knew, something horrible had happened. The flushed sides of his cheeks quivered as did his lip. His breathing was rapid and his eyes just about to spill over.
The church bus was loaded with Ben’s friends to go on that mission trip while my betrayed and broken son, walked alone around Salem Lake. He must have felt so very abandoned and isolated.
While he never lost his compassion for others, I think that this was the day that he gave up on people and God.”
Skeptics may argue that there is no clear correspondence between the suicide of a young gay man years after the shaming incident that took place in a church youth group in his teens. Others will say that the church is basically a loving and supportive place, but is put in a hard situation by teachings like those of the United Methodist Church that send an ambiguous, essentially rejecting message about lesbians and gay people. On the one hand, the social teachings of the church say that every person, including “homosexuals,” is of “sacred worth.” On the other, the United Methodist Church stubbornly rejects homosexuality as “incompatible” with Christian teaching–denying ordination and marriage to LGBT people, and defrocking their clergy who carry out same-sex marriage ceremonies, or who live openly as lesbian or gay people.
So, who stands guilty of Ben Wood’s death? The Youth Minister who was applying what he believed the teachings of his church on homosexuality to be? Ben’s so-called “friends” who one-by-one (under pressure from an adult leader, of course) abandoned Ben to shame and broken heartedness? The theologians and clergy of the church, who cannot seem to reconcile the love of God on the one hand, and social heterosexism and homophobia on the other? And what of Ben’s own responsibility to transcend the suffering of his youth–though this latter argument is little more than blaming a victim for his own demise?
Bens’ obituary says he was a genuine, complex, and worthwhile human being. The Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel records that Ben “was a member of Sedge Garden United Methodist Church and was a Junior at UNC-Asheville. Ben had a kind and loving soul, with a great sense of humor. He was particularly compassionate to the needs and struggles of others more than himself and was a great journalist. To his younger sisters, Ben was a great big brother who shared lots of walks in the creeks and scavenger hunts with their stuffed animals.” The obituary goes on to say that three clergy spoke at his funeral, and that his own maternal grandfather was a clergyman. But Ben found so little hospitality and comfort from the churches around him and the clergy who served them that he could not and did not reach out to them in his darkest hours. So, a sensitive, socially conscious young man, who happened to be gay and Christian, took his own life.
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, and a native North Carolinian himself, issues this opinion and prayer for other young LGBT persons: “The churches and their leadership have much to answer for in the deaths of young people like Ben Wood. While we may not be able to point to a smoking gun linking the suicide of young persons condemned by church teachings to the culpability of the churches, there is no doubt that Christian heterosexism and homophobia contribute to the climate that denigrates LGBTQ people and creates undue suffering in their lives. Indeed, there are progressive and welcoming churches and clergy, and for them we give thanks. But they are too few, and the silence of church people about the prejudice condemning LGBTQ folk is a major contributing factor in the horror of spiritual violence against them.”
Dr. Sprinkle concludes: “Let us be crystal clear about this: the heterosexism and homophobia Ben Wood experienced in his life is a Christian heresy–one the churches and clergy of every stripe must find the courage to repent of and repudiate. And we must do everything we can to make amends to youth like Ben, and to their families.”
Gay New Mexico Teen Is Latest Victim of School Bullying
Carlos Vigil, 17, tormented to death by bullies during his senior year in high school.
Albuquerque, New Mexico – A gay New Mexico teenager took his life, despairing after years of incessant bullying by classmates. Carlos Vigil, 17, posted a heart-wrending Twitter post on Saturday, July 13, finally crumbling under the weight of the epithets and ridicule his classmates put on him. The tweet, posted as a screen capture by EveryJoe.com, reads in part: “I’m sorry to those who I offended over the years. I’m blind to see that I, as a human being, suck. I’m an individual who is doing an injustice to the world and it’s time for me to go. . . I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to love someone or have someone love me. I guess it’s best, though, because now I leave no pain onto anyone. The kids in school are right, I am a loser, a freak, and a fag and in no way is that acceptable for people to deal with. I’m sorry for not being a person that would make someone proud.”
Ending his tweet, Carlos texted, “I am free now.” His father, who ironically had only recently returned from a conference in North Carolina where he had spoken out against anti-gay bullying in schools, saw the tweet, and rushed home, too late. Carlos was sped to the University of New Mexico Medical Center in a coma. Late Sunday night, his parents requested that doctors remove life support from their son, after his organs had been harvested to benefit others.
The pathos and horror of anti-gay bullying scream out from the story of Carlos Vigil. His mother said to reporters that her boy had been bullied in some form or another for being perceived as different and effeminate since he was eight years old. Lately, she said, Carlos had been dogged by hateful speech about his sexual orientation, his acne, his glasses, and his weight. He and his family tried valiantly to withstand the bullying, complaining to school officials, and transferring from a nearby high school to Valley High where the latest wave of bullying crashed over him. Carlos had counseled and consoled others who were verbally attacked, and his parents were constantly checking in to ask how he was doing. He had spoken out against bullying himself. But according to the New York Daily News, no one guessed at the depth of his own personal anguish until his sudden, untimely death. Eddie Vargas, sports director of Warehouse 508, an Albuquerque youth entertainment and arts center that Carlos helped to establish, said, “It’s an eye-opener that it can happen to anybody. The people we think are the most confident can also be the ones who are hurting the most.”
We should no longer be surprised that gay youth like Carlos who show compassion for the hurts of others often swim in oceans of despair that they alone are helpless to overcome. Carlos had deeply supportive parents who loved him just the way he was. But the depth of the pain of a youth who had been bullied since the third grade was beyond usual measures of love, support, and affection. Prevention is the best remedy for the multitude of LGBTQ and gender variant youth who take their own lives as a consequence of the rejection and hate speech to which they are subjected in school among their peers. Teachers and administrators, clergy, health professionals, lawmakers, and cultural icons must act decisively to stem the tide of gay teen suicide by refusing to see LGBTQ youth as “the problem,” and, while knowing and acting on the signs of youth in trouble, must defend vulnerable boys and girls by making any hint of school bullying a serious offense. Bullies need help, too. So do the families of bullies who often enact what they hear at home, or act out from experiences of torment themselves.
Now, Carlos’s family is asking for everyone to work hard to prevent another useless, senseless death like his. Early this morning, apparently unable to sleep well, his father and mother tweeted this note on their son’s Twitter account: “Carlos is finally at peace! Thank you everyone for your support and prayers. Please don’t forget what he wanted STOP THE BULLYING!”
If anyone is in need of a listening, sympathetic ear, call the Trevor Project Helpline, 24/7, to speak to a real person who will reach out to you: 1-866-488-7386. Don’t wait! Call Now!
Savage Anti-Gay Murder in NYC Highlights Increasing Danger for LGBT People
Mark Carson, 32, openly gay NYC man fatally shot in the face (Gay Star News photo).
New York City, New York – A gay man shot to death at point blank range early Saturday morning became the fifth anti-gay hate crime to strike fear into Gotham City in recent weeks. Mark Carson, 32, an openly gay yogurt shop worker from Brooklyn, who was walking with a companion in Greenwich Village, faced his harasser, who taunted his victim with homophobic slurs before fatally shooting him in the face, saying “You want to die here tonight?”. The assailant was collared in a matter of a few blocks by a police officer who had the description of the shooter. The officer seized the murder weapon along with the suspect. Elliot Morales, 33, is in the custody of the NYPD, charged with second degree murder as a hate crime, and is being held in jail without bail.
After being goaded by a series of previous gay bashings in Midtown Manhattan in the Madison Square Garden area, some involving Knicks fans in full team attire, the LGBTQ and Allied community in the greater NYC metro area has erupted into angry, frightened protests. The Associated Press reports that thousands took to the streets on Monday to cry out against Carson’s murder, making this the most powerful demonstration of anti-hate crime street activism since the days of Matthew Shepard, fourteen years ago. NYC Council Speaker, Christine Quinn, marched arm in arm with Edie Windsor, the key plaintiff in the case for Marriage Equality now before the Supreme Court of the United States. Emotions on a spectrum from disbelief that such a brazen crime could occur in the City, through towering rage against the cold-blooded killing of a defenseless gay man in the heart of the most tolerant neighborhood in New York, to abject fear that the streets of the city are unsafe to walk openly for gay people. Carson fell just blocks from the site of the birth of the Gay Rights Movement during the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969.
Morales, the alleged shooter, once charged with attempted murder in 1998, was filled with “homophobic glee,” laughing as he confessed to police that he pulled the trigger on Carson, according to the New York Daily News. Morales was seen just 15 minutes before the attack, publicly urinating outside an upscale Greenwich Village restaurant beside the storied Stonewall Inn. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly candidly commented to the press that Carson had done nothing to antagonize his assailant, according to USA Today. “It’s clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay,” Commissioner Kelly said.
The Daily News speculates that Morales’s homophobia had been ignited by the way Carson, a proud, out gay man, was dressed–in a tank top with cut off shorts and boots. Prosecutors say that Morales shouted at Carson and his friend, “Hey, you faggots! You look like gay wrestlers!” According to his family, Carson was happy, well-adjusted, and loved the West Village where he met his death . “He was a courageous person,” Carson’s brother, Michael Bumpars, said. “My brother was a beautiful person.”
Makeshift shrine at the spot Mark Carson was shot to death in West Village.
Naïve pundits have said that the increasing visibility and political success of LGBT people to gain mainstream acceptance have ushered in a new era of queer acceptance in American life. Some have even declared the “victory” of the gay rights movement. Such self-congratulations are premature. Carson’s brazen murder by a totally unapologetic homophobe, coupled with the rash of LGBT youth suicides in schools across the nation, and reports of skyrocketing statistics of violence against transgender people of color, are giving the lie to the notion that the United States is safe for queer folk. Some are now reversing their previous opinions, calling the violence evidence of a “backlash” against the recent success of Marriage Equality in New England, New York, the District of Columbia, and Minnesota. Though New York State made same-sex marriage legal in 2011, NYC Police Commissioner Kelly revealed that though last year’s bias-crimes against LGBT people in the city numbered 13, the total now stands at 22 and counting.
June is Gay Pride Month in New York City. Nerves are frayed. Top city officials, politicians, and police top brass are scrambling to make this year’s celebration in Greenwich Village and around town safe. New York City has earned the reputation of being the cradle of queer tolerance, and Mayor Bloomberg obviously wants to keep it that way. Yet the violence in the streets of New York, now turned ominously fatal with Mark Carson’s grisly murder, may be a bellwether for things to come throughout the nation. Morales, the alleged shooter, laughed and joked that he was proud to terrorize the LGBT community. Foes of gay equality may be on the back foot because of the rapid acceptance of gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people, particularly by younger Americans. But homophobic, irrational hatred, the sort that maims and kills, has by no means gone away. Nor does this recent spate of violence suggest a “backlash.” When 38 states have written homophobia into their constitutions, or bolstered anti-gay statutes, this outbreak of harm can hardly be seen as anything but good, old fashioned American bigotry. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP) is closely monitoring events in New York and around the nation. They advise non-confrontational efforts to diffuse potentially dire situations of violence. Yet, the queer community has come too far to go back into the closet ever again. To do so would dishonor the hopes, loves, and courage of openly gay men like Mark Carson. Sharon Stapel, NCAVP’s executive director, said that these events must be understood in the context of a nation where basic equality is still denied to LGBT people. Her message to New York’s gay community? “We want to give people tools that can de-escalate situations but also say, ‘You need to be yourself,'” Stapel said to ABC News. “We’re not telling people, ‘Take your rainbow sticker off.'”
Anti-Gay “Conversion Camp” Allegedly Tortures Effeminate Teenage Boy to Death
Raymond Buys, 15, near death from the ravages of an anti-gay conversion camp.
Johannesburg, South Africa – “Man Up or Die.” That is the way an international human rights advocate characterizes the philosophy of an ex-gay conversion camp radically committed to “beating the gay” out of boys with “feminine traits.” South African born activist, Melanie Nathan reports in her blog that 15-year-old Raymond Buys died as a consequence of torture and starvation allegedly imposed on him at a three-month “training course” at Echo Wild Game Rangers Camp, located an hour south of Johannesburg. Esteemed British newspaper, The Telegraph, confirms that Buys is one of three young men whose deaths are being blamed on Alex de Koker, 49, Echo Wild’s director, and his accomplice, Michael Erasmus, 20. Both of the accused are in custody awaiting trial under charges of “murder, child abuse and neglect, along with two cases of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in relation to Mr Buys’ death.” Scott De Buitléir, a blogger for Elie, reports that de Koker has claimed to be innocent of the charges.
Young Mr. Buys, who suffered from a learning disability, was sent to Echo Wild to help him become more masculine by his mother, Wilna Buys, in January 2011. His mother says she spoke to her son three times during the training camp, allowed to speak with him only on speakerphone so their conversation could be monitored. De Koker claimed young Buys was “self-harming.” When his mother asked him to explain what prompted his self-injuries, the youth denied that he was doing these things to himself, as she later told the court. It remains unclear why Mrs. Buys did not act at that time to withdraw her child from the training course, an expensive proposition at $2,000 per month. Two months into the three-month-long course, which turned out to be a full blown ex-gay, reparative therapy boot camp, Mr. Buys lay dying in hospital. He allegedly had been beaten until his arm was broken multiple times, electrocuted with a taser-like device, chained to his bed and not released to use a bathroom, starved until he was severely dehydrated and emaciated, forced to eat his own feces and laundry detergent, and hit until his skull was cracked and his brain was damaged. Hospital officials told that he had a “zero chance” of survival. Within two weeks, The Telegraph reports, the teenager died. “My child was a skeleton,” Mrs. Buys told the Vereeniging District Court. ”He had head injuries and torn ears, there were bruises on his face and arms and cigarette burns on his body.”
Two other young men, 25-year-old Erich Calitz and Nicolas Van Der Walt, 19, also died of brain injuries allegedly inflicted at the camp, according to the Huffington Post. Alex de Koker, also the chief suspect in the deaths of Mr. Calitz and Mr. Van Der Walt, had reassured Mrs. Buys that he could help her boy become a man and find a good job in the wildlife service. De Koker’s ties to a rightwing white supremacist homophobic group called the AWB/Iron Guards movement are being investigated.
The sexual orientation of the three young victims of these heinous anti-gay crimes has never been definitively established. But, as Melanie Nathan points out, any young man who exhibits “feminine characteristics” in Afrikaans culture is considered to be a “moffie,” an epithet akin to “faggot.” Ms. Nathan explains, “The idea of the [Echo Wild] camp is to apparently make men of teens and to ‘cure’ ‘feminine traits’ in male youths…another way of saying gay reparative therapy, instead in this instance that therapy involved ‘beating the gay out of the kid’– torture, and if torture didn’t effect the desired change, then certainly murder would; after all a dead teen is not a gay teen.”
Mrs. Buys told The Telegraph, “I trusted Alex de Koker with the life of my child.” Whether wittingly or unwittingly, she turned her son over to a virulently, homophobic group for a “cure.” And it cost the boy his life.
Teen Son Whipped With Electrical Cord By Mother for Homosexual Behavior; Mom Defends Her Act
North Texas teen whipped with power cord for same-sex acts by his own mother.
Forest Hill, Texas – A Tarrant County mother faces charges of abuse for using an electrical cord to whip her 15-year-old son whom she caught in same-sex act with an 18-year-old boy. CBSDFW reports that Erica Moore is adamantly defending her son’s punishment, claiming she was well within her rights to beat the child. “I actually caught this going on in my house so how was I supposed to react to it? I supposed to just let it go? No! We was taught to discipline our kids and we whoop our kids,” she said.
The “whooping” was severe enough to draw the attention of authorities who say she faces charges of assault with bodily injury to a family member, which, if proven, carries jail time with it. Police learned of the crime when the boy’s grandmother took him to a hospital emergency room to have his wounds treated. The beating left the boy with cut skin, bruises, and bleeding on his forearms, legs, back, torso, and hands.
Ms. Moore is fighting the charges on the grounds that she was taught to “whoop” her children, and that homosexuality is a sin. Waking up to sounds in her son’s room, she said she opened his bedroom door and found her boy having sex with his 18-year-old male cousin. Her account to Joe Gomez of KRLD News Radio was explicit in detail:
“My cousin at the time he was 18. My son he was 15 and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one who got in trouble as a result of me whooping him,” she said. “When I walked in I saw my son, it was just disgusting to me, the way he was looking and my cousin was looking, and my cousin immediately ran out the door. And I’m just like what the?!? You know, is you serious? So that was my reaction because it disgusted me.”
Continuing her justification of her actions, she said that if she caught her daughter doing something similar, she would beat her in the same way.
Forest Hill, a quiet mid-city situated between Fort Worth and Arlington, is typical in attitude toward perceived homosexuality in suburban North Texas. Ms. Moore said that when a Forest Hill Police Officer arrived to investigate, he said that if he had caught his boy in the same situation, he would have wanted to shoot him and his lover on the spot, but that the law prevented beating a child like she beat hers. Weeks later, the police arrested Ms. Moore for the beating, perhaps indicating the heterosexist sympathy of law enforcement for a mother brave enough attempt to “beat the gay” out of her son.
KRLD interviewed Child Protective Services spokesperson Marissa Gonzalez about the case. “If you are leaving the child with severe injuries or bruises,” she said, “then obviously we might be talking about abuse.”
The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has a massive problem with children in their teens and earlier who are beaten, disowned, and forced out of their homes by parents who despise their sexual exploration and homosexual behavior. While nothing conclusively identifies Ms. Moore’s son as gay, he is headed toward becoming a sad statistic. Joanna Jenkins of Circle of Moms says that children deserve unconditional love, not judgment or punishment for their actual or imagined sexual orientation. She writes: “The question is: ‘How can you help your gay child?’ You can help your gay child with unconditional love and acceptance. We are talking about your child. Someone you gave birth to, who is a part of you. Do you want them to live a life of pain and guilt? Quote the Bible to them. It will not stop them from being who they are. Some gay children experience so much guilt and shame that they take their own life. Could you live with yourself if your child killed his/herself because you couldn’t accept them for who they are? Your child is still your child, gay or straight. The only thing that has changed is what you know about your child. A true mother’s love is unconditional and will be there long after she is gone.”
Gay Teen’s Home Defaced By Homophobic Vandals: “God Don’t Love You”
Pace, Florida – A gay Florida teenager found his trailer home covered inside and out with homophobic slurs, swastikas, and obscene images upon returning home on February 3. Jesse Jeffers, 18, who is openly gay, says it was an act of retaliation that focused on his sexual orientation. When Jeffers and his boyfriend came back to his mobile home in Pace, a town of 7,400 in the Panhandle of Florida, near Pensacola, they were angered and astonished by the vandalism. Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Deputies are calling the act an anti-gay hate crime because it centered on Jeffers’ identity as a gay man, according to the Pensacola News Journal.
Jesse Jeffers, gay teenager, outside his vandalized trailer home.
Jeffers, who had moved into the trailer adjacent to his mother’s home three months prior to the vandals’ attack, says that he knows who did this to him. At least one person had threatened him before the attack. Huffington Post reports that the gay teen, who is working on his GED certificate, has been the target of homophobic bullying in Santa Rosa County schools for years. The hatefulness of the act has caused Jeffers to fear living in his home any longer, and has taken up residence with his mother again. Though a neighbor’s surveillance camera supposedly caught the vandals in the act, and authorities have promised that warrants will probably be issued in the hate crime case “soon,” Jeffers is cautious and fearful for his safety. “I don’t know if they’re going to do it again,” Jeffers told the Huffington Post. “Or if there are copycats. It’s basically a small town with a bunch of rednecks.”Until the perpetrators are caught and convicted, and some form of restitution kicks in, Jeffers fears he will have to endure the disapproval of his community. He cannot afford to repair the damage and repaint the trailer. The glaring slurs, swastikas, and images spray painted on his trailer have made it “a tourist attraction,” according to Jeffers. “Everybody drives by every day and stops and looks,” he said.
Even religion was employed by the vandals in their attempt to terrorize the teen. Inside the mobile home, near the large red swastika on the ceiling and the defaced drapery, Jeffers’ attackers scrawled “God don’t love you,” employing a heart sign in place of the word “love.” Jeffers shows considerable maturity in the face of such religious-based bigotry. As he told the Pensacola News Journal, “Sexuality doesn’t matter. God loves you either way.”
One of the proofs of God’s approval is the vigorous assistance of an LGBT-friendly church in the area that is raising funds to help with the cleanup of Jeffers’ home. News of the attack is spreading since the News Journal first published its story in early February. Donations and offers of assistance have been accumulating from sympathetic people from the region and around the country since the vandals shattered the teen’s sense of security. “There’s a bunch of nice people out there that I didn’t even know existed that care,” Jeffers said to Huffington Post.
Meanwhile, the perpetrators are still at large, and the investigation is proceeding. Jeffers may prove to be one of the luckier members of the LGBT community in the Sunshine State. Florida officials report that in 2011, for the first time in history, the number of physical assaults against gay and lesbian people was larger than the number of cases of property damage.
Gay Teen, Threatened By Bullies, Hangs Himself in Oregon School Playground
Jadin Bell, 15, driven to suicide by anti-gay bullies.
La Grande, Oregon – A 15-year-old gay teen who attempted suicide after being harassed by bullies on the internet was removed from life support late last week. Anti-gay bullying, which the young Jadin Bell faced for years, has been identified by his friends as the prime cause of his act of desperation.
Bell, a sophomore at La Grande High School, hanged himself from a playground structure at Central Elementary School, according to KATU News. A quick response from a passer-by rescued him. The youth was rushed to a local hospital and placed on life support. Hill was then transferred to a major Portland trauma center, where he had been clinging to life until the family determined that further heroic efforts to keep him breathing were in vain.
The La Grande community rallied to support Bell and his family with a vigil on January 25 which was attended by over 200 people, many of whom had great memories and good things to say about the gifted youth who loved cheerleading, and volunteered at a senior citizen’s care facility. But the undertone of the vigil was a mixture of frustration and denial–frustration that a second young person had fallen prey to bullying (a 16-year-old girl had taken her life in La Grande earlier in the year), and denial of the overarching reason Jadin Bell had hanged himself: anti-gay bullying. No mention of the anti-gay harassment Hill suffered on the internet and in person was made in the reportage surrounding the vigil, even though the cause was well known throughout the town of 13,000 in Northeastern Oregon.
In a Skype interview, Bud Hill, a friend and mentor of Bell, told KATU reporters that the family considers anti-gay bullying the aggravating issue in their son’s suicide. Hill, who has vowed to start a foundation in Jadin Bell’s memory, said that the youth’s sensitivity and kindness made him a target to school toughs. “He was different, and they tend to pick on the different ones,” Hill said.
Bell had avoided confronting his harassers, saying to his family that making their hateful attacks on him public would only make his torment worse. But in recent days, the family says, Bell had gone to school officials to complain of the verbal assaults on his sexual orientation. The superintendent had initiated an investigation into Bell’s allegations, which was proceeding at the time of the suicide attempt.
“Driven to suicide”: the phrase rolls too easily off the tongue. The horror of the loss of Jadin Bell is that he is one of so many. Every town and city in the nation is susceptible to become the next La Grande. The time to stop the homophobic violence preying on the youth of the nation is now, not after it is too late.
The Trevor Helpline operates the nation’s only 24/7 suicide and crisis hotline for gay and questioning youth. Don’t wait any longer. Call the Trevor Helpline: 1-866-4-U-TREVOR (1-866-488-7386).
Gay, Black Classmates Targeted in White Power Teen’s Bomb Plot
Derek Shrout, 17, alleged hate crime bomb plotter, escorted from Russell County Court on Monday (Ledger-Enquirer image).
Seale, Alabama – Eastern Alabama police announce that a hate crime bomb plot targeting gay and black classmates of a 17-year-old white supremacist has been foiled in Russell County.
Authorities arrested Derek Shrout, a self-proclaimed white power advocate, last Friday, responding swiftly to threats to bomb Russell County High School written in Shrout’s own personal journal. The journal, carelessly left behind in a classroom by Shrout, fell into the hands of a teacher, who rushed the document into the hands of police investigators. According to WTVM-TV, Shrout threatened in his journal to harm six students and one teacher, citing hatred of blacks and gays as his motive. Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told reporters, “The journal contained several plans that looked like potential terrorist attacks, and attacks of violence and danger on the school.” Five of the students Shrout specifically named were black. Shrout believed the sixth student he named was gay, also a class of persons the 17-year-old professed to hate.
Sheriff Taylor said that the mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut were an inciting factor in Shrout’s intention to bomb the high school. The first entry showing the student’s intent to attack his school is on December 17, only three days after the horrific Sandy Hook massacre. Fox News reports that law enforcement officers discovered over 25 smokeless tobacco tins and two larger cans with holes drilled in them in Shrout’s rooms on Friday. The tins were filled with pellets, partially outfitted as homemade bombs and grenades. One of the tins was labeled “Fat Man,” and another “Little Boy,” apparently in emulation of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. The improvised bombs were only “a step or two away from being ready to explode,” the Sheriff observed, going on to say that the quick thinking of school officials averted a horrible outcome. “The system worked and thank God, it did,” he said. “We avoided a very bad situation.”
In his own defense, Shrout claims that the entries in his journal were fictions, and that he never intended to harm classmates or the teacher. He was held in custody on $75,000 bond on a felony charge of assault until a court appearance this Monday, when he made bail. The presiding judge released Shrout under the following conditions: he must remain at home; wear a GPS locator bracelet on his ankle; refrain from initiating contact with anyone connected to the school; and be monitored by a parent while on the Internet. A court date for the teen has been set for February 12.
Shrout planned to attack gay and black classmates at his high school (Russell County Sheriff’s Office mugshot).
Shrout, who moved to Alabama from Kansas with his military family, had become well-known in Russell County High for his anti-gay and racist views. Classmates noted that he and a circle of other white supremacist friends often espoused white power propaganda, and gave each other the Nazi salute. Senior Class President David Kelly is quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “In the hallway, at breakfast, at the lunch tables, after school where we have our bus parking lot, he’d have his big old group of friends and they’d go around doing the whole white power crazy stuff.”
Authorities say that the teen was involved in neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and had learned bomb making from the internet. Now his classmates are expressing anger and frustration at Shrout’s intended attack on their school. David White, who used to hang out with Shrout after JROTC meetings, exclaimed to reporters, “Why would you want to go to a school and blow it up? You know you’re going to hit somebody else; you’re not just going to, in particular, hit one person. You’re going to injure more than one.”
Teen Lesbian Attacked “Just For Being Gay” in Louisville
Teenage Lesbian victim of brutal hate crime attack showing her split lip and knocked out teeth. Her jaw was broken in multiple places by three adult males yelling anti-gay epithets [WAVE 3 News image].
One of Ms. Hornback’s sons suffered a concussion as he jumped in to rescue his friend. With her voice trembling from emotion, Ms. Hornback told reporters how she felt when she heard her child cry out in fear and pain. “I can’t even describe it to you,” she said , “I’m getting ready to cry, hearing my child scream and know that they were hurt and they were scared and I couldn’t get there fast enough.” EMS personnel and police were already on the scene by the time Ms. Hornback arrived.
The young lesbian who was the focus of the attack was lying on the pavement with blood gushing out of her mouth. Speaking on behalf of the girl’s family, Brenda Hickerson detailed her injuries for WCSH 6 News: “Her jaw is broken in several places and she has to have a plate put in her jaw. She has teeth knocked out of her mouth and she has scrapes and bruises.” Shaking with frustration and anger, Hickerson said, “She was on the ground with blood just pouring out of her face. These grown men put her on the ground, kicked her in her stomach, kicked her in her face and punched her in the face and kept going until a bystander yelled stop and called 911.”
The four adults in the group that attacked the teens included two white men, one African American man, and a woman whose race has not been identified in the press. The Hornback boys say that the woman played no part in the attack on their lesbian friend. Brenda Hickerson believes that the woman’s conscience will plague her until she comes forward. Hickerson says she is convinced this was a vicious hate crime. “Otherwise, you are saying that this is right to hate,” she said, “and it’s just not right!”
In an ironic twist, Louisville churches figure prominently in the background of this anti-lesbian attack. The adults pressed their attack on the teenager in front of two Wyandotte Park area churches. The pastor of St. James Church, a self-described non-denominational and evangelical congregation, has decried the crime. According to other clergy, the young lesbian who was the focus of the attack is a member of a local Baptist Church that openly welcomes and affirms gays and lesbians.
Hickerson, wearing a rainbow PRIDE shirt in her television interviews, said she has no doubt as to why this attack was so brutal. “This was a hate crime,” Hickerson said, “There were hate slurs and this was not a robbery because they didn’t take anything from them.” She continued, “I think she was targeted for being a strong lesbian young girl.”
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
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. Read More…
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Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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Steve Sprinkle
Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT Hate Crime VictimsBrite Divinity School/Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth TXprofessor, minister, author, blogger, LGBTQ advocate
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