Sunday, June 24, 2007

The Silence Around Indiana's Matthew Shepard

Click on the post header to follow the link to this unbelievable story. Why has there been media silence, outside a few blogs crying in the darkness? How the hell is it that it's the 4th week of June, and I'm just now hearing about this?
The victim in this new outrage wasn't called Aaron 'Shorty' Hall for nothing. Shorty was 5-foot-4 and weighed a mere 100 pounds. In beefy rural Indiana, that passes for almost invisible.

On April 12, Shorty was allegedly beaten to death by Coleman King, 18, and Garrett Gray, 19. They subsequently confessed to police that the beating began when Shorty allegedly made a gay pass at them while they were all drinking beer at Gray's home.

The description of what happened next is horrific, a savage assault that eerily echoes the tortuous death of Matthew Shepard. This time it took the form of a relentless beating that went on for several hours at Gray's house before Shorty was finally dragged down the wooden stairs, his head banging loudly on each step.

King and Gray told cops they beat Hall again at the bottom of the stairs, threw him into a pickup truck and continued beating him as they drove down a remote dirt road.

Once there, one of them had the audacity to send a friend a cellphone photo of the dying Shorty. Then they dumped him, naked but still alive, in a ditch. According to weather reports, it was 39 degrees that night.

The next morning they returned and found Shorty's broken and lifeless body in a field near the ditch. He had apparently crawled out for help, found none, and died alone in the dirt.

A few days later they returned, wrapped the body in a tarp and hid it in Gray's garage, where police found it after being alerted by the recipient of the cellphone photo.

A sensational torture/murder hate crime like this seems like a slam dunk for major media attention, but so far it has received almost none.

Perhaps part of the reason is one of the case's odd twists: Some have publicly suggested that in fact Shorty made no sexual advance on Gray and King and that he was not, in fact, gay.

Instead, it's been suggested that the two teens cooked up the gay angle because they believed that in homo-hating Indiana, it would help excuse their murder.

They beat him, stripped him naked, and took a cell-phone picture of him? Talk about "man's inhumanity to man..."

Seems there needs to be a hate-crimes law in Indiana after all, folks. And I'm gettin real, real tired of the media doing this selective-vision thing...

Other links:
Why Won't The Star Cover The Hate Crime Killing Of Aaron Hall?
Post details: Aaron Hall: killed twice, second time by media?

3 comments:

Erin said...

Well, forget about justice in the courts. I heard an interview with a woman in NC (I think) who was drugged and raped... and the judge presiding over the case forbid her from using the words: rape, sexual assault, assault, force, rape kit, etc. when giving her testamony. She was only allowed to refer to what happened as "sex". And to top it off, the jury were not instructed as to the judge's verbal conditions.

Times like this, I find it really hard to leave justice in God's hands.

Im A Foto Nut said...

Dude, this is so many kinds of wrong I can't even begin to list them all, much less count them! What kind of a world has it become, where one can use just damn near any excuse and think it will get them out of trouble. Oh, its ok, cause he's gay and made a pass at me. If it was so ok, then why the F did you go back and get him wrap him up and hide him?

The only reason you are now using this is because YOU GOT CAUGHT!

And gee last time I checked isn't the legal drinking age 21, or was that ok too because the dead gay guy bought it and forced you to drink it so he could make passes at you?

I am sooo mad right now I can't even see straight. (lol sorry bad choice of words.) I'd certainly like to kick the ever lovin' shit out of them till they die. Guys like that give gentlemen like you and me (straight or gay) a bad name. I wouldn't even call those asswhipes HUMANS. As a matter of fact Dog would be too good.

I have a friend that is famous for saying, (and I would certianly like to borrow it right now) The Good Lord might just need to turn around and look the other way for just a minute while I take care of this.

Jane Ellen+ said...

A horrible thing... and posted to my blog as well. Perhaps if enough of us keep asking, someone will eventually have some answers...