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11
Copyright 1999 The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
March 6, 1999, Saturday, ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 01A
LENGTH: 805 words
SERIES: Home
HEADLINE: Grisly killing stuns Alabama town
BYLINE: Gita M. Smith
DATELINE: Sylacauga, Ala
BODY:
The people of Sylacauga knew that Billy Jack
Gaither was a devoted son, that he was a computer operator at Russell
Mills and that he drank Bud Light beer at The
Tavern, his favorite bar.
But few knew Gaither was gay until two men
told police this week they killed him because he made a pass at them.
In this town of 13,000 people, homosexuality remains
a taboo, but what seems to disturb residents most is that someone they
knew and liked died a violent, gruesome death.
"Last weekend, we kept thinking Billy Jack
would come through the door and smile like always," said Donna McKee,
a bartender at The Tavern, a country-western
bar where Gaither showed up regularly for Saturday night dances. "He was
the slowest beer drinker because he'd have to walk around and talk to
everyone and shoot a game of pool."
Authorities found a badly burned body ---
enventually identified as Gaither --- on a stack of burned tires on a
bank of Peckerwood Creek in neighboring Coosa County
the night of Feb. 19. Two men, one of them described as a "skinhead wannabe,"
told sheriff's deputies this week they had beaten Gaither to death with
an ax handle and set him on fire, according
to authorities.
On Friday, President Clinton delivered a
statement in Washington condemning the ''heinous and cowardly crime,"
and gay rights organizations compared the slaying
to that of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming last fall. Shepard, a college student,
died after a beating police said was motivated in part because he was
gay.
''I share with many Americans a sense of
grief and outrage at the tragic and violent death of Billy Jack Gaither
in Alabama,'' Clinton said.
A candlelight vigil honoring Gaither's memory
is planned for Monday evening in Sylacauga.
Randy Gaither, Billy Jack's younger brother,
answered the door when deputies came to the Gaither home on Feb. 20 and
asked what Billy Jack might have been wearing
the day before.
"I told them he would have been wearing cowboy
boots, a gold ring, necklace and bracelet," Randy Gaither recalled Friday.
"We buried my brother without knowing
why he was killed. It was only later that these boys confessed, and we
found out why."
It was Randy who had to break the news to
their father, Marion Gaither, 68 and suffering from emphysema and heart
disease. Billy Jack had lived at home helping
his dad with yardwork and driving his parents to doctor appointments,
the younger brother Gaither said.
Charged with the killing are Steven Eric
Mullins, 25, and Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21.
Larry Hammond, owner of The Tavern, described
Mullins as a skinhead wannabe who "tried to walk around like a bully."
Acquaintances said Mullins was given to
wearing racist insignias and spewing racial epithets.
Butler, by contrast, was described as quiet
and a neat dresser.
Regulars at The Tavern, where Gaither met
Mullins and Butler, said Friday they are in shock and are mourning. Donna
McKee said Gaither often asked her to dance, especially when the Saturday
night band got to cooking with a fast number. He also liked to dance with
Shona Magouyrk, a regular at the bar.
"I know it definitely was a hate crime,"
Magouyrk said, as she ordered a sandwich at the Steak At Home next door.
"He was a good person. There's a lot of rednecks
around here, and they can't accept gays."
"I used to wonder why he didn't just go to
a gay bar in Birmingham," she added, "but I think he was scared to drink
and drive all the way back." Birmingham is about
40 miles away.
Jimmy Reynolds, owner of Steak At Home, said
the killing "is the first of this type here."
"People here hadn't been exposed to gays
being open as much as in Atlanta or Birmingham, and a minority is more
visible in a small town," he said.
While serving up barbecue and sweet tea to
customers, Reynolds said there's a separate code of behavior required
of gay people in a small, Deep South town.
"Someone gay should know where he's at. In
Deep South Alabama, you don't walk into a country-western bar and let
people know you're gay. That's just the way
it is," he said.
"Now that don't give someone the right to
beat and burn a man," he quickly added.
At the sheriff's office in Sylacauga, Sgt.
Kenny Archer said people are "upset about any homicide that happens in
this town --- a person is a person regardless."
Currently in the Coosa County Jail on $ 500,000
bond each, Mullins and Butler will be processed through the courts in
the county where the crime allegedly was committed,
not in Talladega County, where Gaither and the two men lived.
The Gaither family will never recover from
this, said Randy Gaither, who works at the Uniroyal tire shop in Sylacauga.
"I saw the remains of my brother," he said,
"and I don't see how anyone could do what they done to another human being."
GRAPHIC: Map sylacauga.Ala. 0306.eps:
Alabama map shows location of Sylacauga.
/ Elizabeth Landt / Staff
Photo :
Charles Monroe Butler Jr.
Photo :
Steven Eric Mullins
Photo :
Billy Jack Gaither
Photo :
Wrong place at the wrong time: This nightclub,
which Billy Jack Gaither
visited the night of his slaying, was also
a favorite hangout of the two
men who allegedly killed him. / Associated
Press
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Copyright 1999 Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times
View Related Topics
March 6, 1999, Saturday, Home Edition
SECTION: Part A; Page 1; National Desk
LENGTH: 1104 words
HEADLINE: ALABAMA TOWN STUNNED BY NATION'S
LATEST HATE SLAYING
BYLINE: EDITH STANLEY and J.R. MOEHRINGER,
TIMES STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: SYLACAUGA, Ala.
BODY:
People here never dreamed they'd become
famous for hate, not in a town that prides itself on being the birthplace
of Jim Nabors, TV's lovable Gomer Pyle.
But now, residents in this rural part of
central Alabama must cope with the news that two local men have committed
the latest hate crime to horrify the nation.
To a growing list of nationally mourned victims--including
Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay student in Wyoming, and James Byrd
Jr., a 49-year-old black man in Texas--officials
here are adding the name of Billy Jack Gaither, a 39-year-old gay man
whom one woman called "a sweetheart."
It happened Feb. 26. Gaither left his Sylacauga
home for an evening's fun with two straight friends, unaware they had
allegedly been plotting his murder for two weeks,
ever since claiming he offended them by making sexual overtures.
The men, 25-year-old Steven Eric Mullins
and 21-year-old Charles Monroe Butler, gave full confessions this week,
telling police they bludgeoned their friend with
an ax handle and then burned his body with a stack of old tires.
The crime prompted an outraged statement
Friday from President Clinton.
"In times like this," Clinton said, "the
American people pull together and speak with one voice because the acts
of hatred that led to the deaths of such innocent men
are also acts of defiance against the values our society holds most dear."
A local resident on an off-road romp found
Gaither's body Feb. 27, lying in a remote area of Coosa County called
Peckerwood Creek, about 30 miles south of here.
The creek is where Christians have held baptisms for years.
"There's nothing there but dirt roads and
trees and a creek," said Sheriff's Deputy Al Bradley.
Sylacauga, where Gaither and the suspects
lived, is a quiet town of 13,000 people, about 50 miles south of Birmingham.
Rockford, where the suspects were being
held, isn't even that big.
"We're mostly country people," Bradley said.
"There's only about 500 people inside our city limits. We don't have a
traffic light per se. We got a four-way stop in
town that has just a caution light. Most everybody has chickens and cows,
and everybody has a dog."
Folks were stunned, he added, to learn what
had happened in their midst.
Gaither was last seen Feb. 19, at the Tavern,
a Sylacauga roadhouse where he was a regular. A low-slung country-and-western
bar with two dartboards and a dance
floor, the Tavern was filled with his friends, who included the owner,
Marion Hammonds, one of his frequent dance partners.
"He didn't ever put anybody in an awkward
position," she told the local newspaper. "People didn't know he was gay.
I danced with him all the time."
"He was a sweetheart," said Donna McKee,
a bartender. "He had a good soul. He was very social. Though I never saw
him come in with anyone, he had a lot of friends
here."
McKee said she used to needle Gaither about
his fastidious appearance. "I used to tease him about his dark glasses
and his well-combed hair. I wanted to mess his
hair up. He was always meticulous."
In nearby Alexander City, where Gaither worked
for years at the Russell Distribution Center, which manufactures sportswear,
a co-worker said he was a pleasure to
be around.
"We were shocked," said Jennifer Thompson.
"He was a very nice person to work for, and he was well-suited to the
job he had." Gaither was a supervisor at the distribution
center, she said.
Of the suspects, she added: "I'm a Christian,
and I can't say, 'Hang them.' But I sure would like to."
The two suspects are being held in lieu of
$ 500,000 bond. They face a March 17 pretrial hearing, and both are waiting
for lawyers to be appointed. Mullins was unemployed;
Butler was a construction worker.
Bradley said the police case was helped when
Butler couldn't sleep and confided to a friend about his part in the slaying.
"He was having trouble in his conscience,"
Bradley said.
Local officials who saw the crime scene may
have trouble sleeping too. They called it the worst they had ever run
across.
"It's very bad," Bradley said. "I've been
in law enforcement going on 17 years, and I've seen a lot of things, but
this is tragic. Because somebody is the way theywant
to be, you just want to take them and kill them and burn them up?"
Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty
Law Center in Montgomery, said Americans are deluding themselves if they
think Shepard, Byrd and Gaither have
been the only victims of hate crimes in recent months.
"The level of violence and the ferocity of
the violence has been really remarkable," he said. "We've heard of Shepard
and we've heard of Byrd, now we've heard of
this case, but who's heard of Sonya Thompson, a 38-year-old woman in Albany,
N.Y., who was shot in the neck by two white guys who'd gone out to hunt
down a black person with a semiautomatic
rifle?"
The crime, Potok said, happened more than
a year ago, and it's one of dozens of wanton acts of hate-motivated violence
that have escaped national attention.
"We're seeing between a dozen and three dozen
hate murders per year," he said. "Alabama reported zero hate crimes the
last two years. There's no question that's patently
false."
Alabama is one of 41 states with laws against
hate crimes, but it's one of 20 states that don't consider sexual orientation
grounds for hate crime status.
Researchers routinely report that hate crimes
directed at homosexuals are more severe than others, Potok said. "It's
rather as if the people are trying to eradicate the
very persona of the victim."
Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay
and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said some of the blame for Gaither's
death must be laid at the feet of hard-core
conservatives and Christian preachers who vilify homosexuals.
"As an anti-defamation organization," she
said from New York, "GLAAD sees time and time again that hateful rhetoric
has real impact on real people's lives.
How many more times do we have to see tragedy
before that becomes clear to the American public and policymakers?"
A candlelight vigil for Gaither was planned
for Monday night in Sylacauga. There, Friday afternoon, a young mother
carried her 4-month-old baby into the offices
of the Daily Home. She pointed to the picture of one of the suspects,
printed on the front page.
"I knew him," Amanda Barron said. "When I
worked at Dollar General, he'd come in and he was real quiet. He'd buy
his stuff and he'd be very nice."
She said she couldn't believe that the menacing
picture on the front page was her former customer.
"That picture doesn't look like him. It makes
him look evil."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Suspect Steven Eric Mullins
PHOTOGRAPHER: Associated Press PHOTO: Suspect Charles Monroe Butler PHOTOGRAPHER:
Associated Press PHOTO: Billy Jack Gaither,
39, was found slain Feb. 27 in remote area. PHOTOGRAPHER: Associated Press
GRAPHIC-MAP: ALABAMA /
Los Angeles Times
LANGUAGE: English
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Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
View Related Topics
March 6, 1999, Saturday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 3; National
Desk
LENGTH: 1400 words
HEADLINE: Murder Reveals Double Life Of Being
Gay in Rural South
BYLINE: By DAVID FIRESTONE
DATELINE: SYLACAUGA, Ala., March 5
BODY:
The closets that gay people build in small,
severe towns like this one are thick and difficult to penetrate, and Billy
Jack Gaither's was locked even tighterthan
most.
Until the day two weeks ago when he was beaten
to death and burned, Mr. Gaither, who was 39, lived with his disabled
parents in their white clapboard house, tending
to their needs, cooking dinner and cleaning up, singing in the choir of
his Baptist church. His parents swear they had no idea he was gay, and
his father,
Marion Gaither, is still half in denial,
desperately pointing out that his son once had a girlfriend in Birmingham
whom he almost married.
But the small group of gay residents in this
central Alabama city of 13,000 knew Billy Jack Gaither as one of their
own, sharing their fears of public knowledge.
A friend who grew up with him and used to
accompany him on the nearly 40-mile trip northwest to the gay bars of
Birmingham said Mr. Gaither would have probably
escaped Sylacauga, like most gay people who grow up here, but was too
devoted to his parents to contemplate leaving. The friend, who did not
want to be identified for fear of losing
business, said Mr. Gaither had never wanted to hurt his deeply religious,
Baptist parents by revealing the nature of his sexuality.
Now his parents and the rest of Sylacauga
have found out about Mr. Gaither, and in the worst possible way. On Thursday,
officials charged two local men with
Mr. Gaither's murder, saying the two had
said they became angered after he made a sexual advance at one of them.
The murder is being called another signpost
of hate, like the deaths of Matthew Shepard, killed in Wyoming last year
because he was gay, and James Byrd Jr., the
black man dragged to his death behind a truck last year in Jasper, Tex.
The Coosa County Sheriff's report said the
men, Steven E. Mullins and Charles M. Butler Jr., had known Mr. Gaither
and met him on the night of Feb. 19 at a local
nightclub, the Frame. They then locked him in the trunk of his car and
drove to a deserted boat dock where they bludgeoned him to death with
an ax handle, then heaved his body
onto a pyre of burning tires, the report said. His remains were found
the next day on the banks of Peckerwood Creek, which churches use for
baptizing.
Mr. Gaither's parents had barely absorbed
the horror of his gruesome death before they were forced to learn the
motive for his murder, and the secret life that he had
led for so long. They knew him as the kindest of their four boys, the
one who read his big illustrated Bible every night before going to bed,
who never came home late on those rare
occasions when he did go with friends to one of the local bars (all of
them straight).
"If he was gay, he sure never showed it,"
his mother, Lois Gaither, said this morning. "He never flaunted himself
as being gay or talked about it. And whether he was
or not, it don't make me love him any less. He was my young'un."
She added, in a kind of rueful acknowledgment
of the truth, "Whatever he did, he never brought it home."
But Marion Gaither, debilitated by multiple
heart attacks and a stroke, sat on the couch near his wife, holding his
forehead in his hands, shaking his head at all references
to his son's sexuality. When a television news report came on saying his
son was killed because he was gay, Mr. Gaither shouted out: "If he was
gay. If he was gay."
A tour of the house, however, gave a glimpse
of the separate world that Billy Jack Gaither lived in. He had decorated
his room with a large collection of Scarlett
O'Hara dolls and other figurines from "Gone
With the Wind," for which he hunted at flea markets on weekends. A large
picture of Clark Gable kissing Vivian
Leigh hung over his bedroom fireplace; pink
chiffon curtains fluttered around antique etchings of antebellum women
in hoop skirts.
The rest of the house, which his parents
also allowed him to decorate, was more conventional. In the living room
he hung a painting of the Last Supper, next to another
of Jesus praying in the garden; between them was a golden plaque of the
Ten Commandments.
The two rooms, one for the outside world,
the other for himself, seemed to illustrate the traditional dichotomy
of small-town Southern gay life. Billy Jack
Gaither's friend said there were about 100
gay people in town, but none were open about their sexual orientation.
Though there had never been a violent incident like
this one against a gay person, the friend said, there was plenty of evidence
that homosexuality was not appreciated.
Not long ago, he said, citing one example,
a group of downtown merchants hung up a series of flags on light poles
to spruce up the image of the central business district.
The merchants were not aware that one flag used a rainbow symbol sometimes
employed by gay groups, but a local church recognized the symbol and began
a strident campaign to remove it, saying that its presence promoted a
gay life style in Sylacauga. The flag quickly came down.
Those gay people who have not moved out of
town occasionally travel together to gay bars in Birmingham or Montgomery,
the friend said. He said Mr. Gaither occasionally
went on such trips, and was known to have had at least two short-term
relationships with other men, whom he would meet out of town.
Sylacauga, with more than 70 churches in
its boundaries, is not unlike most rural Southern towns in its conservatism
and religious beliefs. It is industrial rather than
agricultural, with many people working in one of the factories that ring
Sylacauga. Mr. Gaither operated a computer terminal at the Russell Corporation,
an athletic wear manufacturer, in nearby
Alexander City. He dropped out of Sylacauga High School in the 11th grade,
but later got his equivalency diploma and joined
the Marines for a year before getting an honorable discharge because of
high blood pressure, his parents said.
David W. White, the Birmingham coordinator
for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Alabama, said Mr. Gaither had frequented
a Birmingham bar called the Tool
Box, one of five gay bars in the city. Many
gay people from surrounding small towns drive to Birmingham for companionship,
he said, because the slightest indication
of homosexuality in a town like Sylacauga would invite harassment, or
worse.
"I would consider it difficult to live anywhere
in Alabama other than Birmingham," Mr. White said. "Even in Birmingham,
I would never in a public place grab my
partner's hand and walk down the street. It would literally be a death
wish in the state of Alabama. You would almost be inciting violence to
do something like that."
Until now, Mr. Gaither's friend said, gay
people in town have been more concerned about harassment and the loss
of jobs or business than about violence. That all
changed with Mr. Gaither's murder.
"We're all looking over our shoulders now,"
said the friend, who carefully closed the doors of his office before even
discussing the subject. "You know, Mullins lived
just two miles from here."
Mr. Mullins, who shaved his head, was known
around town for wearing Ku Klux Klan T-shirts and making racist comments,
but Mr. Gaither's friend said gay residents
had not been aware of him or Mr. Butler as someone to fear. Mr. Mullins
and Mr. Butler are being held in the Coosa County jail in lieu of $500,000
bond each; their case will be handed
to a grand jury on March 17.
Although the two men could face execution
if they are convicted of capital murder, they cannot be charged with a
hate crime, because Alabama's hate-crime statute covers
only crimes committed due to race, religion, ethnicity and disability,
but not sexual orientation. Mr. White and other advocates of gay rights
said the murder would increase the
pressure on the Alabama Legislature to broaden the statute. Mr. Shepard's
death led to similar calls for hate-crime legislation that would
apply to gays.
President Clinton was explicit in comparing
the two cases today in offering his prayers to Mr. Gaither's friends and
family.
"In times like this, the American people
pull together and speak with one voice, because the acts of hatred that
led to the deaths of such innocent men are also acts of
defiance against the values our society holds most dear," Mr. Clinton
said in a statement.
Mrs. Gaither put it somewhat differently.
"If he was gay or not," she said, "that still
didn't give them no right to kill him."
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: Billy Jack Gaither, 39, led
a life his family knew nothing about in Sylacauga, Ala., where even the
slightest indication of being gay could
provoke harassment. (pg. A10)
Map of Alabama showing location of Sylacauga.
(pg. A10)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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Copyright 1999 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
View Related Topics
March 06, 1999, Saturday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A03
LENGTH: 965 words
HEADLINE: Ala. Killing Draws Comparisons;
Deputy Says SuspectsShowed Some Regret
BYLINE: Sue Anne Pressley, Washington Post
Staff Writer
DATELINE: SYLACAUGA, Ala., March 5
BODY:
People who noticed Steven Eric Mullins at
all thought he worked hard at appearing sinister with his heavy boots,
shaved head, rebel flags and "KKK" T-shirts.
But they dismissed him as a mixed-up country
boy who worked at construction jobs and still lived with his family at
25.
Charles Monroe Butler, 21, who also did construction
work, had been Mullins's sidekick for a while.
Somewhere along the way, their paths crossed
with Billy Jack Gaither, 39, a gregarious textile factory worker who seemed
comfortable enough with his
homosexuality, even in this rural town of
13,000, that he could discuss it with friends at the Tavern, a straight
bar where he liked to play pool.
The result, authorities here say, was a senseless
crime that left Gaither beaten to death and his body set on fire atop
some old tires in a remote area of neighboring
Coosa County. On Thursday, Mullins and Butler
were charged in connection with the Feb. 19 death, and this bustling community
50 miles southeast of
Birmingham, with its lush hills and abundant
streams, began to deal with an ugly national spotlight as reporters poured
in to record the latest example of someone being
killed for being himself.
The two suspects confessed to Coosa County
sheriff's deputies that they plotted for two weeks to kill Gaither after
claiming he had made an unwanted sexual advance
at Mullins. But Gaither's friends said they doubted the claim, contending
that that would have been out of character.
Initially, deputy Al Bradley said, Mullins
and Butler had expressed remorse about the crime, but it apparently was
short-lived. "Nah, they don't seem worried today.
They're acting like nothing happened," he said today about the suspects,
who are being held under $ 500,000 bond in the county jail. "They're just
waiting for their day in court."
Mullins had been arrested earlier this week
on a warrant for failure to appear in court for an earlier driving-under-the-influence
charge, Sylacauga Police Chief
Louis Zook said. Then, after Mullins spoke
with investigators, Butler was picked up in connection with Gaither's
slaying. Local news reports today quoted a woman
who identified herself as Butler's stepmother who said Butler told his
family he thought the intention was to beat Gaither up, not to kill him.
The case drew inevitable comparisons to the
October slaying of 21-year-old gay college student Matthew Shepard in
Wyoming, who was pistol-whipped, tied to a fence
post in an isolated area and left for dead by two young men who made a
similar claim of homosexual advances. That killing aroused a wave of indignation
and demands for strengthening hate
crime laws.
President Clinton, comparing it to the Shepard
murder, condemned Gaither's killing in a White House statement today,
calling it a "heinous and cowardly crime" that
"touches the conscience of our country."
The arrests brought some relief to residents
who are largely unaccustomed to violent crime--Sylacauga has had two homicides
in the past five years, Zook said--and
who had been shaken by the gruesome details.
Bradley said the three men drove to a remote
boat ramp, where Gaither was badly beaten with an ax handle and locked
in the trunk of his car. The car was then driven
to Peckerwood Creek, once a baptismal spot for area churches about 15
miles from here, where Gaither was taken out and further beaten until
he was dead. His body was then thrown
onto flaming tires doused with kerosene.
"This is a big good-news type city. There's
a lot of club news out of here," said Daily Home newspaper reporter Rob
Strickland about the community's shock.
"There were some rumors going around for
awhile that this was about money, but they didn't pan out. But there were
also people who knew; a woman who works
here knew from day one what this was all about."
Unlike other areas that have been associated
with a sudden incident of violent crime--like Jasper, Tex., where a black
man was dragged to death last year by white supremacists--residents
here seemed able to distance themselves from what occurred.
Diane Cleveland, for example, an administrative
assistant at city hall, pointed out that the slaying did not occur in
town, and that the two suspects, whom she described
as "trash," lived in outlying rural areas. "I do not know that anybody
here is viewing this as some indictment on Sylacauga or Coosa County or
this area," Chief Zook said. "It certainly
is a relief to everybody that the people who may be responsible for something
as horrible as this have been caught."
David W. White, state coordinator for the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Alabama, said he knows of no specific incidents
of gay harassment around Sylacauga. But he
said, "We've got our cities and we've got our country in Alabama, and
that is what this area is--the people who talk real Southern, who are
just a little bit backward."
He said he has new hope for a legislative
bill that would add sexual orientation and gender to the state's hate-crime
law.
At the Tavern--on U.S. 280, or "the Jim Nabors
Highway," after the "Gomer Pyle" TV star who hails from the area--bar
owner Marion Hammond remembered her
friend Billy Jack Gaither. He would drink a Bud Light, stand at the jukebox
laughing with his friends, shoot a little pool. Among the Tavern regulars,
she said, nobody cared who he was in
his private moments.
"We cared about him because he was a fine
human being," she said. "He was such a good ol' boy."
Beating victim Billy Jack Gaither, a gregarious
textile factory worker, was a regular at the Tavern, on the "Jim Nabors
Highway," where bar owner Marion
Hammond said he shot pool and none of the
customers cared about his sexual preference. Billy Jack Gaither, 39, was
beaten to death with ax handle and set afire.
GRAPHIC: Photo, the daily home/bob crisp;ph,,the
daily home via ap
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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Copyright 1999 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
March 5, 1999 Friday State
SECTION: News Pg. 9
LENGTH: 148 words
HEADLINE: Police say 2 killed man because
he was gay
SOURCE: Journal Sentinel wire reports
DATELINE: Sylacauga, Ala.
BODY:
Two men charged with the murder of a man
whose body was set afire told investigators they killed him because he
was homosexual, police said.
Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21, was arrested
Monday and Steven Eric Mullins, 25, was arrested Wednesday in the Feb.
19 slaying of Billy Jack Gaither, 39.
Bot h men confessed, Coosa County Sheriff's
Deputy Al Bradley said.
Bradley said both men knew Gaither, whose
charred remains were found Feb. 20.
"Mullins and Butler stated the reason they
killed him was because he was a homosexua l," he said. "We believe this
to be the true motive."
According to the statements, Mullins called
Gaither and asked him to go to a bar, where they met and apparently left
together. Authorities said the men apparently took
Gaither to a remo te location, bludgeoned him to death and set fire to
his body, using an old car tire as a pyre.
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Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
View Related Topics
March 5, 1999, Friday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 10; Column 3; National
Desk
LENGTH: 593 words
HEADLINE: 2 Confess to Killing Man, Saying
He Made a Sexual Advance
BYLINE: By KEVIN SACK
DATELINE: ATLANTA, March 4
BODY:
Two Alabama men told the authorities this
week that they beat a man to death with an ax handle last month and then
burned his body because the victim had previously
made a homosexual advance to them.
Al Bradley, a sheriff's deputy in Coosa County,
Ala., a rural area between Birmingham and Montgomery, said today that
the two men had confessed this week after
waiving their right to counsel and were then charged with the Feb. 19
murder of Billy Jack Gaither, a 39-year-old textile worker.
The two men, both of whom are being held
in the Coosa County jail in lieu of $500,000 bond, are Steven Eric Mullins,
25, and Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21.
Both are construction workers from Sylacauga,
Ala., Deputy Bradley said. Mr. Butler confessed on Monday and Mr. Mullins
on Wednesday, he said.
"This Steven Mullins, the Butler boy and
the Gaither man were acquaintances," Deputy Bradley said in a telephone
interview. "How long they've known each other
is not determined. But we do know they had known each other at least two
weeks, because that's when Mullins said Gaither approached them in a sexual
manner. Nothing took place at the time,"
he continued, "but Mullins states in his confession that that made him
upset, that he didn't like it because Gaither was gay."
Deputy Bradley said that Mr. Mullins called
Mr. Gaither at home on the night of the killing and that Mr. Gaither then
drove to pick up Mr. Mullins and Mr. Butler at
their homes. They drove to a reservoir outside Sylacauga, where the two
men beat Mr. Gaither and placed him in the trunk of his car, Deputy Bradley
said.
They then drove the car to Mr. Mullins's
house, picked up some kerosene, matches and two old tires, and drove to
an isolated area.
The deputy said the men lighted the tires
with the kerosene, removed Mr. Gaither from the trunk, beat him in the
head with an ax handle and then placed his body on
the burning tires.
"He died of severe blunt head trauma," Deputy
Bradley said. "Once they saw that the body was going to burn they drove
Gaither's car to a landfill in Sylacauga and
burned it up."
Mr. Gaither's remains were found the next
day by a passer-by.
Deputy Bradley said Mr. Butler emerged as
a suspect after he told a friend about the crime and said he was having
trouble sleeping. The friend tipped off the authorities.
Leaders of gay rights groups quickly compared
Mr. Gaither's killing to that of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college
student in Laramie, Wyo., who was severely
beaten after he left a bar and left to die tied to a fence for 18 hours.
Two men have been charged with Mr. Shepard's murder.
"What's becoming very clear is that hate
in this country is turning lethal with alarming frequency," said David
M. Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign,
a gay and lesbian political group in Washington.
Mr. Gaither had worked for 19 years at a
large distribution center for the Russell Corporation, a manufacturer
of sporting apparel, in Alexander City, Ala. Bobbie
Jo Story, a co-worker, said Mr. Gaither lived
with his parents and was well liked. "He was a real nice, loving boy,
good hearted," Ms. Story said.
An article today in The Birmingham News quoted
Mr. Gaither's father, Marion H. Gaither, as saying that he did not believe
that his son had been gay and that he suspected
robbery as the motive for the killing.
Deputy Bradley said, "We have no reason to
believe that the statements Mullins and Butler gave us about him being
gay are not true."
Marion Gaither, reached at his home today,
declined to comment.
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: Charles Monroe Butler, 21,
one of two men charged with murder. (Associated Press)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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Copyright 1999 Gannett Company, Inc.
USA TODAY
March 5, 1999, Friday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2A
LENGTH: 352 words
HEADLINE: Anti-gay bias cited in killing
Ala. man beaten to death; body is set on fire
BYLINE: Larry Copeland
BODY:
Less than five months after a gay University
of Wyoming student
was pistol-whipped, tied to a fence and left
to die, two Alabama
men have confessed they planned a lethal
attack on a man they
claim had propositioned them.
Law enforcement authorities said the two
arranged a meeting with
the man, then beat him and threw him into
the trunk of his car.
Coosa County Sheriff's Deputy Al Bradley
said that the assailants
drove the victim to a remote location and
beat him to death with
an ax handle. Then they burned his body.
Bradley said the suspects, Charles Butler,
21, and Steven Mullins,
25, have been charged with murdering Billy
Jack Gaither, 39.
"In their confession, they said that at least
two weeks earlier,
Mr. Gaither had made a sexual advance toward
Mr. Butler and Mr.
Mullins," Bradley said. "Mr. Mullins didn't
like it. He had
been planning this out for about two weeks."
Gaither's father, Marion, told The Birmingham
News that
his son was not gay and that robbery was
the motive for his murder.
He could not be reached Thursday.
Last October, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old
University of Wyoming
student, was pistol-whipped, tied to a fence
and left to die.
Police said that robbery was the motive but
that Shepard's attackers
singled him out because he was gay. Two men
are awaiting trial
in the slaying.
Bradley said that on the night of the killing
in Sylacauga, Ala.,
Mullins and Butler met Gaither at a bar,
then drove with him to
a boat ramp. There they beat him the first
time. Then they drove
him to Mullins' house, where they got kerosene,
car tires and
matches.
They then drove the victim to the remote
Peckerwood Creek area
and set the tires afire, Bradley said. They
took Gaither out of
the trunk and used an ax handle to beat him
to death, he said.
"He was conscious" before the second beating,
Bradley said.
"He knew he was going to get beat again."
Sylacauga, a town of about 25,000 people
40 miles southeast of
Birmingham, was shaken by the attack, said
David Cohen, the city
clerk. "It's disturbing," he said.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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Copyright 1999 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
View Related Topics
March 05, 1999, Friday, Final Edition
NAME: CHARLES MONROE BUTLER JR.; STEVEN ERIC
MULLINS; BILLY JACK GAITHER
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A01
LENGTH: 737 words
HEADLINE: 2 Accused of Killing, Burning Gay
Man
BYLINE: Sue Anne Pressley, Washington Post
Staff Writer
DATELINE: MIAMI, March 4
BODY:
Two young men in the central Alabama town
of Sylacauga who told police they were upset over a sexual advance by
a gay man have admitted they planned his murder
for two weeks, then bludgeoned him to death with an ax handle and threw
his body onto burning tires.
Coosa County sheriff's deputies identified
the men today as Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21, and Steven Eric Mullins,
25. The two were arrested earlier this week and
charged with murder in the Feb. 19 slaying of Billy Jack Gaither, 39,
who friends said made no secret of his homosexuality.
The slaying, whose details emerged only today,
carried horrific echoes of the murder of Matthew Shepard by two young
men in Wyoming last October in similar circumstances.
That killing aroused a national outcry against hate crimes and generated
calls for federal legislation to impose stiffer punishments on such conduct.
Marion Hammond, owner of a straight bar called
the Tavern in Sylacauga, said she saw Gaither the Friday night of the
killing with one of the accused men. "The last
time I saw Billy Jack," she said, "I was standing outside the bar talking
to my husband and he said, 'Don't worry about that man sitting in my car
-- he's just not ready to come in yet.'
Well, I respected his privacy, and I said fine."
Later, she said, she learned the man was
Mullins; Gaither and Mullins drove to another Sylacauga bar, the Frame,
and picked up Butler, she said, citing local news
reports. The next morning, when Gaither had not returned to the home he
shared with his parents, Lois and Marion, his friends began a search.
But Hammond said she had a bad feeling.
Gaither's charred remains were found the
next day on a concrete platform near the trash-strewn banks of Peckerwood
Creek. His burned-out car was found on a country
road. Deputies said the suspects allegedly set two old tires on fire with
kerosene and tossed the battered body on top.
Residents of Sylacauga, a town of 13,000
about 50 miles southeast of Birmingham, said they were shocked by Gaither's
murder, and gay rights activists expressed
similar outrage.
"Flags go up any time one of us is murdered
and there is no other motivation," said Tracey Conaty of the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "We're tuned into
a tragedy channel."
Alabama is "pretty hostile" to gay issues,
said Conaty. It is one of 19 states where the hate crimes law does not
cover crimes related to sexual orientation.
Recently, a local court removed a child from
a mother's home because she was openly lesbian, Conaty said.
Gay activists said they had received anonymous
tips about the nature of the crime. They told police what they heard but
remained silent in public, officials said, after
a request by authorities that any statements could jeopardize the investigation.
"We got an anonymous tip from someone in
Alabama about a week ago, who knew Billy Jack and was terrified," said
Dan Hawes, of the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C. "It
was pretty evident to him it was a hate crime."
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Alabama also
learned of the killing through a contact in the area, members reported.
Hammond described Gaither, who worked at
Russell Industries in nearby Alexander City, as a likable man who, while
never denying he was homosexual, "made a
point of never doing the gay thing when he was at our place." She said
he would often spend part of the evening at the Tavern and the rest at
a gay bar in Birmingham.
"He was not obvious about anything," she
said. "My husband, Larry, didn't even know he was gay until about a year
ago, and I had to tell him."
Gaither was "a good-looking man," she said,
"dark-complected, about 6-foot-2. He was one of those people who looked
better with his glasses on. Those
pictures they've been showing on TV don't
do him justice."
Hammond said she knew Steven Eric Mullins
by sight. "He'd wear the dungaree pants inside the boots and provocative
T-shirts, with 'White Power' on them and
stuff like that," Hammond recalled.
Mullins and Butler were being held tonight
on $ 500,000 bond. According to a sheriff's deputy who spoke to the Associated
Press, Mullins said "God told him he
needed to confess."
Staff writer Hanna Rosin in Washington contributed
to this report. Charles Monroe Butler, accused of murder with Steven Eric
Mullins. Steven Eric Mullins, 25, is
being held with Butler on $ 500,000 bond.
GRAPHIC: PH,,DAILY HOME/BO CRISP; PH,,DAILY
HOME; MAP,,TWP
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
August 6, 1999, Friday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 15; Column 5; National
Desk
LENGTH: 302 words
HEADLINE: Accomplice Convicted in Killing
BYLINE: AP
DATELINE: ROCKFORD, Ala., Aug. 5
BODY:
A man was convicted today of helping to
kill a homosexual because of what he called an unwanted advance and sentenced
to life without parole.
The defendant, Charles M. Butler Jr., 21,
was convicted of capital murder in the killing of Billy Jack Gaither,
39, who had his throat slashed and was beaten to
death and his body burned on a pile of old tires.
The victim's father, Marion Gaither, had
asked that Mr. Butler not be sentenced to death, saying, "I can't see
taking another human beings life, no matter what."
Mr. Gaither said he hoped his son would not
be remembered as a gay murder victim, but as "one of the finest sons a
man could want."
The case drew national attention after the
authorities said the younger Mr. Gaither was killed because of his sexual
orientation.
President Clinton compared the case to the
dragging death of a black man in Texas and the fatal beating of Matthew
Shepard, a homosexual college student who was
lashed to a fence in Wyoming.
The man who actually killed Mr. Gaither,
Steven Mullins, pleaded guilty earlier and testified against Mr. Butler.
Mr. Mullins, 25, is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday,
and the prosecution said it would recommend that he get life without parole.
Mr. Butler said he had no idea that Mr. Mullins
planned to kill Mr. Gaither when he was asked to meet the two men on a
February night.
Mr. Mullins testified that he decided to
kill Mr. Gaither because Mr. Gaither had made a pass. He said that he
asked Mr. Butler along, and that Mr. Butler understood
what was to happen.
Mr. Mullins cut Mr. Gaither's throat, and
when Mr. Gaither fought back, Mr. Mullins cracked his skull with an ax
handle.
Asked today about his reaction to the killing,
Mr. Butler, said, wiping away tears, "I was in shock and didn't know what
to do."
http://www.nytimes.com
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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