The killing of Eddie "Gwen" Araujo drew national attention to the issue of violence committed against transgendered people. But ultimately the case is about murder, a prosecutor said as the trial of the men accused of killing Araujo began on Wednesday. "Make no mistake about it--Eddie's death was an execution," prosecutor Chris Lamiero said. Araujo, 17, was beaten and strangled in the Northern California town of Newark in October 2002 after her biological gender was forcibly revealed by the people she thought were her friends. "It was this cast of characters that would snuff out his life, stick him in a hole in the forest, and then head off to McDonald's for breakfast," said Lamiero, who is using female pronouns when talking about Araujo as "Gwen" or "Lida," the names she went by, but male pronouns when talking about Araujo as a murder victim.
On trial are Michael Magidson, 23, and Jose Merel and Jason Cazares, both 24. A fourth man, 20-year-old Jaron Nabors, initially was charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter and has been promised an 11-year prison sentence in exchange for testifying against the other three. It was Nabors who in mid October led police to Araujo's body, buried in a shallow grave in a remote area near Lake Tahoe. At a preliminary hearing last year, Nabors gave a starkly detailed picture of Araujo's final hours, describing how the teen was choked, hit with a skillet, kneed in the face, tied up, and strangled.
Nabors and the three men on trial had met Araujo as "Lida" in the summer of 2002 and had become friends with her, often hanging out at Merel's house in Newark, a San Francisco suburb. But suspicions about her gender arose, and Merel and Magidson, who had both had sex with Araujo, began to compare notes about their encounters, setting the stage for the showdown at Merel's house on October 3. Lamiero described the three, along with Nabors, working together to kill Araujo. The prosecutor said Merel had "absolutely no use for gay people," adding that it wasn't clear whether the others shared that bias. He described Magidson as "profoundly insecure" about his masculinity and someone with something to prove. It was Magidson who pulled the rope tight around Araujo's neck, Lamiero said.
http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=12073&sd=04/16/04SNIP
& some people try to convince me the death penalty is wrong? Well there seem to be more people to convince me why the death penalty is right!
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
