Posted on 10/19/2002 12:09:26 PM PDT by chance33_98
3 charged with murder in cross-dresser's death By Michelle Locke Associated Press
NE WARK, Calif. -- Three young men were charged with murder Friday in the hate-crime slaying of a cross-dressing 17-year-old boy whose body was found in a shallow grave two weeks after he disappeared from a party.
Police said Eddie Araujo showed up at the house party as a girl named "Lida," and was assaulted and killed after they discovered he was a boy.
The defendants reportedly beat him, gashing his head and then dragged his semiconscious body to the garage, where they tightened a rope around his neck until he seemed dead. Then they drove his body to a remote spot in the Sierra foothills and buried him in a shallow grave, a police affidavit said.
"They're going to pay for what they did," said Araujo's aunt, Imelda Guerrero. "I hope everybody out there who sees this learns something from this because he was a beautiful person inside and out."
Michael William Magidson, 27, Jaron Chase Nabors, 19, and Jose Antonio Merel, 24, all of Newark, appeared in court on charges of murder with a hate-crime enhancement Friday. They entered no pleas and were held without bail.
Nabors' lawyer, Robert J. Beles, said his client was a college student who had no violence in his background.
"There's no bias in him," Beles said, nothing to indicate that Nabors "would actively participate in any type of homophobic activity."
A fourth suspect arrested Wednesday, Jose's brother Paul Richard Merel Jr., 25, was not charged in the slaying. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had been released from jail, where he also faced a parole violation. Prosecutors left without commenting outside court.
Araujo had been dressing like a girl "for some time," and had clashed with the suspects about a week before the Oct. 3 party, said Newark police Lt. Tom Milner.
The boy was reported missing by his mother when he didn't come home from the party.
On Wednesday, two weeks later, police said Nabors confessed and led them to the body, buried about 150 miles east of his home in Newark, a San Francisco suburb.
"We're dealing with a number of people who could have helped, stepped in, prevented or reported this," said Lt. Lance Morrison. "None of them did."
It remained unclear whether the teen died in Newark or in the wilderness area where he was found, near the Silver Fork campground in El Dorado County. The site was so remote, it could only be reached by a four- wheel-drive vehicle, Milner said.
Araujo identified himself as both a male and a female, sometimes also going by the name Gwen, Milner said. His aunt said singer Gwen Stefani was one of his favorites.
In a recent family photo, Araujo had carefully groomed eyebrows and makeup and his hair was highlighted and cut into a shoulder-length bob.
"We're just trying to put him to rest and bury him with dignity," said Guerrero, declining to comment on her nephew's cross-dressing.
"We want to remember him as the human being that he was," she said, crying. "Nobody deserves to take his life, his young life, he didn't deserve it."
He was liked by those who knew him, said Newark Unified School District Superintendent Ken Sherer.
"He was always smiling, he selected his friends very carefully and, according to some students, he did have more female friends than male," he said.
Araujo had attended Newark schools from kindergarten, but showed up at school only about half the time as he grew older. Since the eighth grade, he had been an independent-study student, meeting with a teacher once a week. He would have been a senior, but didn't show up at Crossroads High School this fall, Sherer said.
Perverts will never be 'accepted' by normal people, and they harder they push for 'acceptance' the more inevitable incidents such as this will be.
'Hate Crime' laws can't protect you from being harmed, and they breed a backlash against you when they are invoked against normal people who lash out at you.
Stay under your rocks, perverts. You're safer there.
If you don't consider a cross-dresser to be a class-A pervert I have to wonder "WTF' the deal is with you.
Where was this discovery made, in a bedroom? No mention of the boy's father. The murder is hideous - they could have just booted his thonged rear end out onto the street - but this confused lad should have known that he was inviting some kind of trouble. This poor sap apparantly though he could go through life with a revolving gender, and nobody would mind. If there were a father in the picture, which I doubt, there's a good chance this kid would have been set straight long before party age.
I suspect that the one(s) who discovered the she was a he, killed because of the severe humiliation. If they think this was bad, wait til they end up being boy toys in the slammer. Idiots. Multiple points scored here for Darwin.
That is one way to look at it. Or, even if these three murderers were sickened, they could have merely tossed him out of the house. I do not think they needed to beat, kill, and bury him.
Your rapid defense of those three and blaming of the 'pervert' for his own murder is a sad conclusion for a rational adult.
You consider these boys to be normal? They violently murdered this 17 year old boy. That is norman? In what country is that normal? It is not normal...whether you consider the boys actions to be right or wrong...dressing as a girl. Obviously the 17 year old had issues...which we do not understand. You don't go around killing people that you think are weird...or different. It is not normal.
I don't find anywhere in the article that suggests the boy was a pervert...in the general sense of the word - normally meaning a sexual sicko -
He was 17 for gods sake...
Pablum. Intolerance does not kill. Intolerance convinces someone that they do not want to associate with someone else. Nothing wrong with that.
Look, killing is wrong. This boy did not deserve to be killed. But his behavior was extremely non-standard for our society. That behavior carries risks. I'm sure he knew the risks, and did it anyway. That was his right. It is sad that he was killed for his choice.
I would also say that this boy did not seem to accept himself as a boy. It went beyond dressing for a thrill. He took a girl's name and went to a party and tried to pose as a girl. I'd say that's mental illness in action and the great tragedy is that his mental illness is supposed to be "accepted" nowadays -- so he never got the help he desperately needed. Perhaps, with a little less acceptance, he'd still be alive today.
Well we will agree to disagree on that subject. I think history has proven time after time that intolerance does kill.
Pointing out that such 'lashing out' (my words) is inevitable is a mighty tepid defense, T.O.O.
Some might even call it damning with faint praise.
Or is that too subtle for you?
(Don’t confuse 'subtle' with 'satire' now…)
We have no common ground on which to debate then.
You do not consider someone that cross dresses to be acting out a perverion. Can I also assume you do not consider Homosexuals to be perverted? It would figure...that you are someone that equates "Tolerance" with goodness no matter what the twisted, sick, convoluted lifestyle one may engage in as long as their happy, right?
No matter how ignorantly prideful and selfish one is that's just fine with you as long as they're not hurting any one else? Is this the way you think?
Somehow, I think the more likely reality was that these were just intollerant people who lost control in a way civilzed society does not allow.
Making excuses for their murderous behavior, either blaming the victim or the laws is a lame attempt to divert blame from where it lies - with the three men who beat and killed and burried a boy who did not threaten their safety in any way.
Maybe tolerence isn't the right word, but even if you dispise his actions, taking his life does not fix the problem.
I can't believe anyone could possibly think this kid deserved to be killed.
DUH!
Too bad taxpayers have to pay for there little stint in prison.
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