POSTED AT: SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1999 00:11 PST
by Peter Freiberg and Lou Chibbaro Jr., special from the New York Blade
On the same day police arrested two young men for a vicious hate crime in Alabama last week, police in Virginia were uncovering an even more grisly murder in the state's capital city. There, in a public park, two pedestrians found the severed head of a gay man on a footbridge. It had apparently been carefully positioned there quite deliberately—in a section of that city's James River Park where local press had recently reported on the arrests of a large number of men for soliciting sex from other men.
Richmond police said they found the rest of the body about two hours later that day, March 1, nearly a mile away, in the James River. It was the remains of Henry Edward Northington, 29.
"It may be a hate crime, it may be a sex crime, it may be a ritualistic crime," police homicide detective Thomas T. Leonard told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on March 6. "We really don't have anything concrete."
But gay activists fear it is a anti-gay hate crime. Northington's murder came just two months after Richmond police arrested at least 53 men on charges that they engaged in or solicited sex with other men in city parks—including the site where Northington's head was found. The arrests were widely reported in the Richmond papers.
It also came just weeks before the trial of a man accused in the widely publicized hate-motivated murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Shepard's body, like that of Northington, was left prominently displayed, left hanging on a fence in the same manner ranchers reportedly hang the body of a wolf with the aim of scaring off other wolves. Shepard had been severely beaten about the head and groin.
And it came just as news was reaching the national press about another grisly murder in Alabama. There, two men allegedly beat 39-year-old Billy Jack Gaither with an ax handle, put him in a car trunk, and drove to the banks of a local creek, where they beat him some more, then placed his body on a pile of tires and set it on fire. Gaither's charred remains were found Feb. 20, sparking a police investigation that culminated in the arrests on March 1 of two local men—Steven Eric Mullins, 25, and Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21—on March 3.
Coosa County Sheriff's Deputy Al Bradley, who declined to comment to the Blade this week, told the Birmingham News on March 3 that "Mullins and Butler stated the reason they killed him was because he was a homosexual. We believe this to be the true motive."
Like two young defendants in the Matthew Shepard case, the two Alabama men told police that they were angry at Gaither because he made a pass at one of them. But those who knew Gaither insisted this week that would have been very out of character for Gaither.
"I don't believe it. That was not Billy Jack's way," said Marion Hammond, owner of a straight bar, called The Tavern, that Gaither frequently patronized. "He wouldn't throw himself on nobody. If you acted like you didn't want him sitting around you, he would happily get up and leave."
News of the Alabama murder late last week brought denunciations and expressions of sympathy from a wide range of people and groups, including President Bill Clinton. In a statement March 5, Clinton said:
"This heinous and cowardly crime touches the conscience of our country, just as the terrible murders of James Byrd in Texas and Matthew Shepard in Wyoming did last year."
Clinton reiterated his support for the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which would give the Justice Department the power to prosecute hate crimes committed because of the victim's sexual orientation, gender, or disability.
In Richmond, Va., this week, police spokesperson Christie Collins told the Blade that investigators don't have sufficient evidence to declare the murder an anti-gay hate crime, although detectives are looking into the possibility that anti-gay hatred was the motive in the killing.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Northington had served in the Navy and attended college in the Richmond area but fell into hard times in recent years. He was sometimes observed talking to himself, and he had been known to sleep in public parks and make use of city facilities that help people who are homeless, the Times-Dispatch reported.
The owner of a local bar told the Blade that Northington had gotten into trouble there and other places popular with gays after getting inebriated and becoming too aggressive in trying to meet people. But he added that he did not believe Northington would have intentionally tried to harm anyone.
Collins of the police department said investigators believe Northington's murder and decapitation took place along the bank of the James River near where his body was found. She said investigators believe the killer or killers carried Northington's severed head about a half-mile through a wooded area of the park and then up about 70 steps which lead to the pedestrian walkway where the head was found. According to Collins, a young couple walking through the park discovered the head about 4:40 p.m., Monday, March 1, in a location of the park near the James River's north bank.
Police have said the head was placed exactly in the center of the walkway, as if the killer or killers intended to leave a message.
"It certainly seems like someone was trying to say something," said Collins. "Right now, we can't say exactly what that message is."
Richmond activist Shirley Lesser of Virginians for Justice, a statewide gay civil rights group, said many in the gay community believe it was more than a coincidence that Northington was gay and his severed head was placed in a park site known as a cruising spot for men who seek out other men for sex. It was also a recreational spot popular with gay men during the summer months.
Lesser said she is concerned that, because police operated a sting operation in the park, which led to numerous arrests of gay men in the James River Park in December and January, men who may know something about the murder will be reluctant to come forward with potentially useful information. Lesser said that, in the sting, plainclothes officers posed as willing sex partners and arrested many of the men on the charge of solicitation for sodomy, after the men verbally discussed sexual acts but did not engage in sex.
Officials at the Coosa County Sheriff's office in Alabama said this week they could no longer discuss the murders, on instructions from District Attorney Fred Thompson Jr., and Thompson's office also declined comment. Each of the suspects is being held on $500,000 bond, and a grand jury is expected to consider whether to indict the two on capital murder, which would carry the death penalty.
But the previous week, the sheriff's office told reporters that the two suspects confessed to the crime, saying they were angry at a sexual advance that Gaither allegedly made to one of them.
The two men allegedly lured Gaither from The Tavern, where Hammond saw him early on the evening of Feb.19.
According to Hammond, Gaither told her, "Don't worry about that guy sitting in my car, he's not ready to come in yet." Gaither was reportedly referring to Mullins, who later drove with Gaither to another bar, where they picked up Butler.
The pair then allegedly beat Gaither with the ax handle, stuffed him into the trunk of his own car, drove to the banks of the Peckerwood Creek, beat him again, and then burned his body.
While horrified at the tragedy, gay activists said they are satisfied with the rapid response of law enforcement officials.
David White, of Alabama's Gay and Lesbian Alliance, said two of the group's members had known Gaither was gay and, when the body was found, called local police to say they believed it was a hate crime. They were asked by police not to speak out publicly because the murder was being investigated—and the police turned out to be speaking the truth.
"From what I know, [law enforcement officials] did a really good job," says White. "They acted like they really cared, which was a very pleasant surprise."
Jeff Montgomery, president of Michigan's Triangle Foundation, a gay anti-violence and civil rights group, says defendants accused of anti-gay crimes often seek to justify them by claiming the victim made a pass at them.
"The logical extension of their thinking," Montgomery says, "is. 'He deserved it, he got what was coming to him.'" Whether Gaither made a pass at either of the men or not, Montgomery said, "does nothing in any way to mitigate, explain, excuse, or make this any less of a horrendous act of cold-blooded murder."
Vehement anti-gay hatred, possibly because of the attackers' own homosexual desires, is also demonstrated in the extreme "overkill" that characterizes most anti-gay murders, such as Gaither's, said Montgomery.
Alabama State Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery), a former civil rights activist who is sponsoring a bill to include sexual orientation in Alabama's hate crimes law, told the Blade he believes the "barbaric murder" has changed attitudes in the capitol.
"This incident is giving momentum to the bill," Holmes says. "We need to send a strong message that lesbians and gays … should not be subject to harassment, intimidation, or violence."