sf bay transgender woman murdered

[tasani.livejournal.com]

a 17-year-old transgendered woman in Newark, a San Francisco suburb, was killed two weeks ago. her body was identified today. the FBI is investigating the killing as a hate crime, and it's one of the top stories on the local news here. three men have been charged with murder.

here's an Associated Press article:

3 Charged in Hate Crime Death of Teen
Posted: October 17, 2002 at 11:09 p.m.
Updated: October 18, 2002 at 4:32 p.m.

NEWARK, Calif. (AP) -- 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 believe Eddie Araujo showed up at the house party as a girl named "Lida," and was assaulted and killed after the suspects discovered he was a boy.

"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.

Nabor's 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."

It wasn't immediately clear what prosecutors decided to do with a fourth suspect jailed Wednesday, Jose's brother Paul Richard Merel Jr., 25. He didn't appear in court with the other three. Prosecutors left without speaking to reporters.

Araujo, who had been dressing like a girl "for some time," had clashed with the suspects about a week earlier, and tensions flared up again at the Oct. 3 party, said Newark Police Lt. Tom Milner. "We don't know if that's the prime factor in the altercation or if there were other factors involved such as revenge," Milner said. "These things are all definitely in play."

The boy was reported missing by his mother when he didn't come home from the Oct. 3 party. On Wednesday, two weeks later, one of the suspects led police to the body, buried in a shallow grave in the Sierra foothills 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 was killed 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 going by the name Gwen, said Milner. 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. Sherer said he had not heard reports of the youth getting into fights.

"He was a rather nonaggressive individual. I have heard that he did like women's clothing over men's," the superintendent said.

Newark schools faced controversy with a planned performance of "The Laramie Project," next month at Newark Memorial High School. The play tells the story of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student killed in October 1998. A Kansas fundamentalist preacher has promised to picket the play, but Sherer said the play will go on.

"We're not going to let a group of renegades control what we do in the school system. We believe that we have to respect every student as an individual," he said.

"Newark is a wonderful city," Sherer added. "We have a wonderful community and very diverse. This is a shock. It's ironic that here we're doing the Laramie play and we have the same situation here in Newark."

Violence against transgender people -- a broad range of identities including cross-dressers, transvestites, transsexuals and those born with characteristics of both sexes -- is unfortunately common, said Rachael Janelle Light, president of Transgender San Francisco, an advocacy group.

"If it's not a hate crime, I don't know what other crime it could be. Why would you do that to a young person?" Light said. "We all lose a piece of ourselves when this happens."

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

you can find a photo of the victim, Gwen, here.

i feel so sad, and angry, and tired, and outraged.