Laguna Beach murder investigation of Damon L. Nicholson continues with more leads and reward
shows that the two men charged with his murder — Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson — befriended Shepard in a mainstream bar in Laramie and offered to drive him home.
McKinney and Henderson’s girlfriends later told police the two young men confided in them that they targeted Shepard for a robbery and plotted to give him the impression they were gay as a means of luring him out of the bar.
Instead of driving him home, they drove him to a remote field and tied him to a wooden rail fence, where McKinney struck him in the head multiple times with the barrel of a large pistol, inflicting devastating facial and brain injuries that led to Shepard’s death.
In the D.C. area murders reviewed in the Blade investigation, nearly all of the victims were found dead inside their homes. While the Shepard murder took place in a remote field rather than in Shepard’s Laramie apartment, the multiple head wounds he suffered were similar to 16 of the 25 gay murders reviewed in the Blade investigation. Police said the victims suffered multiple wounds in what they described as a pattern known as “overkill.”
Some of the victims in the D.C. cases were struck in the head with heavy objects multiple times, like in Shepard’s case, while others suffered multiple knife or gunshot wounds. Five of the 25 victims who were not subjected to multiple wounds died by strangulation, police reports showed.
The 25 cases reviewed by the Blade were typical of gay “pickup” murders that have occurred in the D.C. area and other parts of the country such as Laguna.
Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York Anti-Violence Project, which monitors anti-LGBT hate crimes, and Chris Farris, co-chair of the D.C. group Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence, each said the so-called gay “pick-up” murders have elements of hate violence.
The two said that while the perpetrators in many of these murders were targeting gay men in what police call a crime of opportunity, the underlying motive clearly is based on antipathy toward gays.
“We think they view gay men, at least in some instances, as an easy target because they perceive them as weak and vulnerable,” Farris said.
Farris and Stapel said that while robbery may be one of the motives of a pickup murder, the recurring pattern of “overkill” leads those to believe an element of hate is also present.
“We have seen that pattern for years,” Stapel said. “The method of meeting has evolved from the bars to the Internet. But the motive seems to be the same.”
“We think these should be considered hate crimes, even though it’s unclear whether all existing state hate crimes laws could cover these cases,” she said.
It hasn’t let up. In Alabama, Billy Jack Gaither was battered with an ax handle, thrown on a pile of old tires soaked with kerosene, and ignited. Two suspects in the case confessed that they had plotted for two weeks to kill Gaither after he allegedly made unwanted sexual advances toward one of them.
The severed head of Henry Northington was found on a footbridge heading into a Richmond, Virginia, park that is a popular gathering place for gays. The rest of the body of this gay homeless man was found a half-mile away. To date, no one has been charged with the murder.
In rural Georgia, a transvestite stumbled up to a farm house before losing consciousness, bleeding profusely from head wounds. He’d been beaten with a baseball bat along a country road. He died a few hours later.
All these murders have occurred since Matthew Shepard was pistol whipped and crucified on a jackleg fence in Wyoming. The trial of the first of Shepard’s accused murderers was cut short when Russell Henderson pleaded guilty and received two consecutive life sentences.
The courts have not always seen fit to hand down stiff sentences for those who murdered sexual minorities. In an ironic twist to another hate crime story, the father of John William King, the man sentenced to death for his part in the horrific dragging death of a black man in Jasper, Texas, recalled another murder case with a different outcome. According to the elder King, 60 years ago his brother admitted killing a gay man. The brother’s attorney argued that the murder was justified because of the gay man’s “unnatural advances.” King’s brother was acquitted after only 29 minutes on August 22, 1939. The crowd cheered when the verdict was announced. “It was a hate crime, too,” said the elder King recently in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
In addition to offering the reward for Nicholson’s killer, Hotel Laguna is organizing a memorial service.
Separately, a memorial service for Nicholson was set for 5:30 p.m. next Friday, Nov. 13, at Tivoli Terrace, 650 Laguna Canyon Road.
People who knew Damon are planning various tributes.
Tammy Hileman, is also working with Nicholson’s family to tie up