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posted by mahtin @ 12:04 AM

Trial in murder of Gwen Araujo begins

4/19/2004: The trial of three young men (Michael Magidson, 23, and Jose Merel and Jason Cazares, both aged 24) who are accused of beating and strangling transgendered teenager Gwen Araujo (neé "Eddie," aka "Lida") to death began last week in Hayward. Another of the men involved in the October 3, 2002 murder, Jaron Nabors, aged 20, has received an 11-year manslaughter sentence in return for testifying against the other three. Nabors had also led law enforcement officials to the unmarked grave in which Gwen's body had been dumped.


A fundamental question in this trial will be whether or not the killing was a hate crime. Defense attorneys are using the young men's anger and sense of "betrayal" to justify the "rage" that led them to kill her, with hopes of lesser manslaughter convictions. Gloria Allred, the attorney representing Gwen's family, has said that any attempt to use rage to justify killing Gwen is an insult to the family. Normally progressive lawyer J. Tony Serra is representing Jason Cazares, who claims that he was not involved in the killing. On Monday, April 19th, Nicole Brown, the young woman who reached under Araujo's clothes to determine her biological sex, is expected to testify.


Much media coverage of the case focuses on the young men's sense of "betrayal," because Araujo had not told her murderers that she was not anatomically female, and the men, two of whom had had sexual relations with her, all identified as heterosexual. The media also is covering the right-wing christian group that has planned to protest homosexuality at the trial.


Past Indybay coverage of Gwen's story. | More coverage of the trial | Not in Our Town

posted by mahtin @ 1:34 PM