Gwen Araujo : The Verdict
• Gender Outsiders: Transgendered & Others , • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
A few earlier entries about Gwen Araujo with personal notes. There's no reason to once again express my disgust and outrage.
- Thinking about Gwen Araujo
- Do Transsexuals Deserve to Die?
- Eddie was a boy, but he believed inside that he was a girl
- Gwen Araujo & trans panic.
A group of 40 people held hands and formed a circle around a pink memorial outside the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on Monday evening in honor of Gwen Araujo.
The memorial, which was erected at the beginning of the first trial and called "The Angel of Justice Altar," soon will be taken down. The verdicts were taped to a mirror on the memorial near a statement that read: "This is the face of the future for a world without hate crimes."
"It sends a message that you can no longer blame the victim for what happened," said Cecilia Chung, deputy director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco. "You can't blame a transgender person for being who she or he is."
Max Stern has heard at least five variations of what happened to slain Newark transgender teenager Gwen Araujo, and while the truth remains cloudy after two trials, he is certain of one thing: Araujo was murdered.
"A beating and killing is not a reasonable reaction to the theme of sexual deception," Stern said Tuesday, rejecting defense attorneys' theories that Araujo's death was manslaughter committed in the heat of passion.
Stern, a 38-year-old attorney from Piedmont, was a member of the eight-man, four-woman jury ...
Two men who had sex with a transgender teen and then discovered she was biologically male were convicted Monday of her murder but cleared of hate crime charges.
Fremont resident Michael Magidson and Newark resident Jose Merel, both 25, face mandatory sentences of 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder in the killing of Gwen Araujo, who was beaten, tied up and strangled.
The jury was deadlocked in the case of a third man, Jason Cazares, 25, of Newark, marking the second time a mistrial was declared in his case. ...
2 guilty of murder in Araujo's death
According to prosecutor Chris Lamiero, Gwen was killed at Merel's house in the early morning hours of Oct. 4, 2002. She was choked, punched, bound and gagged by Magidson, whose raged boiled over when he discovered he had been intimate with a biological male.
A medical examiner has determined that Gwen died of blunt trauma and asphyxiation due to strangulation.
Cazares, he asserted, helped Magidson by keeping things under control until other witnesses left the scene and by retrieving shovels from his own house to bury the teen.
The group drove to South Lake Tahoe and buried the body in a shallow grave. On the way home, the guys stopped for breakfast at McDonald's, where they swore one another to secrecy.
Two found guilty of 2nd degree murder in Araujo case, jury deadlocks on third man
It's been almost three years since Gwen Araujo was killed in a Newark house. Here are some important dates in the case: