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New
Mexico man sentenced for murder of gay teen
By
Lisa Rayner
Tea Party Publisher
In June, Shaun Murphy, a New Mexico man, was sentenced to 40
years in prison for the murder of Fred C. Martinez Jr., a Cortez,
Colo. teen. Martinez was murdered for his sexual orientation in a
hate-crime reminiscent of the 1998 murder of Matthew Sheppard in
Wyoming.
On June 16 2001, Martinez, a 16-year-old student who
variously identified himself as transgendered, gay, a girl,
two-spirited, or nadleeh went with friends to the Ute
Mountain Roundup Rodeo less than a mile from his home. He later went
to a party but left to walk home.
According to Montezuma County Sheriff’s Detective Steve
Harmon, Shaun Murphy, 18, and Clinton Sanchez had driven from
Farmington to Cortez to
sell methamphetamine at the carnival. The pair got to the carnival
late and abandoned it in favor of a party, where they met Fred
Martinez.
The next morning, the pair saw Martinez walking on the street
toward home. They picked him up and gave him a ride for a short
distance. Martinez then got out of the vehicle and continued
walking.
Murphy
got out of the vehicle and started chasing after Martinez. Murphy
caught Martinez and began beating him with a rock. Murphy then
kicked and rolled Martinez down a hillside. Murphy then left,
leaving Martinez bleeding, with a fractured skull, only a
quarter-mile from his home.
After
the murder, Murphy washed himself and caught a ride to Aztec, N.M.
with friends, throwing his bloody socks out the window, one of which
was later recovered by investigators. A friend of Murphy’s later
told investigators that upon returning to his apartment, Murphy was
covered with "more blood than she’s ever seen."
Martinez
was found a week later by two young boys playing in an area locals
call the Pits, near a trailer park south of Cortez. By then,
Martinez 's body had decomposed to the point that his mother could
only recognize him by his headband. He could only be positively be
identified by his dental records. A forensic pathologist determined
that Martinez had died from a blunt force head injury and an incised
wound to his abdomen.
Murphy
appeared to have no remorse for the crime, bragging to his friends
that he had "bug-smashed a hoto" on the night of the
murder. Hoto is slang for homosexual.
Durango
Herald reporter Jim Greenhill wrote of Murphy in June, “He
was, court testimony would show, a sixth-grade dropout, a gangbanger
in the East Side Locos Trece who
had the gang symbol "13" on his jail-cell mirror. In the
months leading up to Monday’s hearing, he had attempted to escape
from jail, threatened guards and fought with other inmates.
“He
had served time at a secure youth facility. Charges he faced as a
child included assaulting a police officer, slamming a man’s head
into a wall and hitting a drunken man with a beer bottle.
“He
was a boy with a self-professed anger problem.”
During
the months following Murphy arrest, the community was forced to
endure several hearings before Murphy, facing an overwhelming amount
of evidence, agreed to a plea agreement with the District Attorneys
office. Murphy pled guilty to second-degree murder ensuring he would
not be sentenced to die for a crime of taking another person's life.
In return for Murphy’s plea, prosecutors for the 22nd Judicial
District agreed to drop a first-degree murder charge and another
charge of attempted escape for an incident that occurred after the
homicide while Murphy was in the Montezuma County Jail.
On
June 3, 2002 Martinez's mother Pauline Mitchell read a strong and
emotional victim impact statement during Murphy's sentencing
hearing. Mitchell said her son was often picked on at school, though
he hadn’t told her this.
Judge
Hanson sentenced Murphy to 40 years imprisonment. The sentence is
five years less than the maximum allowed. It will be 25 years before
Murphy is eligible for parole.
"One can't be really
completely satisfied in a situation like this, but Pauline is at
peace with the verdict, and it is as good a result as we could have
hoped for," stated John Peters-Campbell, a Four Corners Gay
& Lesbian Alliance for Diversity (4cGLAD) board member and
Cortez resident. Peters-Campbell, who was at Mitchell’s side
throughout the courtroom proceedings, said he believes Martinez’s
death has prompted community discussion on making schools safer for
gay and lesbian children.
Kurt
Begaye , with the Navajo AIDS Network in Chinle, said, “The Cortez
area gay and lesbian community is encouraged by the strong support
received from the entire Four Corners community.”
Read
more articles on Fred Martinez at http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/safeschools/bvssc_fred_martinez_jr.html
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