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Matthew Wayne Shepard was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie on the night of October 6, 1998. He was taken by rescuers to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he died six days later from severe head injuries received during his beating.
Gwen Amber Rose Araujo was an American trans teenager who was murdered in Newark, California at the age of 17. She was murdered by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed. In some contemporary news reports and during the first trial of the perpetrators, Gwen Araujo was misgendered and referred to by her deadname.
Terry Lynn Nichols is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted of being an accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing. Prior to his incarceration, he held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, and ranch hand. He met his future co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, during a brief stint in the U.S. Army, which ended in 1989 when he requested a hardship discharge after less than one year of service. In 1994 and 1995, he conspired with McVeigh in the planning and preparation of the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people.
On July 6, 1999, Barry Winchell, a 21-year old infantry soldier in the United States Army, was murdered while he slept, outside of his barracks by fellow soldier Calvin Glover for dating a transgender woman, Calpernia Addams. The murder became a point of reference in the ongoing debate about the policy known as "Don't ask, don't tell", which did not allow U.S. military gays, bisexuals, and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation.
Cobra Video is an American gay pornographic studio. The company has been the subject of scandals related to founder Bryan Kocis, who engaged in sex with a minor in one instance, and hired an underage actor to perform in another.
Sean Paul Lockhart is an American film actor and director, known for Milk (2008), Judas Kiss (2011), and Triple Crossed (2013).
Bryan Charles Kocis, also known as Bryan Phillips, was a director of gay pornographic films and founder of Cobra Video, a gay porn film studio. Kocis was murdered at his Dallas Township, Pennsylvania home on January 24, 2007; arson was used in an attempt to disguise the circumstances of his death. Two escorts, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes, were charged and convicted for Kocis' murder and subsequently given a sentence of life imprisonment without any possibility of parole.
Richard Wayne Snell was an American white supremacist convicted of killing of two people in Arkansas between November 3, 1983 and June 30, 1984. Snell was sentenced to death for one of the murders, and executed by lethal injection in 1995.
The Arthur Warren murder was the killing of 26-year-old American Arthur Carl ("J.R.") Warren Jr. on July 4, 2000, by two male teens. According to Liz Seaton of the Human Rights Campaign, it had all the earmarks of a hate crime.
Jason Gage was a 29-year-old gay man who was murdered in his Waterloo, Iowa, apartment. The murder was compared by the national press to the slaying of Matthew Shepard and prompted a push for citywide laws protecting LGBT people.
Michael J. Sandy was a man from Brooklyn, New York, who died after being hit by a car while trying to escape four attackers who attempted to rob him because he was gay.
Three members of the Richardson family were murdered in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in April 2006. The murders were planned and committed by the family's 12-year-old daughter Jasmine Richardson and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke, now going by the name Jackson May. Richardson and Steinke were each convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Richardson, who had turned 13 before being convicted, is thought to be the youngest person in Canada ever convicted of multiple first-degree murder counts. Her 10-year sentence was completed on May 6, 2016.
Emily Irene Sander was an 18-year-old student at Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kansas, United States, who was reported missing on November 23, 2007 and found dead six days later. Her disappearance was widely covered in the mainstream news media. Israel Mireles was named as a suspect; he was arrested in Mexico and in February 2010 found guilty of her murder.
Lawrence Fobes King, also known as Latisha King was a 15-year-old student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California, who was shot twice by a fellow student, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, and kept on life support until two days later.
Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is a law in the United Kingdom criminalising possession of what it refers to as "extreme pornographic images". The law came into force on 26 January 2009. The legislation was brought in following the murder of Jane Longhurst by a man who was said at the time of his trial to have had "extreme pornography" in his possession at the time of the death. The law has been more widely used than originally predicted, raising concerns as to whether the legislation is being used for prosecutions beyond the scope originally envisaged by parliament.
Angie Zapata was an American trans woman beaten to death in Greeley, Colorado. Her killer, Allen Andrade, was convicted of first-degree murder and committing a hate crime, because he murdered her after learning she was transgender. The case was the first in the nation to get a conviction for a hate crime involving a transgender victim, which occurred in 2009. Zapata's story and murder were featured on Univision's November 1, 2009 Aquí y Ahora television show.
Larissa Schuster is an American convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2008 for committing the July 2003 murder of her estranged husband Timothy Schuster by submerging his body in hydrochloric acid. Due to the unusual manner in which she committed the murder, Larissa's case made national headlines. She has been dubbed "the Acid Lady" by various media outlets.
In May 2012, Jun Lin, a university student, was fatally stabbed and dismembered in Montreal, Canada, by Luka Rocco Magnotta, who then mailed Lin's hands and feet to elementary schools and federal political party offices. After a video depicting the murder was posted online, Magnotta fled Canada, becoming the subject of an Interpol Red Notice and prompting an international manhunt. In June 2012, he was arrested in an internet café in Berlin. In December 2014, after eight days of deliberations, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Magnotta was given a mandatory life sentence and 19 years for other charges, to be served concurrently. Magnotta was previously sought by animal rights groups for uploading videos of himself killing kittens.
References
- Affidavit for Arrest, hosted on CourtTV.com