06.20.07
Murder — and Coverup — Most Foul
Two months ago, a man named Aaron Hall was beaten to death in Indiana. He was a white man, thirty-five years old. He weighed 100 pounds and was 5′4″.
Here is the Bloomington newspaper’s account of his death [warning: this is a very disturbing account even in the most careful journalistic prose].
Here is the DailyKos piece about it, which has done much to draw attention to the case.
Aaron Hall was beaten to death over the course of more than a day by a group of young white men. To say that his death was horrific is an understatement: he was tortured to death, and left in a cornfield to die. His body, later, was wrapped in a tarpaulin and hidden.
The men who killed him documented their actions, including making cellular phone calls to friends so that they could brag about it and have their friends hear their victim scream. They also sent cell phone photographs of the man they were killing.
One of the killers is the son of the local deputy coroner. It was this deputy coroner’s garage, at home, in which Aaron Hall’s body was hidden and later found when one of the three young murderers turned himself in.
The cause of Aaron Hall’s death is still officially listed as “unknown.” My cynical side predicts that it will ultimately be listed as “exposure,” since being viciously beaten repeatedly over the course of several days, being shot, and left out in a corn field to die means you died naked and exposed in a cornfield. I hope I’m wrong.
In an attempt to get sympathy for their actions, or to rationalize them, the killers have trotted out the old “he was gay, he made a sexual suggestion, we had to kill him” defense. The “gay panic defense” has been used successfully, I note, at other times and in other places to rationalize murder.
Oh, yes. Of course.
He made a sexual suggestion and I panicked.
For more than a day. Calling friends to brag about it. Taking photographs. Going back to find the body. Hiding the body.
Do I have to say that this was no panic?
Yes. Yes I do have to say that.
Indiana is one of five states in the USA that has no hate crime laws.
The fact that Aaron Hall does not seem to have been known to be gay did not save him from being horribly murdered. In point of fact, whether he was gay or not, or even made any sexual remarks to any of his assilants, is beside the point. Beating, torturing, and murdering someone is wrong.
The people who kill you can say anything they want about you. Never forget that. It’s not like you’ll be there to offer a rebuttal.
Do not delude yourself into thinking that not being gay, or black, or whatever-the-declared-target-might-be, would be enough to save you, either. What you are, or aren’t, is immaterial if someone has decided that you get to serve as the target for their inhumanity.
Sure, they’ll come up with excuses later on. But you know, you have to consider the source, don’t you? How far do you trust a man who would torture another man to death and brag about it to his friends?
The fact that it has taken two months for this story to surface is appalling and disgusting. The Indianapolis papers have refused to cover it. The Associated Press has yet to cover it, possibly because it has been so thoroughly buried and kept out of the public eye.
It’s awfully embarrassing when your golden boys, your good upstanding young white heterosexual middle-class men, sons from good families, sons of respected public servants, turn out to be brutal torturers and coldblooded murderers.
Demand coverage. Demand accountability. Demand that this trial be kept in the public eye and that this horrific hate crime not simply be swept under the rug thanks to the power of the old-boy network.
Advance Indiana’s Gary Welsh has written a very fine piece about what we are, collectively, up against here: “Why Won’t the Star Cover The Hate Crime Killing of Aaron Hall?”
Demand that they do. And that other news outlets do.
Aaron Hall deserves better than this.
We all do.
Dennis R. Ryerson, Editor and Vice President
The Indianapolis Star
The Indianapolis Star
P.O. Box 145
Indianapolis IN 46206-0145John Affleck, Editor
National Reporting
Associated Press
Headquarters
450 W. 33rd St.
New York, NY 10001
Suggested text:
Dear Editor,
On April 12, 2007, in Crothersville, Indiana, the worst hate crime murder in recent American memory took place when three young men brutally beat, tormented, and ultimately killed a thirty-five-year-old man named Aaron Hall over the course of more than 24 hours.
Not unlike the justly infamous Matthew Shepard killing, Aaron Hall was beaten to death over a lengthy period and left in a field to die. Also like the Matthew Shepard case, the murderers have claimed that they acted as they did because they believed Aaron Hall to be gay. Unlike in the Shepard case, the killers returned for the body and then hid Hall’s body for ten days in the garage at the home of the father of one of the killers. Also unlike the Shepard case, the killers not only telephoned friends during their prolonged orgy of violence, but sent text messages and photographs to others.
To date, no major news outlets, including the Indianapolis newspapers, have reported on this horrific hate crime. The important story of Aaron Hall’s vicious murder has been allowed to languish in the pages of small-town papers. As Indiana remains one of the few states that does not have a hate crimes ordinance on the books, and given the depth to which this story has been (apparently intentionally) buried, it is entirely possible that the three assailants involved in this case, to say nothing of those others who knew what was taking place and chose to conceal their knowledge rather than report it, will not be held appropriately accountable for their crimes.
I hope that you will assign this story at your soonest opportunity, and help to bring it into public awareness. The public deserves to know what happened in Crothersville, Indiana, and what has happened since in terms of the lack of news coverage of the case. The public deserves to know that in Indiana, there is no law that says that murdering someone just because you hate who or what they are is wrong. The public deserves to know that a man died horribly and that not only his three murderers but a number of other people as well knew, and did nothing.
I look forward to seeing your coverage of this important story.
Sincerely,
[Your name and contact info]