Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 - October 4, 2002) was an American teenager who was murdered in Newark, California. She was killed 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 convicted on the requested hate crime enhancements. 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. Some contemporary news reports referred to her by her birth name.
Video Murder of Gwen Araujo
Biographical sketch
Araujo was the second of four children, named after her father. Her parents divorced when she was 10 months old.
Araujo had come out as transgender in 1999 at the age of 14 and began using the name Gwen after her favorite musician, Gwen Stefani, but also went by Wendy and Lida. Gwen began to grow her hair long and planned to undergo hormone treatment and surgery. Araujo's older sister said that Gwen was bullied in junior high school because of her voice and bearing. She transferred to an alternative high school, but did not return for the 2002-03 academic year.
Maps Murder of Gwen Araujo
Witness accounts of the murder of Araujo
Araujo first met Michael Magidson, José Merél, Jaron Nabors, and Jason Cazares in late August or early September 2002. The night they met Araujo, she flirted with all four men and they smoked marijuana together. After she left, Nabors asked the other three "Could this be a dude?" but none of the four men took the thought seriously. Later, she engaged in oral sex with Magidson and anal sex with Merél. She claimed to be menstruating and during sex would push her partners' hands away from her genitalia to prevent them from discovering that she had a penis.
According to an interview with Nicole Brown, who was dating the older brother of José Merél and was acquainted with Araujo, she and Araujo had engaged in a physical fight after Brown challenged Araujo to strip for the men. Araujo surprised Brown with a strong blow during the fight, and Brown said the men "were tripping, because she was smaller than me and just as strong. She fought like a guy." The four men debated whether Araujo was female in late September, concluding that "something bad could happen" to her if she was not.
Confrontation at the party
On the night of October 3, 2002, Araujo attended a party at a house rented by Merél and his older brother, Paul Merél. Also attending the party were Magidson, José Merél, Nabors, Cazares, Paul Merél, Nicole Brown (Paul Merél's girlfriend), and Emmanual Merél (José's younger brother). Nabors later testified that José Merél said that night, "I swear, if it's a f-- man, I'm gonna kill him. If it's a man, she ain't gonna leave." According to Nabors, Magidson added "I don't know what I'm going to do," and Nabors replied "Whatever you do, make sure you don't make a mess." In her interview, Brown said the four men were out at a club together and did not return to the house until after midnight.
In the early morning hours of October 4, Magidson asked Araujo to reveal her gender or allow him to touch her genitals, which she refused. Brown suggested that one of them should inspect Araujo, and Magidson took Gwen to the bathroom. After half an hour, during which José Merél confessed he had had sex with Araujo, Brown went to the bathroom, where she discovered Gwen was a transgender woman during a forced inspection. Brown was surprised and blurted out "It's a f-- man!", after which the men with whom she had had sexual relations became enraged and violent. Araujo tried the leave the party after Brown warned her the men were "very angry", but after exiting through the front door, Araujo was confronted and forced back inside the house by Magidson, Nabors, and Cazares, according to Brown's testimony. Emmanuel Merél testified that he also tried to escort Araujo away from the house, but was prevented by Magidson and Nabors.
José Merél vomited upon learning Araujo was biologically male, then began to cry in disbelief, saying "I can't be f-- gay." Brown testified she tried to comfort José after the discovery by saying "It's not your fault. I went to high school with you, and you were on the football team. Any woman that knows you after this, it's not going to matter. Just let her go."
After she was brought back into the house, Magidson grabbed at Araujo's skirt and underwear in an attempt to expose her genitals. He then proceeded to punch her in the face, knocking her to the ground, and put her in a chokehold, but he was pulled off by others. Araujo begged the men to stop, saying "No, please don't. I have a family."
José became angry and struck Araujo in the head with a can of food, denting the can and opening a cut on her head, and then he struck her again with a frying pan. The last words José Merél heard Araujo speak were "I told you I was sorry."
At some point after that, Brown roused her sleeping boyfriend, Paul Merél, and they left the house with Emmanuel Merél. Emmanuel later testified he walked to a convenience store to buy gum, then went to a friend's house to spend the night.
Nabors and Cazares left in Magidson's truck to retrieve shovels and a pickaxe from Cazares's house, saying as they left the house of the Meréls the other men were going to "kill that b--". Brown recalled that after she had left with Paul, they drove around the block and returned to the house to see Nabors and Cazares leaving in Magidson's truck.
Murder of Gwen Araujo
When Nabors and Cazares returned, Araujo was still conscious, bleeding from her head wound and sitting on the couch. Merél became concerned that Araujo was bleeding on the couch and ordered Araujo off it. At some point, the assault resumed. Nabors and Cazares urged the others to "knock the b-- out", according to Nabors's testimony in February 2003. Magidson kneed her in the head against the living room wall, rendering her unconscious. Nabors testified that Magidson's assault was so severe it left a dent in the wall and cracked the plaster. Cazares kicked her. Merél was concerned with cleaning Araujo's blood off the couch and carpet before retreating to his room so the others would not see him crying.
After Araujo was knocked unconscious, Magidson bound her wrists and ankles, then she was wrapped in a comforter to minimize the amount of blood staining the carpet before being carried to the garage of the home, where the defendants' testimonies diverge. Nabors testified that Magidson strangled her with a rope and that Cazares struck her with a shovel, but Nabors was returning from the garage and did not actually witness the act of strangulation. Nabors testified that he saw Magidson raising the rope to Araujo's neck before he left the garage and that Magidson later told the others "that he had wrapped the rope around Lida's neck and twisted it." According to Nabors, Magidson "wasn't sure if Lida had died from twisting the rope, but once Jason [Cazares] hit her twice with the shovel, he knew she was dead".
Magidson testified that it was instead Nabors who strangled her and struck her with the shovel, and Cazares testified that he never struck her and did not see her die. José Merél testified he was cleaning Araujo's blood out of the carpets and couch as Magidson was binding her ankles, prior to her being taken to the garage. Merél also said he thought she was still alive until he saw Gwen's body in the bed of Magidson's truck. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events she died. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head. According to Merél, Magidson said he was not sure she was dead until they struck her with a shovel.
She was then placed in the bed of a pick-up truck, and the four men then drove her body four hours away, burying her near the Sierra Nevada mountains in a shallow grave in the El Dorado National Forest near Silver Fork Road in El Dorado County. On their way home, they ordered breakfast at a McDonald's drive-through window. Later that morning, during a phone conversation, Brown asked José Merél what happened, to which he replied "Let's just say [Gwen] had a long walk home." Her disappearance and murder went unreported for days.
Arrests and trials
The party-goers did not report the crime and the assailants said nothing to anyone about the murder. Araujo, who usually checked in with her mother, did not come home the day after the party, so Araujo's mother called the police on October 5 to report her missing. Police did not initially take the missing persons case seriously partly because Gwen was transgender, and she was known to stay away from home overnight. Rumors began to reach Araujo's family within days that a girl who had been unmasked as transgender at a party had been killed and buried in Tahoe, and Araujo's aunt called the police on October 9 to pass on the story. Police began to interview the partygoers, and one of them led the police to the Meréls' house.
Two days after Araujo was reported missing, a friend of Jaron Nabors described him as appearing distraught. Nabors had confessed to a friend what the four had done shortly after returning from the gravesite. That friend tipped off the police, and agreed to wear a microphone during a subsequent conversation with Nabors about the murder. Confronted with the recording, Nabors agreed to lead authorities to Gwen's body on October 15.
The Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatched four crime scene investigators and two detectives to recover Gwen's body from the grave site. The four who were initially arrested and accused of the murder were Michael Magidson, 22; Jaron Nabors, 19; José Merél, 22; and Paul Merél, José's older brother.
Paul Merél was quickly released because his girlfriend came forward to the police telling them that Paul had left that night with her. Paul Merél and his girlfriend were never charged and became witnesses for the prosecution. Emmanuel Merél did not contact the police until after his older brother Paul was arrested. After Emmanuel spoke with the police, charges against Paul were dropped the next day. Magidson, Nabors, and José Merél were charged with murder on October 17 and held without bail. On October 24, Jaron Nabors pleaded not guilty; Magidson was still looking for an attorney, and Merél was still reviewing the evidence against him. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Merél was confident that charges would be dropped.
After he was arrested, Nabors wrote a letter to a girlfriend in which he stated the defendants had discussed a "Soprano-type plan" to "kill the b-- (Araujo) and get rid of her body". The letter was intercepted by sheriff's officials and led to the arrest of Cazares on November 19. Jason Cazares was first identified as a potential witness to Araujo's murder on October 22, and then arrested over a month after the other defendants, after the letter from Nabors explaining his innocence was intercepted. At the first trial, defense attorney Tony Serra accused Nabors of writing the letter knowing it would be intercepted and Cazares would be implicated.
Jaron Nabors
Nabors pleaded guilty on February 24, 2003 to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, which carried an 11-year prison sentence, along with a promise to testify against the other three defendants. During the formal entry of his plea, Judge Kenneth Burr warned Nabors that he could still be charged with murder if prosecutors found he wasn't "living up to [his] end of the bargain."
During the February 2003 indictment proceedings, Nabors gave a detailed account of the murder and burial of Gwen Araujo. As they were burying her, the men continued to disparage her. Nabors testified that he stated he "couldn't believe that someone would ever do that, would be that deceitful" and that José Merél added "he was so mad he could still kick her a couple more times".
Nabors received an 11-year sentence on August 25, 2006. With credit for time served, he was expected to spend approximately five years in jail from that point forward.
Magidson, Merél, and Cazares
First trial
Before the first trial, the prosecuting attorney, deputy district attorney Chris Lamiero offered a mixed opinion on Araujo, but concluded that simply being transgender should not have been a death sentence: "One can debate the propriety of one choosing to identify with a gender other than the one they were born with. But I trust juries to understand that people don't get to make life or death decisions simply based on someone's lifestyle. That's not a world in which I want to live or most people want to live in."
Jury selection for the trial of Magidson, José Merél, and Cazares began on March 15, 2004. Prospective jurors were asked if they knew any lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people; whether they knew any recently-married same-sec couples; whether they had met any transgender people; or whether they had seen a "movie or theatrical performance depicting the activities of a transgender person". One of the defense attorneys explained the last question had specifically asked if prospective jurors had watched the film Boys Don't Cry or the play The Laramie Project, but was changed over defense concerns that by being so specific, those who hadn't would be prompted watch either or both.
The first trial began on April 14, 2004. The prosecuting attorney, Deputy Alameda County District Attorney Chris Lamiero used male pronouns to refer to Araujo and said the defendants had decided "that the wages of [...] Araujo's sin of deception were death." In his opening statement, the defense attorney for Magidson argued that he should not be charged with murder, rather manslaughter at worst, under California law. Magidson's attorney said that his client was not biased and had been shocked "beyond reason" to learn he had unwittingly had sex with a man, a variant of the gay panic defense.
During his testimony, Nabors said he felt his friends had been raped, since "[Araujo] forced [Magidson and Merél] into homosexual sex [through deception], and my definition of rape was being forced into sex."
The first trial ended in a mistrial on June 22 after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision for the three men following nine days of deliberations. While the jury agreed that Araujo had been murdered, they could not agree whether it was premeditated. The final votes were 10-2 in favor of acquitting Merel and Cazares of first-degree murder, and 7-5 in favor of convicting Magidson of first-degree murder. Although they were given the option of convicting the men on second-degree murder or manslaughter, they were unable to proceed past the first-degree murder deliberations.
Second trial
The second trial began on May 31, 2005. Publicity by transgender activists was credited with informing the public about the successful tactics the defense lawyers had adopted to blame Gwen for her own death, changing the approach to the case. The day after the first trial ended in a mistrial, a court granted Araujo's mother's petition for a posthumous name change, forcing the defense lawyers to refer to Gwen with female pronouns. Magidson, Merél, and Cazares were charged with first-degree murder with hate crime enhancements. The three defendants testified in this trial -- and blamed each other as well as Nabors.
During the closing statements of the second trial, defense lawyer Tony Serra (representing Jason Cazares) argued on August 25, 2005 the three defendants were "ordinary human beings" who were guilty, at most, of manslaughter for their role in the death of Gwen Araujo in a "classic state of heat and passion." Serra also argued that Cazares took no active role in killing Araujo. To avoid a second mistrial, District Attorney Chris Lamiero argued for a first-degree murder conviction, but gave jurors the option of a second-degree murder conviction for the three, or even manslaughter for Merél. Lamiero asked the jury to return first-degree murder convictions of Magidson and Cazares, fingering Magidson as the main culprit who had strangled Araujo and calling him "a poor excuse for a man" with a "stupid and moronic" list of excuses for murdering her.
On the 8th of September, the jury announced that it had reached verdicts on two of the three defendants. As Judge Harry Sheppard instructed, the verdicts were kept secret.
On September 12, after a week of deliberation, the jury announced its verdict. The jury had deadlocked on Cazares, voting 9-3 in favor of convicting Cazares for murder. Magidson and Merél were each convicted on the charge of second-degree murder, but not convicted of the hate crime enhancement allegations. After the trial, one of the jurors stated in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle the murder conviction was because "The community standard is not and cannot be that killing is something a reasonable person would have done that night" but not hate crimes since the murder was believed to have been committed not because Araujo was transgender, but to "cover up a situation that had gotten out of control."
Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Chris Lamiero, who represented the prosecution in the case, undermined criminal intent by commenting:
Gwen being transgender was not a provocative act. It's who she was. However, I would not further ignore the reality that Gwen made some decisions in her relation with these defendants that were impossible to defend," he added. "I don't think most jurors are going to think it's OK to engage someone in sexual activity knowing they assume you have one sexual anatomy when you don't."
Michael Magidson and José Merél were sentenced in January to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder for the killing.
Jason Cazares
To avoid a third trial, Jason Cazares pleaded no contest to manslaughter on December 16, 2005, in a plea bargain offered after two juries deadlocked on his fate. He was sentenced to six years in prison. Attorney Gloria Allred represented Araujo's family. Cazares asked to begin serving his sentence after the birth of his third child, scheduled for March or April 2006, but Lamiero noted "it's difficult for me to entertain a request like that when Gwen Araujo is dead." According to Lamiero, Cazares was willing to plead guilty to being an accessory after the fact, but that deal was rejected because the sentence was just three years and admitted no culpability in the murder of Araujo.
Aftermath
Gwen Araujo was mourned in a public funeral at St. Edwards Catholic Church in Newark on October 25, 2002. Fred Phelps and the members of Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church promised to picket the funeral, but were notably absent. Araujo was cremated, but her mother retained the urn with her ashes.
At the request of Araujo's mother, a judge posthumously changed her legal name from Edward Araujo Jr. to Gwen Amber Rose Araujo on June 23, 2004. "Amber Rose" was the name Gwen's mother had chosen before she was born in the event the baby was a girl.
On the first anniversary of the murder, Horizons Foundation created the Gwen Araujo Memorial Fund for Transgender Education. The Fund's purpose is to support school-based programs in the nine-county Bay Area that promote understanding of transgender people and issues through annual grants. Through this fund, Araujo's mother and family speak in middle and high schools about transgender awareness and understanding. By 2005, Araujo's mother had spoken to more than 20 schools.
Media portrayals
- A Lifetime movie entitled A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, starring J. D. Pardo and Mercedes Ruehl, first aired in June 2006.
- The case was also the subject of a 2007 documentary, Trained in the Ways of Men. This documentary by Michelle Prevost examines the 2002 murder, and aims to debunk the so-called gay panic (or trans panic) defense.
- "Deadly ID", an episode of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Encounters (Season 1 Episode 8, first aired May 7, 2012) explored the crime's timeline from both Araujo's and Magidson's dramatized perspectives.
- An episode of the Investigation Discovery channel series Murder Among Friends entitled "Murder Party" (Season 2 Episode 4) first aired on July 06, 2017. The episode examines the case using dramatization of the background of Gwen, events leading up to her murder and the aftermath. It also examines the backgrounds of the killers and friends, how they got caught, and interviews with the victim's mother, friends, and victim's advocates, along with showing actual photos of Gwen and her murderers, and how the court trials went.
California legislation
On September 28, 2006, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the "Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act" (AB 1160) into law. The law limited the use by criminal defendants of the "gay/trans panic defense" by allowing parties to instruct jurors not to let bias influence their decisions, including "bias against the victim" based on his or her "gender identity, or sexual orientation." The law put California on record as declaring it contrary to public policy for defendants to be acquitted or convicted of a lesser included offense on the basis of appeals to "societal bias".
On September 27, 2014, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill No. 2501 into law. The law further restricted the use of the gay/trans panic defense by amending California's manslaughter statute to prohibit defendants from claiming that they were provoked to murder by discovering a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity. AB 2501 was introduced by Assemblywoman Susan A. Bonilla in partnership with Equality California. In announcing the bill's introduction they cited the murders of Gwen Araujo and gay California teen Larry King.
Parole and release
Jose Merél was granted parole in 2016 with the support of Gwen Araujo's mother.
Michael Magidson said he was not ready for release at his parole board hearing in 2016, and his request for parole was also opposed by Araujo's mother.
Jason Cazares was released from prison in July 2012.
Jaron Nabors had also been released from prison sometime before 2016.
Sylvia Guerrero, the mother of Gwen Araujo, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and is now homeless. She has spoken to thousands of students about the murder of her daughter.
See also
References
Further reading
- "People v. Merel". Court of Appeals of California, First Appellate District, Division Four. 12 May 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- Guerrero, Sylvia (26 January 2006). "Life after Gwen". SFGate. Hearst Communications. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
- Hemmelgarn, Seth; Laird, Cynthia (4 October 2012). "Ten years later, Araujo's murder resonates". The Bay Area Reporter. BAR, Inc. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
- Hernández, Daisy (18 October 2014). "'She wanted to be normal. We both did': Why gender, sexuality, and desire matter". Salon. Salon Media Group. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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