Jun 22, 2007  |  By: ELIZABETH PERRY  | COMMENTS     

In a case reminiscent of the 1998 Laramie, Wyo., murder of Matthew Shepard, two young men were charged with beating a Crothersville, Ind., man to death and leaving him in a field to die because of a sexual proposition.

According to the police affidavit, defendants in the case, Coleman King, 18, and Garrett Gray, 19, contend Aaron “Shorty” Hall, 35, made a sexual gesture toward King, who felt so threatened he and Gray beat Hall to death. Jackson County, Ind., chief deputy prosecutor Amy Marie Travis said her office was prohibited from talking about the case, but said that the investigation is ongoing.

“If we hear of a rumor we check it out,” she said.

The affidavit said the two young Crothersville, Ind., men and their alleged accomplice, Robert Hendricks, 21, say King and Hendricks picked up Hall on the way back to Gray’s house on a beer run April 12 around noon. King said they were drinking beer and whiskey when Hall, a diminutive, slightly built man, allegedly grabbed King’s crotch and asked him to “suck his dick.” King allegedly punched Hall and then jumped on him, pummeling him. Gray joined the fight and beat Hall while King held him down, the affidavit said.

Gray told police he struck Hall a dozen times and King hit him approximately 75 times that evening. The two allegedly continued to beat Hall until his eyes were swollen shut and he was spitting up blood. They dragged him down the stairs by his feet while his head thudded on each step, according to the affidavit.

Hendricks loaded Hall into the back of Gray’s pickup truck and Gray and King continued to beat him. At one point in the ride Gray asked Hall if he “wanted to die tonight.” The truck stopped on a dirt lane, they dragged Hall out, threw him in a ditch and delivered more blows before driving off and leaving him for dead. Hall’s breathing was labored, but he was still alive when they left, police said.

King and Gray went back to the ditch later with a shotgun to finish the job, they told police, but Hall was not there. Gray found Hall’s body in a nearby field the next day. Several days later they went back to the field, wrapped the body in a tarp and hid it behind some cabinets in Gray’s garage, police said. Hall was reported missing on April 19.

King and Gray turned themselves into police April 22, a day after their friend John Hodge, came forward with information about the crime. Hodge told police a comment Hall made about Gray’s deceased mother set off the altercation. He said Hendricks sent him a cell phone picture of Gray and King holding up a badly beaten Hall.

Some 15 minutes later Hendricks called Hodge on his cell phone during the crime and said, “They’re beatin’ the hell out of that guy.” Hodge said he heard screaming and yelling in the background and Hendricks said, “These boys are fuckin’ ignorant.”

King and Gray were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are being held in the Jackson County Jail without bond. Hendricks was charged with assisting a criminal act is being held under a $25,000 bond. Gray’s case is slated to go to trial Oct. 16; King’s trial is set for Oct. 23

In his testimony to police, Gray said Hall provoked the attack because he grabbed King’s testicles and asked him “several questions regarding whether King had homosexual tendencies.”

In an interview with a local NBC affiliate, the victim’s brother Thomas Hall said he thought his brother was the victim of a hate crime because the perpetrators thought he was gay.

“And he wasn’t gay,” said Hall. “I don’t know any crime on the planet that deserves that type of punishment.” 

The Shepard case, in which a the 21-year-old gay college student was savagely beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, then 21, bears similarities to Hall’s case. The defendants in both attacks claim a sexual proposition made by the victim provoked them to violence.      

Dave O’Malley was the lead investigator and commander of the detective division on the Shepard case. After leaving the Laramie Police Department he was elected vice mayor and is now a member at large of Laramie City Council.

In an interview ...