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Sylacauga, Ala., is the kind of laid-back Southern crossroads town where most people keep a couple of chickens and everybody has a dog--a country burg whose big claim to fame used to be the fact that it was the birthplace of Jim Nabors, the guy who played Gomer Pyle on TV. Then Billy Jack Gaither was found beaten to death and two local men were held on suspicion of murder. Everyone agreed that Billy Jack was as nice a guy as you'd ever want to meet, which meant the motive for the crime was a mystery. But a few friends knew that Billy Jack, 39, was very discreetly gay--and suddenly, Sylacauga joined Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyo., as nice, quiet mid-American towns where really bad things can happen.
As police reconstructed it, Billy Jack went out on the evening of Feb. 19 with Steven Eric Mullins, 25, and Charles Monroe Butler, 21, both residents of nearby Fayetteville. They went to the Tavern, a bar in Sylacauga, and left in Gaither's car. Mullins was known around town for wearing KKK T shirts; he and Butler had brushes with the law in the past. According to investigators, the two men planned to attack Billy Jack for at least two weeks, allegedly because Gaither made a homosexual overture to one of them. Sometime after leaving the bar, police said, Mullins and Butler stuffed Gaither into the trunk of his own car and drove 30 miles south to Peckerwood Creek, a remote area sometimes used by local preachers for baptisms. There, police said, they bludgeoned him to death with an ax handle, then burned his body on a pyre of blazing tires. Last week Mullins and Butler were being held on $500,000 bail pending grand-jury action, but neither had entered a plea.
The murder--and its alleged motive--shook the town and devastated Gaither's family. His mother, Lois, and father, Marion, both denied knowing that their son was gay. But a great-uncle, Charles Gaither, was less emphatic: "I know this, whether he was gay or whatever he was, no human being deserves to be treated like this." Everyone seemed to agree that Billy Jack's double life was pretty quiet. He lived at home with his parents; The New York Times reported that his bedroom was decorated with pink chiffon curtains and a large collection of Scarlett O'Hara dolls and other "Gone With the Wind" memorabilia. On some weekends he would drive to Birmingham, 40 miles away, to frequent a gay bar called The Tool Box.
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His friends knew his secret and protected him. At the Tavern, Billy Jack was known for a friendly game of pool; an occasional dance with the owner, Marion Hammond, and for keeping his sexuality entirely to himself. "He didn't walk around acting, looking, or talking gay," said one regular. "If anybody was asking for sex, it wasn't him--it was them. We've got lots of rednecks in here. You don't make advances with them around."
If so, Gaither's murder was unprovoked--a hate crime just like the homicides of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and James Byrd Jr. in Texas. In Alabama, state Rep. Alvin Holmes hopes to use the Sylacauga tragedy to win his five-year campaign to broaden Alabama's hate-crimes law to include acts of violence against gays. "People are talking about it like wildfire," Holmes said. "Both black and white, male and female, straight and gay--they say it was awful to commit something like that." In Washington, a gay-advocacy group called the Human Rights Campaign is pushing a bill to enable federal agencies to track and investigate crimes based on the victim's sexual orientation. "Killings like Mr. Gaither's are examples of why this legislation is needed," said David Smith, the group's spokesman. "Sadly, it takes something likes this to create momentum."
Sylacauga buried Billy Jack Gaither three weeks ago. After the arrests last week, three local ministers held a prayer service where he died, on Peckerwood Creek. "Evil has happened here," said the Rev. Timothy Holder. "It is very important to face evil immediately with love. Love will conquer it, and that's why we're here." But in the wake of the three brutal murders that have shocked the nation in recent months, that piety seemed a bit optimistic.
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