Florida Agenda

Galehouse and Wachholtz Were Drugged, Dismembered

By Cliff Dunn

TAMPA – On September 20, an indictment was handed down in the 2003 torture and murder of two gay Tampa Bay-area men. Although he was charged with other related crimes, and was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for his part in the grisly murders, Scott Paul Schweickert was never held accountable for the greater crime. The indictment, handed down by the Hillsborough County Grand Jury, charges Schweicke r t , 47, with two counts of First Degree Murder, in the deaths of Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz. In December 2003, Schweickert— who had come to the Gulf Coast from Illinois—admitted that he and Stephen Lorenzo, a Tampa man, met Galehouse at the popular Club 2606, and lured him back to Lorenzo’s home.

Schweickert claims that he and Lorenzo, 53, drugged, tortured, and killed Galehouse, 26, then dismembered him and dumped his remains in trash bins around Tampa. The next night, they subjected Wachholtz—who was also 26 years old—to a similar fate. A search for the missing young men went on for weeks. The remains of Wachholtz were eventually found in his Jeep Cherokee, but investigators never found Galehouse. Authorities also found other men who had survived their encounters with Lorenzo and Schweickert.X

Lorenzo was charged with drugging nine men, while Schweickert was charged with drugging Galehouse, and for conspiring with Lorenzo. During Schweickert’s 2005 grand jury testimony, he described giving the victims Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), an intoxicant which can be employed as a daterape drug. He also testified to watching Lorenzo choke the men, and said he held Galehouse’s arms and legs while Lorenzo sawed them off. Lorenzo is currently serving 200 years in prison.

The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office hasn’t said why it sought an indictment almost a decade after the murders, but experts cite a possible Miranda rights issue during the investigation as one possible explanation.

Defense attorneys said that Schweickert was never offered legal counsel during questioning, but investigators r e a s o n e d that because S chwe i c k e r t wasn’t in custody, he did not need to be read his rights.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Miranda rights must be read during “in-custody interrogations,” when a suspect is not free to leave. That wasn’t the case for Schweickert.

Since neither Lorenzo nor Schweickert faced murder charges, prosecutors could not previously pursue the death penalty. The new charges may put capital punishment back on the table.

 Investigators Suspect Dwayne Lebarr Jr. Is At-Large in South Florida

By Cliff Dunn

NORTH BAY VILLAGE – Investigators are searching for an 18-year-old Miami-Dade County high school senior, accused of the strangling death of his 63-year-old lover. Police also believe that Dwayne Lebarr Jr.— charged with second degree murder and grand theft in the death of Craig Douglas Wolfe—tried to hide evidence by mailing it to himself.

Authorities say they intercepted a shipment sent by the teen to himself using the older man’s stolen credit card— which included the bloody clothes they claim he was wearing when he killed Wolfe. Investigators also belied that a laptop and digital camera they found were stolen by Lebarr from Wolfe.

According to records, Lebarr reported Wolfe’s death on June 15, claiming that he found the older man’s body in his North Bay Village apartment. The teen told police that he and Wolfe had met online sometime in May, and had been “engaged in a relationship with him.” Wolfe, 63, was a native of California, who lived most recently in Tampa before moving to North Bay Village, where he worked as a mortgage underwriter, and enjoyed the life aquatic, including fishing and boating.

Paramedics described Wolfe as having a large cut on his forehead, a ligature mark around his neck, and being covered with a sheet. Lebarr—who was in possession of the victim’s cell phone and car keys—was taken into custody, and agreed to speak to investigators without an attorney being present. After a polygraph test, in which he was informed that some deception had been noted, Lebarr invoked his right to legal counsel, and was allowed to leave.

After Wolfe’s death, Lebarr used the victim’s credit card to purchase electronics, clothing, food, and other items. Police tracked Lebarr’s movements to a UPS Store where he shipped himself a package containing the bloody clothes investigators believe he wore when he killed Wolfe.

Although the Miami Central High School senior claims that he had not seen Wolfe since the day before the murder, a neighbor’s surveillance camera shows Lebarr—clad in a burgundy shirt and white pants similar to those found in the UPS packages—arriving at and leaving the apartment the night before the victim’s body was discovered.

Lebarr was photographed in March by the Miami Herald at a rally for Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen killed this year by a neighborhood crime watch captain. Investigators believe he is at-large in South Florida.

BY PHOEBE MOSES

BERLIN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY – On Monday, German police officials announced the arrest of the fugitive Luka Rocco Magnotta, who had fled from Canada on May 26, after committing the grisly murder of his boyfriend— an incident that he videotaped, and which he followed with the cannibalism and sexual mutilation of the bound and naked man, a graduate student from Concordia University in Montreal. The gruesome crime precipitated what police call the largest manhunt in Montreal’s history.

Six days after Interpol issued a “Red Notice” alert for the fugitive, Magnotta surrendered to Berlin police with a simple utterance of, “You got me.” Magnotta—a former gay porn star, whose real name is Eric Clinton Newman—became the subject of the international manhunt after a video circulated online showing a man—identified by investigators as Magnotta—stabbing another man with an ice pick, and then dismembering him, while the soundtrack from the movie “American Psycho” plays in the background. In the video, Magnotta reveals that he has slashed the other man’s throat, and then proceeds to dismember the body, and perform sexual acts upon it.

Magnotta was dubbed the “Butcher of Montreal,” “the Chameleon,” and “Canadian Psycho,” after it was discovered that he had carved up the victim, 33 year old Lin Jun, a student whom Montreal police say had been “in a relationship” with Magnotta.XXX The 29-year-old former porn star was sought by Canadian authorities for first-degree murder, defiling a corpse, and using Canada’s postal system to deliver “obscene, indecent, immoral, or scurrilous” material.

Canadian police say the murder happened on May 24 or 25. Four days later, on May 29, authorities told shocked reporters that a severed human foot had been sent to the headquarters of the ruling Conservative Party. (For this action, Magnotta is likely to be charged with threatening the life of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.) The grisly details continued when Ottawa postal officials reported intercepting a hand in the mail that was addressed to the opposition Liberal Party, and police discovered a mutilated human torso, which was later identified as belonging to the victim, Lin.

French investigators—who the daily Le Figaro described as “terrified” of Magnotta—described him as a “profoundly disturbed man” and “habitual liar,” and used the accused killer’s cellphone signal to trace him to a hotel in a Paris suburb. Although Magnotta was not on the premises, on Saturday, Paris police found adult magazines, in addition to airsickness bags issued by Air Canada, the commercial carrier that Magnotta used to affect his escape from Montreal to Paris, disguised—as surveillance tapes from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport show—in a dark wig and Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

Canadian authorities are also attempting to learn if Magnotta has killed in the past. Montreal police cite an online video depicting a man who resembles Magnotta committing torture against cats. Police say that animal rights activists have been looking for almost two years for a man who killed cats, and then posted the videos of it online. Montreal Police Commander Ian Lafreniere said of Magnotta, “This is the kind of guy that’s looking for attention. He likes to glorify himself with the Web. The Web will glorify him, and the Web is also going to bring him back to justice, because there are a lot of pictures of him out there, and it will help lead him to us.”

As it happened, Berlin police arrested Magnotta at an Internet café after French authorities were tipped off by a client of Magnotta’s, who had recognized the fugitive and alerted officials. As the Montreal police commander, Lafreniere, predicted, it was “the Web” that proved his undoing, as he was reading about himself online, and looking at his image on the computer, which enabled the witness to recognize him.

According to a former lover of Magnotta’s, he will do “anything to be famous.” Nina Arsenault, a transgender woman, said that the accused murderer would boast to her of his killing fantasies. Arsenault told police that Magnotta was a “f****d up kid,” and said he spoke regularly about killing both animals and people, including members of his own family. She told police that he once said to her, “I’m afraid when you look in my eyes, that you’ll see there’s nothing inside of me.

SANTIAGO, CHILE – Prosecutors last week requested murder charges in the brutal attack of a young gay Chilean man who was beaten by his attackers— four alleged neo-Nazis–while they carved swastikas into his body and burned him with lit cigarettes.

On March 3, Daniel Zamudio was attacked and badly beaten for over an hour. His four alleged attackers have been jailed and charged with attempted murder. Among the suspects are men who have previous criminal records for attacks against LGBT persons.

Zamudio, who was in a vegetative state, finally succumbed to his injuries on March 27, dying more than three weeks after he was attacked. Within hours of his death, prosecutors asked that the charges against the men be upgraded to premeditated murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. They say that Zamudio’s beating was motivated by homophobia.

Chile does not have a hate crimes statute. In 2005, lawmakers proposed anti-discrimination legislation, which was passed by the country’s Senate in November, but has yet to come to a vote in the lower Chamber of Deputies. Conservative organizations say that the measure is a first step toward gay marriage, which Chilean law bans forbids.

The legislation would make illegal “any distinction, exclusion or restriction that lacks reasonable justification, committed by agents of the state or individuals, and that causes the deprivation, disturbance or threatens the legitimate exercise of fundamental rights established by the constitution or in international human rights treaties ratified by Chile.”

Zamudio’s death prompted Chile’s president, Sebastian Pinera, to urge passage of the anti-discrimination law.

During a state visit to South Korea, Pinera tweeted that the “brutal and cowardly attack of Daniel Zamudio wounds not only his family but all people of good will.” Added Pinera: “His death will not remain unpunished, and reinforces the complete commitment of the government against all arbitrary discrimination and for a more tolerant country.”

Rolando Jimenez, the leader of Chile’s Gay Liberation and Integration Movement, called for the suspects to be additionally charged with torture.

During a condolence call at the hospital where Zamudio died, Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, acting as head of state during Pinera’s absence, promised swift action on hate crimes legislation. “We are going to work tirelessly in our Congress to pass our anti-discrimination law as quickly as possible,” Hinzpeter told reporters on March 27. Zamudio’s alleged attackers range in age from 19 to 26. One of the suspects told police that two attackers carved swastikas into the victim with a broken bottle.

By James Michaels

Photo: Nick Aaronson, a U.S. Airways flight attendant based in Phoenix, Ariz., was found murdered in a Hilton hotel room while on layover in Mexico City.

A suspect has been arrested in the strangulation murder of a gay U.S. Airways flight attendant found murdered last weekend in Mexico City.

Jose Luis Lira Cuellar, 20, who goes by the nickname “The Shadow,” has been arrested in connection with the murder
of U.S. Airways flight attendant Nick Aaronson, 27. Cuellar also went by the name Jose Manuel Ramirez Aaronson, who was based in Phoenix, Arizona, was to spend the night in Mexico City and would work the return flight to Phoenix the following day. It is believed that the two met at a Mexico City bar and both of the men went back to the hotel. The pair was seen together on hotel surveillance.

The Mexican newspaper, Examiner, added that the surveillance footage shows the two men were stopped by hotel security upon entering the hotel. Being assured by the victim that the man was a friend, hotel personnel then requested the additional guest be registered. Cuellar was later apprehended by local authorities near the Cinema Club, a nearby gay bar where the suspect first met the victim, although he had shaved his head to change his appearance. Handwriting analysis later confirmed the identity of Cuellar as being the man who appeared in the footage.

Aaronson was found dead in his Mexico City hotel room early Saturday morning. A Mexico City prosecutor said the motive was robbery and that the suspect had a previous criminal record for robbery and was out on parole. The prosecutor also reported that the suspect stole Aaronson’s iPhone and police were able to track the suspect using the phone’s GPS system.

On Monday, Cuellar admitted that he was in the hotel room with Aaronson and punched Aaronson in the face twice, but did not kill him.

NoticiasMexico.com.mx said that Aaronson was found on the floor of his room by his co-workers just after 6 a.m. Saturday at a Hilton hotel. The website affiliated with a Mexico City newspaper said he was strangled with a belt around his neck and hands tied behind his back.

The Guardian newspaper added that when officers paraded Ramirez before journalists Monday, he told reporters that he had turned himself in at the bar where authorities said he and Aaronson met. Cuellar said with profane language that he only punched Aaronson twice, but insisted he did not kill the victim. He claimed a 15-year-old friend was responsible for the slaying. Cuellar will remain in custody of prosecutors before seeing a judge.

Aaronson’s mother, Anita said the FBI called her at 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning to tell her they had made an arrest. She said they used hotel security cameras to help catch the man.

She told KPHO, CBS 5 news: “I wish they had the death penalty in Mexico. He took the bright light out of my life. He was only 27 and he had so much to live for and he was so charming and was just a really nice man.”

She also said that her older son, Jason, was at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport on Sunday night to catch a flight to Mexico City to bring Nick home and Nick’s co-workers showed their family a tremendous amount of respect and support.

“They were just lining up and coming from all over the airport to give their condolences. They did love Nick so much,” she said.

Anita Aaronson posted on her Facebook page: “this what is happening, Jason saw Nick in Mexico today, he had braced himself for the worst, but said Nick just looked like Nick sleeping. He met with the American Embassy, coroner, FBI and the district attorney, and Nick is being taken care of in the best possible way, he cannot bring him home tomorrow because they cannot release him until Wednesday, so he will arrive in Phoenix on Wednesday. The funeral will be on Saturday and I will post all the details of the church and time soon, so many arrangements have to be made, and all the details aren’t ready yet. A pastor who knew Nick all his growing up years is coming from a long way away to do the service and he wants anyone who would like to have something read at the service to send it to me by email anitaa3@hotmail.com, and anyone who would like to do a eulogy in person for Nick to let me know. I have gone though many songs and I have decided on You Light Up my Life, because this is what [Nick] did for me and to many others, his friend Sarah will sing it, she will record it ahead of time because she is too emotional to sing it. I am also thinking of the Josh Groban song You raise me up, it’s all so difficult and I want to do it right. I keep thinking this is the last thing I will do for my beautiful boy, and I want to do it right with love

and respect. Thank you all for your wonderful outpouring of love, we all loved him and I have joy in knowing the last words we said, to each other on Wednesday was “love you” we said it to each other and meant it.”

Deborah Volpe, president of the  Association of Flight Attendants Council 66, told ABC News that she remembered Aaronson fondly.
“This is so difficult. We all worked with him, we all knew him. He was just in my office a week ago,” Volpe said. “And it’s that smile, we all knew his smile. He was a very compassionate individual.”

Aaronson’s coworkers organized a November 10 memorial at the airport chapel in Phoenix.

Aaronson graduated from Rio Salado College in Tempe and began working for U.S. Airways in 2006.

The blog LGBTQ Nation stated that “Aaronson, who was gay, was active in several LGBT rights causes, including participating in the NOH8 Campaign, was a supporter of marriage equality, and advocated on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign.”

LOS ANGELES, CA – The trial of Brandon McInerney for the alleged shooting death of Lawrence King in an Oxnard, California, classroom has begun.

McInerney, 17, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, faces first-degree murder and hate crime charges. The defense will argue voluntary manslaughter, saying that McInerney was young, immature and provoked.

According to prosecutors, in February, 2008, McInerney allegedly walked into the middle school classroom, took a seat behind King, who was openly gay, pulled out a handgun and shot King twice in the back of the head. McInerney is accused of then tossing the gun on the floor and walking out of the classroom. King was 15 at the time of his death.

The defense says that McInerney doesn’t deny killing King, but will argue that it was involuntary manslaughter because McInerney was provoked by King’s repeated sexual advances. Witnesses will say that the two boys had clashed over King’s expressing his attraction to McInerney and that King had recently gone to school wearing eye makeup and women’s accessories.

A voluntary manslaughter conviction would prevent a life sentence, making McInerney eligible for release before he’s 40. Even a finding of second-degree murder would virtually assure that he wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he was in his 70s.

The accused killer of two Wilton Manors residents was indicted last week for a double homicide that occurred in Wilton Manors in December

of last year.

At 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 26, 2010, Wilton Manors Police Department officers were called to 2513 NE 8th Avenue to conduct a wellness check. A sister of one of the victims had called police when her brother had not arrived to her home for the holidays. Police entered the residence and found Stephen Duane Adams, 52, and Kevin Mark Powell, 47, dead inside with multiple gunshot wounds. The Broward Medical Examiner’s Office ruled their death a homicide.

Peter Serge Avsenew, 26, was charged in a Grand Jury indictment for the murder of Adams and Powell. Avsenew was already being held without bond in Miami Dade County Jail for a probation violation out of Monroe County. He is charged with two counts of first degree murder, two counts of armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, unlawful use of a credit card and grand theft auto.

Avsenew was transferred to the custody of Monroe County.

New Delhi – An Indian court has sentenced Hasibul Rehman to life in prison for murdering his roommate Tarikul after he would not bottom for Rehman.

In February 2007, Tarikul fought off sexual advances from Rehman and the two got into a fight, according to the prosecution.

About a week later as Tarikul lay sleeping, Rehman attacked him with a glass soda bottle, smashing it over his head and causing him to bleed to death.

Rehman’s two other roommates testified that they heard Tarikul’s screams and saw Rehman run out of the house.

Rehman’s defense team countered that the sexual advances never happened, and that Rehman was defending himself from his roommates. Rehman must also pay a $332 fine