Thursday, June 21st, 2007
B-b-but Conservative Christianity IS a force for good!
Because we all know that Christians - especially the conservative variety - are absolutely perfect in every way…
Here’s what they did to him (trigger warning: graphic violence):
As [the accused, Coleman] King held [the victim, Aaron “Shorty”] Hall down while [the accused, Garrett] Gray punched him and struck him around his eyes repeatedly
As King and Gray ruthlessly beat Hall, with fists and with the heels of their boots, hitting him over and over and over again, over 75 times with a boot alone.
As the two of them took turns jumping on his battered body
As they pulled his limp body down a wooden staircase, dragging him by the feet so that his head “bounced down all of the steps,” in their own words
As they propped up Hall between them, held out a camera phone, took a picture of the two of them with their arms around Hall’s broken body, and proudly texted a photo of Hall’s bloody and swollen face to their friend, James Hodge, where he worked, in order to show off their handiwork
As Jamie Hendricks called Hodge back around 6:45 pm and declared, “They’re beating the hell out of that guy,” while Hodge listened to Hall’s screams and the sound of King and Gray literally pummeling him to death
Which they did for “several hours,” spattering Hall’s blood throughout the kitchen, on the outside deck, the railing, the stairs, and in the living room.
As they piled his body into the back of Gray’s pickup truck (spilling more blood) and continued to beat him while Hendricks drove them to the murder scene, a tiny field row off a deserted backwoods state road
As Gray, still beating Hall, asked him if he wanted to die tonight. Hall, barely able to talk at that point, still managed to reply: no.
As Gray and King, ignoring Hall’s request to live, dumped him in the ditch beside the lane and proceeded to beat him still further.
As they left him there lying in the ditch, by this time completely naked, only to return with a shotgun later at Gray’s insistence that “they had to kill him or they would go to jail.”
As Gray shot into the darkness - but by this time, Hall, still alive, had crawled out of the ditch despite his naked body, despite his bruises, his broken nose and his shattered ribs. Hall had crawled into the field, where they left him there a second time.
As Hendricks and Hodges returned the next day, April 13th, to the spectacle roadside attraction (and because Hodge wanted to steal Hall’s coat) to find Hall dead in the field.
As they all proceeded to wrap Hall’s body in blue tarpaulin and hide it in Garrett Gray’s garage, where it was found after James Hodge, perhaps realizing that turning stooge was his only way to avoid being listed as an assistant, reported the crime and the suspects to the police, who turned themselves in.
And why did they brutalize this poor sap for 24 hours straight?
There’s a legal theory for their argument. It’s called the “gay panic defense,” and it suggests that temporary insanity from exposure to homosexuality is a defense against murder. Matthew Shepard’s killers tried to use it.
In other words, they did it because they thought he was gay - even though just about everyone who knew Hall would swear on the Bible that he was straight - that’s why! Merely believing that someone you don’t know might be homosexual is apparently enough of a sexcrime to be punished by an orgy of violence that can’t be sated until the victim has been gibbed.
And to make matters worse, the locals - from the media on down - treated the case as though it was just “boys being boys.”
So, Dennis, care to lay odds on whether or not these “fine upstanding citizens” had just come out of a Bible study - one apparently lead by their relatives and neighbors, no less?
