Gwen Araujo
Encyclopedia
Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 – October 3, 2002), born Edward Araujo, Jr., an American teenage pre-operative transgender woman, was murdered in Newark, California
, in October 2002. She was killed by four men, with two of whom she had been sexually intimate, who beat and strangled her after discovering 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.
The crime received widespread national and international attention and prompted some authors to write about the bearing of homophobia
and transphobia
on Araujo's murder, along with questioning whether transgender people were being represented fairly and accurately in both mass media
and the criminal justice
. Reaction to the case was an impetus for law reform movements in several states. The events, including both criminal trials, have been portrayed in a TV movie, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
. The murder was regularly compared to the Matthew Shepard
and Brandon Teena
case and was a rallying cause for the transgender and ultimately the larger LGBT
communities.
to prevent them from discovering that she had male sex organs. On October 3, 2002, she attended a party at a house rented by Merél and his brother, Paul Merél. Also in attendance at the party were Magidson, Jose Merél, Nabors, Cazares, Paul Merél, Paul Merél's girlfriend Nicole Brown, and Emmanual Merél.
At the party on October 3, 2002 she was discovered, by forced inspection (conducted by Brown), to have male genitalia, following which the men with whom she had had sexual relations became violent. Magidson put Araujo in a chokehold. Later, he punched Araujo in the face and began to choke her, but was pulled off by others. At some point after that, Paul Merél, Emmanuel Merél, and Brown left the house. Jose Merél struck Araujo in the head with a can of food and a frying pan. Nabors and Cazares left in Magidson's truck to go to Cazares's house to get shovels and a pickax.
When Nabors and Cazares returned, Araujo was still conscious and sitting on the couch. At some point, the assault resumed. Magidson kneed Araujo in the head against the living room wall, rendering her unconscious. Cazares kicked Araujo. After this, Araujo was taken to the garage of the home. Nabors testified that Magidson strangled her with a rope and that Cazares struck her with a shovel, but Magidson testified that it was Nabors who strangled Araujo and struck her with the shovel, and Cazares testified that he never struck her and did not see Araujo die. Most accounts have Merél cleaning blood out of the carpet at the time that she was strangled. Araujo was then hog-tied, wrapped in a blanket, and placed in the bed of a pick-up truck. They then drove Araujo's body four hours away and buried her near the Sierra Nevada mountains. Araujo's disappearance and murder went unreported for days. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events Araujo's death occurred. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head.
and a promise to testify at the trial."
Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatched four crime scene investigators and two detectives to recover the body from the grave site. The four accused of the murder were: Michael Magidson, 22; Jaron Nabors, 19; José Merél, 22; and Paul Merél, Jose'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. Jason Cazares was arrested over a month after the other defendants, and only after Nabors implicated Cazares in a letter to Nabors' girlfriend, explaining how he (Nabors) wasn't involved in the killing. Nabors later testified against the other three in a deal with the DA
for a lesser charge of manslaughter
and an 11-year prison sentence after police monitored a telephone conversation between Nabors and his girlfriend, Delores Ojeda.
On 12 September, after the jury announced that it had deadlocked on the third defendant, the verdicts were announced. The defendant on whom the jury had deadlocked was Cazares. Magidson and Merél were each convicted of second-degree murder, but not convicted of the hate crime enhancement allegations.
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. She'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. 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."
from Eddie to Gwen on June 23, 2004.
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.
A Lifetime Network Movie called A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
, starring J. D. Pardo and Mercedes Ruehl
, 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.
The 2011 novel The Butterfly and the Flame by Dana De Young was dedicated in part to Gwen's memory.
Newark, California
Newark is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It was incorporated as a city in September 1955. Newark is an enclave, completely surrounded by the city of Fremont. Its population was 42,573 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...
, in October 2002. She was killed by four men, with two of whom she had been sexually intimate, who beat and strangled her after discovering she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, but not convicted on the requested hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
enhancements. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter
Voluntary Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender had no prior intent to kill and acted during "the heat of passion," under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed. In the Uniform Crime Reports prepared by the...
. In at least one of the trials, a trans panic defense - an extension of the gay panic defense
Gay panic defense
The gay panic defense is a legal defense against charges of assault or murder. A defendant using the gay panic defense claims that he or she acted in a state of violent temporary insanity because of a little-known psychiatric condition called homosexual panic. Trans panic is a similar defense...
- was employed.
The crime received widespread national and international attention and prompted some authors to write about the bearing of homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
and transphobia
Transphobia
Transphobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards transsexualism and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender...
on Araujo's murder, along with questioning whether transgender people were being represented fairly and accurately in both mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and the criminal justice
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...
. Reaction to the case was an impetus for law reform movements in several states. The events, including both criminal trials, have been portrayed in a TV movie, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story is a 2006 LGBT biography television film directed by award-winning director Agnieszka Holland and aired on Lifetime Television. The story documents the real life of Gwen Araujo, born Edward Araujo, Jr., a transgender teenager who was murdered after it was...
. The murder was regularly compared to the Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard
Matthew Wayne Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998...
and Brandon Teena
Brandon Teena
Brandon Teena was an American trans man who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska. His life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story.-Life:Teena was born Teena Renae Brandon in Lincoln,...
case and was a rallying cause for the transgender and ultimately the larger LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
communities.
Witness account of the circumstances of her death
Araujo, who was going by the name of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo at the time, met Michael Magidson, Jose Merél, Jaron Nabors, and Jason Cazares in the summer of 2002. She was reported to have 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 genitaliaSex organ
A sex organ, or primary sexual characteristic, as narrowly defined, is any of the anatomical parts of the body which are involved in sexual reproduction and constitute the reproductive system in a complex organism; flowers are the reproductive organs of flowering plants, cones are the reproductive...
to prevent them from discovering that she had male sex organs. On October 3, 2002, she attended a party at a house rented by Merél and his brother, Paul Merél. Also in attendance at the party were Magidson, Jose Merél, Nabors, Cazares, Paul Merél, Paul Merél's girlfriend Nicole Brown, and Emmanual Merél.
At the party on October 3, 2002 she was discovered, by forced inspection (conducted by Brown), to have male genitalia, following which the men with whom she had had sexual relations became violent. Magidson put Araujo in a chokehold. Later, he punched Araujo in the face and began to choke her, but was pulled off by others. At some point after that, Paul Merél, Emmanuel Merél, and Brown left the house. Jose Merél struck Araujo in the head with a can of food and a frying pan. Nabors and Cazares left in Magidson's truck to go to Cazares's house to get shovels and a pickax.
When Nabors and Cazares returned, Araujo was still conscious and sitting on the couch. At some point, the assault resumed. Magidson kneed Araujo in the head against the living room wall, rendering her unconscious. Cazares kicked Araujo. After this, Araujo was taken to the garage of the home. Nabors testified that Magidson strangled her with a rope and that Cazares struck her with a shovel, but Magidson testified that it was Nabors who strangled Araujo and struck her with the shovel, and Cazares testified that he never struck her and did not see Araujo die. Most accounts have Merél cleaning blood out of the carpet at the time that she was strangled. Araujo was then hog-tied, wrapped in a blanket, and placed in the bed of a pick-up truck. They then drove Araujo's body four hours away and buried her near the Sierra Nevada mountains. Araujo's disappearance and murder went unreported for days. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events Araujo's death occurred. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head.
Trial
The partygoers did not report the crime and the assailants said nothing to anyone about the murder. Two days after Araujo's death, a friend of Jaron Nabors described him as appearing distraught. Nabors, one of the four attackers, led authorities to the grave site in "exchange for his guilty plea to voluntary manslaughterVoluntary Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender had no prior intent to kill and acted during "the heat of passion," under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed. In the Uniform Crime Reports prepared by the...
and a promise to testify at the trial."
Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatched four crime scene investigators and two detectives to recover the body from the grave site. The four accused of the murder were: Michael Magidson, 22; Jaron Nabors, 19; José Merél, 22; and Paul Merél, Jose'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. Jason Cazares was arrested over a month after the other defendants, and only after Nabors implicated Cazares in a letter to Nabors' girlfriend, explaining how he (Nabors) wasn't involved in the killing. Nabors later testified against the other three in a deal with the DA
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
for a lesser charge of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
and an 11-year prison sentence after police monitored a telephone conversation between Nabors and his girlfriend, Delores Ojeda.
First trial
Magidson argued that he should not be charged with murder, rather manslaughter at worst, under California law.Second trial
Three defendants testified in this trial — and blamed each other as well as Nabors. On 8 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 12 September, after the jury announced that it had deadlocked on the third defendant, the verdicts were announced. The defendant on whom the jury had deadlocked was Cazares. Magidson and Merél were each convicted of second-degree murder, but not convicted of the hate crime enhancement allegations.
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. She'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. 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."
Aftermath
At Araujo's mother's request, a judge posthumously changed Araujo's legal nameName change
Name change generally refers to a legal act allowing a person to adopt a name different than their name at birth, marriage, or adoption. The procedures and ease of a name change depend on the jurisdiction. In general, common law jurisdictions have loose limitations on name changes while civil law...
from Eddie to Gwen on June 23, 2004.
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.
A Lifetime Network Movie called A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story
A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story is a 2006 LGBT biography television film directed by award-winning director Agnieszka Holland and aired on Lifetime Television. The story documents the real life of Gwen Araujo, born Edward Araujo, Jr., a transgender teenager who was murdered after it was...
, starring J. D. Pardo and Mercedes Ruehl
Mercedes Ruehl
Mercedes J. Ruehl is an American theater, television and film actor.-Personal life:Ruehl was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, the daughter of Mercedes J., a school teacher, and Vincent Ruehl, an FBI agent. She was raised Catholic. Her father was of German and Irish descent and her...
, 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
Gay panic defense
The gay panic defense is a legal defense against charges of assault or murder. A defendant using the gay panic defense claims that he or she acted in a state of violent temporary insanity because of a little-known psychiatric condition called homosexual panic. Trans panic is a similar defense...
(or trans-panic) defense.
The 2011 novel The Butterfly and the Flame by Dana De Young was dedicated in part to Gwen's memory.
See also
- Boys Don't CryBoys Don't Cry (film)Boys Don't Cry is a 1999 American independent romantic drama film directed by Kimberly Peirce and co-written by Andy Bienen. The film is a dramatization of the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man played by Hilary Swank, who pursues a relationship with a young woman, played by Chloë...
, story of Brandon TeenaBrandon TeenaBrandon Teena was an American trans man who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska. His life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story.-Life:Teena was born Teena Renae Brandon in Lincoln,... - List of transgender-related topics