Veiled Murder

"On July 1, 1999, Matthew and Tyler Williams broke into the country home of Gary Matson and Winfrield Scott Mowder, a well-known and much love northern California couple. The Williams brothers tortured and killed these two innocent men for one reason and one reason alone: they were gay. The men's nude bodies were found the next day riddled with bullets. Investigators determined that the Williams brothers had stood on chairs at the end of the bed and 'blasted the gay men'.

When Sally Williams asked her son Matthew why he killed 'the two homos,' his response was recorded by prison officials: 'I had to obey God's law rather than man's law. I didn't want to do this. I felt I was supposed to... I have to follow a higher law... I see a lot of parallel's between this and a lot of other incidents in the Old Testament... They threw our Savior in jail... Our forefather's have been in prison a lot. Prophet's... Christ... My brother and I are incarcerated for our work in cleansing a sick society... I just plan to defend myself from the Scriptures'.

On Sunday morning, November 17, 2002, while still awaiting trial, Matthew Williams, who once vowed to become a 'Christian martyr,' wedged himself between the toilet and the far wall of his cell, slashed open his feromal arteries, his arms, and his neck with a razor and bled to death. On March 3, 2003, Tyler Williams pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. Facing life in prison, Tyler offered a pathetic apology to the families and friends of the gay couple he had murdered. 'I have repented to the Lamb of God for attempting to take His place of leadership in dealing with the world's evils and in not patiently waiting for His timing'."



I read the above account in a book I picked up at the library today. Shortly thereafter I was reading the short artist biographies on Pandora about Tchaikovsky which recounted how he was murdered "from drinking poison in accordance with a death sentence conferred on him by his classmates from the School of Jurisprudence, who were fearful of shame on the institution". It isn't as though murdering gay people under some guise is new, King Ludwig 2 of Bavaria for instance. What concerns me this evening, what has been haunting me all day, is that a Matthew Shepard style murder is still quite feasible. And not just in the sense that it could happen to someone else and therefore I should work hard to prevent it from happening.

It could happen to me.

It could happen to a man I love someday. And it could come without warning, no matter how careful I am.