Gays Think Not – Agencies Handling of 8 Males Deaths Fair, Lawmen Insist

Could better cooperation among police agencies and better understanding of the Indianapolis Gay Community have speeded the investigation of the deaths of eight young men? Publicly, police agencies defend their work on the slayings. A task force has been formed; a move that should assure new information about the unusual string of deaths will be shared as quickly as it is accumulated. As to the suggestion that they may not react as quickly to a murder connected with gay life, law enforcement officials insist that each murder investigation is handled with equal concern.

But the gay community questions the attitude police have in dealing with a lifestyle of which they may not approve. “They have no knowledge of the gay life, of a gay person’s feelings, emotional or mental stress. And gays go through a lot of mental stress because the rest of society doesn’t accept them.” said Ron E. Henry, gay community spokesman and former publisher of Hot Type magazine. Many homicide investigators proceed there from the vice squad, where arrests of male hustlers are common. Gays ask if dealing only with the criminal side of homosexuality ingrains a sense of prejudice against all gays.

“When I was in the vice branch, two men engaged in sex was sodomy and they could be taken to jail. But as far as being prejudiced against gays. I don’t think so.” said Robert L. Ward, deputy chief of investigations for the Indianapolis Police Department. Another investigator, currently working on one of the deaths, said, “Personally I don’t really like being around those people, but as far as being prejudiced. I don’t think so.” Detective Sgt. Jerry W. Schemenaur of the Marion County Sheriff’s Department is investigating three of the deaths. “I’ve learned it is very difficult to get information from some of these individuals. Several gays don’t like to talk to police, and we don’t know if they’re lying or not.”

He added, “I’ve gained quite a bit of knowledge, more than when I started out. My attitudes not changed. A homicide is a homicide.” The sheriff’s department has assigned five detectives to follow leads on a full-time basis in the death of Michael A. Riley, 22, 4606 Garvok Court. Riley, who was seen in a gay bar but is not believed to be homosexual, disappeared from a Broad Ripple nightclub May 28 and was found dead a week later in Hancock County. Technically, Marion County sheriff’s detectives aren’t required to investigate cases not in their jurisdiction. But their doing so is part of a changing attitude in handling these deaths.

Once a pattern in the deaths became obvious and it really didn’t until this past fall, after four of the eight deaths occurred detectives from 13 agencies met in May to create a task force through which information could be exchanged in an orderly, quick manner. As the investigation continues, police work under the burden of having to travel to several counties where the bodies were found, a heavy case load and the increasing pressure of criticism from the city’s gay community. “I don’t know of any lack of cooperation among police agencies,” said Deputy Chief Donald J. Okey of the local sheriff’s department. “There might be a little trouble in pooling information, and I think the task force will help that.”

Privately, some investigators were disappointed that the first meeting did not establish a lead police agency or a committee among the agencies to coordinate the investigations. Also not designated was a central repository for secondary analyses of crime scene evidence, which would be crucial in examinations of fiber evidence and microscopic tissue. Detectives from the various agencies, working mostly on their own, have talked to hundreds of gays and pored over arrest reports and inter-department memos of violent sex crimes in the hope of developing leads. Stanley E. Berg, publisher of The Works magazine and owner of The Body Works spa, 303 N. Senate Avenue has an understanding of the news making machinery.

In a news conference sparked by the recent deaths, Berg and Editor Tom E. Green Jr. have asked to review the files on each death; to have IPD establish a liaison with the gay community; and to have the police department hire gay policemen. They have suggested someone be called to the scene when a body is found in order to help detectives understand certain clues. But while he is critical of investigators, Berg concedes, “While we listen in amazement to police misconceptions of gays and their lifestyles, we must also admit that we have not been too helpful to them in the past.” “Do we need a better understanding of the gay community to help investigate these deaths? I’m not sure we do,” says Deputy Chief Ward fair.” “I don’t think Stanley is being fair.” “There is no need to bring gays to the murder scenes or let them look through the confidential files that have been compiled, as the gays have requested,” Ward said.

“The more people at the scene, the more confusion. We have enough problems with police on the scene.” Lawmen will admit that police and gays have not always been on the best of terms. But Ward pointed out that two city police detectives assigned to investigate the gay murders have conducted more than 300 interviews with gays in the past two years. When an Indianapolis man was found strangled in his home in August 1981, flyers with the victim’s picture were circulated throughout gay bars and spas by sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Carold G. Baker. Still, some gays feel the police have not gone far enough in their effort to work with them. And Keith A. Beaven, a 26-year-old unsuccessful City County Council candidate, agrees. “Through raids on the parks and bookstores, videotaping downtown, they give the impression that they think all gays are hustlers and prostitutes. One percent of the gay population is involved in illegal activities like the straight population.”