Recent Murders Make Indy Gays Cautious
by Stephanie Reed and Pete Wasson
Richard Todd sits in Our Place, a gay bar in Indianapolis near where police found the car of Clay Boatman, a former Richmond resident and recent murder victims. He smokes cigarettes, drinks vodka tonics and talks about the changes he and other gay men have made in their lifestyles since they first heard about homosexuals being murdered. “You have to be partners before you do things. You can’t have one-night stands. If it is a one-night stand, then you are chancing dying,” says Todd. “I walked out with a guy one evening, wanting him very bad sexually, but I left him because I didn’t trust him. It just didn’t feel right to me.” Todd is one of many Indianapolis homosexuals concerned about the murder of 11 men, at least nine of whom had ties with the gay community. Many men approached in the city’s gay bars hesitate to talk about the victims, or to speculate on the killer’s identity.
But David Morse, Our Place manager, says the community is not afraid, just more cautious. He says he has asked his employees to watch out for strangers and plans to post the articles that have been printed about the victims. “We’re encouraging them to read the articles and to know the people they meet.” Although he is concerned, Morse says he thinks the danger is mostly for men who go home with people they don’t know.For more than 15 years, the downtown Indianapolis Public Library has been one of the areas where the city’s younger homosexuals those too young to go to bars – have gathered to meet people. There are kids still gather to talk but are more cautious of whom they talk to. “I had second thoughts about coming down here after I saw the news today,” says Miles Haskett, a 16-year-old from Westville. “‘The first thing I thought of was the library.” Haskett came to the steps with Andy Simmons, a 20-year-old college student. They sit together on a platform, waiting for friends. Haskett smokes cigarettes while Simmons, wearing blue jeans and a fringed black leather jacket, watches cars circle. “We come here because there are a lot of nice people to meet,” Simmons says.
“You hang out, you talk to people – it’s a lot of fun.” But he doesn’t go home with strangers, especially the ones in cars. “They circle around a lot, usually older men coming home from the bars. I guess they’re trying to pick people up,” Simmons says. “The last time I was here, some guy drove by about 20 times.’ Haskett says none of his friends will go down to the cars, especially now. “People aren’t stupid, and even if they don’t know any better, we warn them not to go down there when the cars stop.’ But about three miles away, kids do get into cars with strangers. They walk East Washington Street, waiting for men who drive by the liquor stores and old apartment buildings, offering rides to those who will take them. Terry Bailey, a man in his 30s who lives in the area, says, “If you see a teenage boy walking on the street in that area, that kid is usually hooking.” Not all of the kids want money for sex; but, according to Bailey, “they want something more than cable television.
Murders
“I imagine he’s familiar with the areas where the bodies were found. I don’t know if he knows where they are beforehand, if he pre-picks his spot.’ Police have said they believe the deaths may be the work of one person but have refused to call the murders the work of a serial killer. The deaths have sparked fear among those who frequent the downtown area of East Washington Street, a hangout for homosexuals and male prostitutes in Indianapolis. Most of the victims lived on or near East Washington or were last seen in the area before they disappeared. Men drive through the area in nice cars, pulling over to talk to teen-agers standing on the sidewalks.
Sometimes, a teen-ager gets into a car, and it is driven away. “No matter what time of day it is, people will approach you on the streets and ask you if you need a ride,” said Terry Bailey, an Indianapolis man who lives nearby. Andrew Stoner, a spokesman for the Indianapolis Police Department, said patrols have not been increased in the area. “It is not indicated that increased patrols would help the situation,” Stoner said. Officials from the six counties in which bodies have been found are compiling evidence to send to the FBI in Washington, D.C., where a psychological profile of the killer will be put together. Preble County Prosecutor Wilfrid Dues said the possibility of a gay man uncomfortable with his sexuality has been discussed when trying to profile a killer.
David Morse, manager of Our Place, a gay bar in Indianapolis, said he and others in the gay community think the killer is a gay man who believes he is heterosexual. “He experiences sexual urges and acts impulsively upon them, then feels guilty and afraid because of it,” Morse said. “It’s very hard to come to terms with homosexuality because there is so much discrimination against it. “We all remember having fantasies of being with men and then feel this fear that society instills in people could drive a person even further, maybe make him kill,” Morse said. “Whoever is killing these people has a good knowledge of the gay community he knows where to go to find his victims,” he said. Investigators first started to connect the bodies when they found Steven Elliot, 26, in 1989 near New Westville, Ohio, just across the state line from Richmond.
“That’s when the pattern began to emerge with the Indianapolis victims,” said David Lindloff, an investigator with the Preble County prosecutor’s office. Since then, officials in all of the counties have been sharing case information. They have a sketchy description of a man seen with 22-year-old Michael Riley the night he disappeared in 1983 but have been unable to locate him for questioning. Hancock County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Herndon said a white male in his 20s with short, light-brown hair was seen with Riley at the Vogue nightclub in the Broad Ripple area of northern Indianapolis on May 29, 1983. The man was 6 feet tall, weighed about 150 pounds, and wore Jordache jeans.
Police also know that an Indianapolis man paid 14-year-old Delvoyd Baker $20 to go to a south side motel with him on Oct. 1, 1982, the night before Baker’s body was found. Detective Sgt. Jim Rhinebarger, an investigator with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, said the man was brought in for questioning, cleared as a murder suspect and eventually convicted of molesting Baker. Officers said they don’t know why no bodies have been found in winter months, or whether the murders take place in Indianapolis or else “We have no answers,” Sullenbarger said. “We don’t even know where the homicides occurred.” Mitch Russell, a detective with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, wonders whether the murderer will ever be caught.
“If one person has been killing people for 10 years, we haven’t heard anything from him we probably never will. What would make him start talking now?” As Sullenbarger put it: “Now we pray for a little luck.’ Family members are still sorting through the pain. The family of the first victim, Michael Petree, does not want to bring the murder up again. “He’s been dead 10 years now, just let him lay,” Petree’s father, Don, said. “Nothing’s going to bring him back.” David Roettger, whose son was also killed, said his family would like to see the murderer caught. “I know people pick up the paper and say, “This won’t happen to me.” Well, not everything happens to somebody else. “I know that now.”
Similarities In Murders
Similarities police have discovered between the 11 bodies found so far: All but the most recent were found in rural areas in or near streams. The latest body, that of Tommy Clevenger, was found on an abandoned railroad bed not far from a stream. Eight of the victims had been strangled, most with a rope or similar weapon. The other three bodies were too badly decomposed for a cause of death to be determined. All of the bodies have been found nude or partially nude. All have been missing their shirts. Police have connected all but Clevenger and an unidentified man with the Indianapolis homosexual community. All of the murders have occurred between May and October – three in August, two in June, two in October, two in May and one each in July and September.
