home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!rpi!usenet.coe.montana.edu!news.uoregon.edu!news.uoregon.edu!systems
- From: dise@decoy.uoregon.edu (David Casti)
- Newsgroups: soc.motss
- Subject: Gay Sailor Murdered ?
- Date: 23 Dec 1992 15:54:55 GMT
- Organization: University of Oregon Network Services
- Lines: 40
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <1ha24fINNsi3@pith.uoregon.edu>
- Reply-To: dise@oregon.uoregon.edu
- NNTP-Posting-Host: cisco-ts2-line63.uoregon.edu
-
- Hi folks,
-
- I've heard various rumblings about a gay sailor being murdered in Japan, but
- the media has been unexpectedly silent on the issue. I found the following AP
- article, and am wondering if anyone else has heard about this.
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- (c) December 12, 1992, Associated Press
-
- TOKYO (AP) -- The U.S. Navy is investigating whether a sailor based in
- southern Japan was murdered six weeks ago because he was a homosexual, the
- Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper reported Sunday.
-
- The newspaper quoted an anonymous Navy spokesman as saying the "homosexuality
- issue is certainly a motive being investigated" in the death of 22-year-old
- Seaman Allen Richard Schindler.
-
- The report said Schindler was beaten to death at midnight on October 27 in a
- public restroom in a park near Sasebo Naval Base, a major U.S. military
- installation 615 miles southwest of Tokyo.
-
- It said two of Schindler's shipmates on the amphibious assault ship Belleau
- Wood -- Navy Airman Charles E. Vins and Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey --
- were taken into custody in the death and that Vins had been punished and
- discharged. Helvey is awaiting trial, it said.
-
- Military spokesmen were not immediately available for comment on the report.
- The soldiers' hometowns have not been released.
-
- The Pacific Stars and Stripes is an authorized but unofficial publication of
- the U.S. military.
-
- The newspaper said Schindler, who had been in the Navy about four years, had
- informed his superiors he was a homosexual, and at the time of his death the
- Navy was preparing to discharge him.
-
- It quoted friends and relatives as saying Schindler and at least one other
- homosexual sailor on the Belleau Wood had been harassed by shipmates. But the
- report said officials claimed they were unaware of any threats to Schindler
- before his death.
-