GUILTY! We have a verdict in the Angie Zapata Hate Crime Murder Trial: GUILTY!

[FreeState]

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10568/we-have-a-verdict-in-the-angie-zapata-hate-crime-murder-trial


Allen Ray Andrade is guilty 1st Degree Murder, and guilty of the bias motivated crime count. Guilty on vehicle theft and identity theft.


----



Yes - RIP Angie

Edit to add link to background: http://www.lgbthatecrimes.org/doku.php/angie-zapata

[barbtries]

1. you have the defendant's name wrong

sorry to say i wasn't familiar with the story and had to google it. from the OP i thought maybe it was a husband or brother.

eta hooray for the verdict. i am happy for angie's family because i know justice goes a long way to easing the pain. nothing makes the pain go away.

[FreeState]

2. Thats from the blog I linked to - fixed in my post now...

thanks for pointing that out! I sent an email to Pam too - hopefully she will fix it on her blog too.

[mrbarber]

3. So wait, Zapata never told him he wasn't a biological woman?

Not that it excuses what the murder did, but isn't that a pretty messed up thing to do to someone?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. people like you really make me hate du. nt

[imdjh]

31. Come on, it's not DU, it's probably most people

It's one of the first questions most people have. They want to understand what happened. Let's face it, if she weren't transgendered we wouldn't be talking about it; it would just be another murder.

I first saw it on the GD thread, and went to the net to find a picture of Angie. Why? I wanted to know if it was possible that the murderer was unaware that she was trans. As it turns out, the fact that she wasn't born female is amazing, but then why would I notice the trans walking amongst us who look as biologically female as she did? So the next question was the disclosure question. it's an effort to understand what happened as much as anything else. And then it hit me, of course: What happened was that this guy murdered someone. Everything else doesn't really matter.

Which got me thinking about hate crimes in general. These laws and the statistics they generate are so meaningless for the very reason that I don't notice the highly "passable" (if there is a better word tell me) transexual on the street. A hate crime only gets recorded if the perp goes out of his way to make his motive known or simply can't hide his motive. So two guys get in a car and drive across town to attack a man of a different race who is also gay, and it's not a hate crime because they didn't call him names? But we still want to know, right? We want to know what that guy on the street did to be singled out for a crime. It doesn't mean that we're blaming him, it means that we want to understand the circumstances.

[Creideiki]

36. Trans-panic is no more effective as a legal defense as gay-panic

The proper response if this bothers someone is to walk away, not kill someone. I'm sorry that common decency is difficult.

[imdjh]

37. I don't think that anyone said that it is.

[FreeState]

6. He know - he met her on a bi/trans website and 36 hours before he killed her

he attended traffic court with her - where her legal male name of Justin was read in court.

Either way - no one deserves to die for expressing their true identity - whether they are honest about it or not.

Edit for spelling

[La Lioness Priyanka]

7. the desire to blame the victim is both insensitive and particularly annoying in this forum

cant they just stay in gd

[FreeState]

8. Unfortunately you are correct n/t

[GardeningGal]

14. The defense lawyer tried that argument......it didn't work.

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=114268&catid=339


In its closing arguments, the prosecution argued Andrade knew Zapata was transgender well before the murder and, therefore, applied reason to his actions.

"So if he knew she was a biological male, this is nothing less than first-degree murder," said Robb Miller, chief deputy district attorney in Weld County. "It's time for this man to be held accountable."

Andrade's attorney, Annette Kundelius, told jurors Andrade discovered Zapata was transgender just before the murder.

"When he found out, he lost control ... There was nothing going through his head at that time," Kundelius said.

In trying to convince jurors Andrade is also guilty of a bias motivated crime, Miller pointed to phone calls Andrade made from jail, in which he made statements like, "Gay things must die."

Kundelius stated Andrade showed no signs of homophobia prior to the murder and claims his actions were sparked by "deception" rather than hatred or prejudice.


From another station:

GREELEY, Colo. -- The family of an 18-year-old transgender teen burst into tears as they learned that the man who killed her was found guilty of first-degree murder and bias-motivated crime.

Allen Andrade, 32, is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. Sentencing will occur at 4 p.m. He was also found guilty of aggravated motor vehicle theft and identity theft.

The jury deliberated for less than two hours before reaching the verdict Wednesday afternoon.

(Much more at link)
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/19250317/detail.html

[mrbarber]

13. So wait, if he knew she was trans...

Why did he freak out exactly? Other than the fact that he's nuts.

[FreeState]

15. Your guess is as good as mine

hate does funny things. If you want look up the trial online and you will find a lot more information that led me to believe he was afraid he would be found out - he has a pink dildo that only has his DNA on it, he erased his account on the website etc.

Panic is never an excuse for taking someone's life - an in this case he was not panicking because she was born a male.

[imdjh]

30. You're assuming he freaked out

He was a murderer. He may well have known she was a pre-op trans, and he killed her. It may be that someone else found out. I have no idea what kind of town we're talking about, she may have told someone else she was seeing him and it got around. But the bottom line is that he's a murderer.

I don't buy into the whole "homosexual panic defense". Many of us say that we don't accept it as a defense, and thankfully the courts and juries aren't either, but many people do believe that this IS the reaction that some men have to homosexual sex which they have either consented to, consented to in a diminished state, or been deceived into consenting to. I don't buy that.

Call me culturally insensitive, but to maintain that some men be they caucasian rednecks, or Latino cholos, or black thugs, or Heinz frat boys NATURALLY/CULTURALLY react with extreme violence to either having sex with a male or being exposed as having had sex with a male is b u l l s h i t.

I may not have my finger on the pulse of cholos and thugs, but rednecks and frat boys are my specialty. This is not a normal reaction, it's a murderer or batterer choosing his victim. His victim is an object awaiting projectile. In many cases, the victim did indeed do something to select themselves, but all that did was determine the name of the victim not the fact that there would be one.

[GardeningGal]

10. The jury didn't agree.

That's the argument the defense tried to present. It didn't work and the jury came to their verdict pretty quickly for a murder trial.

[JackBeck]

11. you even come with an ignorance of gender expession and ID.

Congrats!

[Duncan Grant]

16. I don't think you understand what messed up means.

Homicide? That's messed up.

Blaming the victim? Beyond messed up.

Get it?

[Starry Messenger]

26. No.

"messed up" is what you are doing...

:thumbsdown:

[barbtries]

27. i'm not familiar enough to say

yeah, it's dishonest. should she have died for that? no.

in an earlier search i read that the defendant found out the truth 36 hours before he killed her. premeditated murder. but as i said i just learned of this case today myself.

[FreeState]

28. Here is an exhaustive list of stories and resources on this case for anyone interested

http://glaadblog.org/tag/angie-zapata-murder-trial/

[XOEnterprises]

32. She. Angie Zapata was a woman. n/t

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

33. She was a woman, not a he

God, it just astounds me to read this shit on DU, especially in the GLBT forum.

[Zuiderelle]

38. This place just sucks sometimes.

More often than not.

[Jamastiene]

42. Actually, yes, she did let him know, but

that should not make any difference. A hate crime is a hate crime. Murder is murder and dead is dead. End of story.

[GardeningGal]

4. The jury didn't have to deliberate very long.

From our local news:

GREELEY - After four days of testimony and roughly two hours of deliberations, the jury in a transgender murder trial handed down what is being called a precedent-setting guilty verdict.

The jury found 32-year-old Allen Andrade guilty of both first-degree murder and of a bias motivated crime or hate crime. It is believed to be the first conviction in state history for a hate crime against a transgender person.

Deliberations began in the noon hour and the verdict was reached shortly before 3 p.m.



More at link:

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=114268&catid=339

[JackBeck]

9. i hope this verdict can give just a little bit

Of peace and closure to her family and friends.

[FreeState]

12. As well as a little peace to the Transgender community who finally have laws to gain justice

for the community.

[imdjh]

40. Murder has always been a crime

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I simply feel that convictions in cases like these are evidence of the hard work of people in opposing discrimination at the legal and social levels and in demanding that the crimes committed against people be prosecuted and punished based on the act of the criminal rather the status of the victim.

[mrbarber]

17. I never blamed the victim.

However, I still stand by my assertion that not telling someone your transgendered when engaging in sexual acts is a violation.

Again. Not an excuse for violent acts, but it does make the trans person a pretty lousy individual.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. which you bring up on this thread, why? besides blaming the victim what purpose does it serve?

[mrbarber]

20. Because the second link in the article

Made it appear that Zapata did not tell Andrade that she was transgendered.

Which brought up the original point I made.

There's no question that this guy is a scumball and deserves to fry.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

21. so you didnt think that this was hideously insensitive?

[mrbarber]

22. And it says he met her through Moco

A "myspace for cell phone users", or something like that.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. do you think people lie? that maybe he was lying for killing her?

[FreeState]

19. What does that have to do with the case? The murder met her on a bi-trans dating website! n/t

[IndianaGreen]

24. K&R

This was clearly a hate crime, and the jury saw it that way too.

Prosecutors played recorded jail conversations where Andrade referred to Zapata as "it" and said it wasn't as if he "killed a straight, law-abiding citizen."

"His own statements in the jail call betray the way he values Angie's life, the way he thought of her as less than, less than us because of who she was," Chief Deputy District Attorney Robb Miller told jurors.

"Everyone deserves equal protection under the law and no one deserves to die like this," Miller said.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20090422/US.Transgender.Slaying/

[Starry Messenger]

25. What a beautiful girl.

:cry: I hope her family will find peace. I'd never read about this case before now. What a brutal sick f*ck that guy is. Sounds like a serial killer in the making. I'm glad justice is being done and he is being put away forever.

[Jkid]

29. Allen Ray Andrade has been sentenced to die in prison.

He's was just sentenced to life imprisonment without parole at 4:15 pm MDT.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10568/we-have-a-verdict-in-the-angie-zapata-hate-crime-murder-trial

[TechBear_Seattle]

34. Good, and may live to see 100

I oppose the death penalty, usually because it is too final and I've never gotten how killing people who kill people shows that killing people is wrong. In this case, I oppose it because it is too merciful: let Andrade have many decades to ponder what his hate has cost him.

[Political Tiger]

35. I'm delightfully surprised at this news!

I've been watching this trial on TruTV and was afraid the jury would come back with a 2nd degree murder verdict, at most, or would be deadlocked.

I'm also surprised at how fast the jury reached a verdict. I'm wondering if the defense's tactic of referring to Angie by her birth name of Justin backfired, as it was extremely disrespectful to the victim.

This is good news especially considering that this trial took place in a conservative and rural part of the country.

[One_Life_To_Give]

39. YES!!!

At least there is some justice in this world.
Still feel so sad for Angie. May she rest in peace.

[Mad_Dem_X]

41. Nice to see there is still some justice in the world.

What a tragic story. RIP, Angie.

[Tim01]

43. So did Zapata disclose about the transgender thing or not?

The part I don't get is that it is suggested the murderer knew about transgender thing, and then got mad and killed Angie in a rage later. That doesn't make any sense.
Either the killer didn't know, and freaked out when he found out, or there is something else going on.

Post #6 says the bad guy knew all along.

[JonLP24]

44. No, the perp even listed himself as Bisexual on Loco Space or whatever it was

Some alternate to myspace. I didn't pay much attention but it was revealed in court by his G/F he listed his interests as Bisexual so the whole idea that he didn't know he or she was transgender fell to pieces.