On January 30, 2003,

On January 30, 2003, an appellate court in Philadelphia, PA, agreed to let the trial of Sterling vs. Minersville Police and Borough, go back to federal court to be argued again in front of a jury. As the case of Marcus Wayman weaves through the judicial system, this strikes another furious blow for the Sterling family in an attempt to prove that police were at fault for depriving Marcus, 18, of his civil rights that prompted his suicide. In November 2001, a jury acquitted the police and borough from any wrongdoing. Yet, Judge Rapaport (Allentown, PA) ruled in June 2002 that the previous trial was "a miscarriage of justice" and tossed the previous verdict, moving for a new trial.

Marcus Wayman wanted what any young man wanted from life. To see the rest of his life ahead of him full of promise and opportunity. That all ended in the early morning hours of April 18, 1997.

Marcus Wayman was only 18 years old when local police officers found him and 17-year-old Matthew Adamik parked in a car in Minersville, Pennsylvania. The officers—Scott Willinsky, who is the son of retired police chief Joseph Willinsky, and Thomas Hoban—took the boys into the station on charges of underage drinking. But because Adamik was carrying two condoms, the officers also asked the teens if they were “queer,” according to Adamik’s testimony. Scott Willinsky later testified that both boys conceded under questioning at the time that they were stopped in the car to have sex, although Adamik disputes making the statement. Adamik testified that Willinsky told Wayman that if Wayman didn’t tell his stepgrandfather he was gay, Willinsky would do it himself.

Early that morning Hoban dropped Wayman off at the home his family was sharing with his stepgrandfather. And sometime around 6 a.m., Wayman, a football player who had about a month of school left until graduation, found the keys to the family’s gun cabinet. He then took out a revolver, held it up to his face, and fired. He missed, however, so he aimed and fired again. With the second shot, he was dead. “I’m sorry, Grandpa, I found my future,” Wayman wrote in a suicide note. “I won’t let everyone’s life be ruined by mine.”

On November 7 a federal jury in nearby Allentown cleared Willinsky, Hoban, and Willinsky’s father of charges that they had violated Wayman’s constitutional right to privacy by threatening to out him. The verdict stunned Wayman’s family and friends. “I really don’t know what the jury was thinking,” Wayman’s mother, Madonna Sterling, said a few days after the acquittal. “There was so much testimony from people who had nothing to gain by lying. We’re all pretty much in shock.” The fact that Wayman grew up with his stepfather, Mark Sterling, a former police officer, and respected the police’s authority helped his mother understand his desperation. “If they say they’re going to do something, you’d better believe it,” she says. “I think at the time he thought, who was going to believe him? If a police officer says this, it must be true.”

Years ago, when I was a youth of 15, I was Marcus. I lived in a small town in Idaho that had the same views as Minersville, Pennsylvania. I don't even have to visit there to know what it was like for Marcus. There are thousands of Minersville's and Emmett, Idaho's all over the United States. It was easy for me to keep my secret to myself growing up, although looking back on it, I think people had their suspicions. Oscar Wilde described homosexuality as "the love that dare not speak its name". You learn very early to keep quiet about it if you value the life you have. It can either be turned into a living hell, such as what happened to Marcus and me, or you choose to end the pain, as Marcus did. I chose to live, but I also know that it wasn't totally because I was stronger than Marcus. It had everything to do with timing. I was being harassed at school. I had my car vandalized, I had been shot at in my own back yard, my tires slashed, and beaten three times in high school. On all these occasions, I never told anyone the real reason why all of this was happening to me. The only thing worse than taking their punishments would be that the people I loved reject me. I knew I would never survive that. So, it was an unspoken agreement that I had with my tormentors. The could do just about anything to me and they knew I wouldn't rat on them to the police, the school authorities, or anyone else because I had more to loose and they knew it.

I started going to church a lot. I found comfort in thinking that God may at least be able to feel the pain I was in. But, at church, I knew people in the community. Indeed, one of the ladies who attended my church was one of my teachers in school. Not even there could I talk about it. This continued until I was a senior. By then, the secret was getting out. I suppose playing tricks on me and making me fear for my life got boring to my tormentors. It was time for something new. So, rumors started spreading through my school that I was a "fag". I was never so scared in my life. I had people race me home from school. When I'd get home, I'd run into the house and close all the curtains and lock the doors. They would race up and down the road for a time, get bored, and leave. One night I went to my church. It was 3:00 in the morning. I went to the alter I prayed to God that he change me. It was important for Him to know that it was a matter of my life we were talking about. I told Him that if he would make me like everyone else, I would spend my life serving Him. If he didn't, I would take that as a sign that I had no place on this earth. I waited for a few days for the miracle transformation to take place. Nothing happened. Either God didn't hear me, did hear me and didn't care, or there was no God. I decided to take control of my life in the only way that I had any power to do so. I took everything I could get my hands on in the medicine cabinet, which was considerable. As I recall, a combination of Doriden (later outlawed in the US because of abuse and overdose deaths), Nembutal, and Percodan. Obviously, I didn't die. I was found, my stomach pumped, and the worst part, not even being able to tell anyone the truth as to why I took them. I could have just as easily have died, and would have been just one more statistical death of yet another "depressed teenager who took his life when he had so much going for him". I was sorry that I lived and remember thinking to myself "I can't even do that right."

The years that followed were not easy. I graduated and left Emmett as soon as I could. I went to college and met Kent. When I would go back to Emmett, I would go on back country roads to get to my house, avoiding the town. I feared that someone might recognize me and it would happen again. I eventually graduated from college and moved to San Francisco with Kent. After my mother died, I never went back to Emmett again. There is nothing there but sad memories for me. They are better left dead and buried. I often think that if I did go back, what it would be like if I confronted the ones who gave me so much grief so long ago, if they even live there now. I would like to think it would be different now. Now, I am armed with knowledge and rage, and rage can be a powerful weapon. Rage from what time has given me.

"Go without hate but not without rage." - Paul Monette