In Memory of Nicholas West
“In Texas, there is a history of devaluing the lives of gay men and lesbians, which means people who murder them tend to receive lighter sentence because of who their victims are. But today justice was done. This is the first time a gay basher has been convicted of capital murder in Texas.”
Those were the words of Dianne Hardy-Garcia of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Lobby back in 1994 after Donald Aldrich was sentenced to death in Texas for the murder of Nicholas West, a young gay man in Tyler, Texas.
Today, Donald Aldrich is scheduled to be executed in Texas for the murder of Nicholas West. Another accomplice, Henry Earl Dunn was previously executed in February 2003 for the same crime. And, a third man, David McMillan, who was 17 at the time of the attack, received a life prison term.
In testimony, Dunn said he was at the Bergfield Park in Tyler, Texas on November 30, 1993. The park was known as a homosexual meeting spot where West, a medical clerk, was lured under the guise of seeking sex but was abducted and taken to a remote area of Smith County. There West was stripped, ordered to his knees and shot as many as 15 times.
Mr. Aldrich justified his actions by saying, “If you can walk into a 7-11 and rob a 7-11 for 15, 20 bucks, get your face on videotape, have somebody that's gonna call the police; or if you can go into a park, rob somebody that's out in the dark, come away with a hell of a lot more - because of the fact that they're homosexual and they don't want people to know it, they're not gonna go report it to the police. Who you gonna go rob? Where you're gonna get in the least amount of trouble.”
And that is the crux of the problem, isn't it? They felt they could pull this off because of society's attitude towards homosexuals. This was the third robbery and beating they had done that week, all of homosexual men. None of victims reported the crime. I can't help but think that society holds some blame for this. If there had been a place for Nicholas and others like him to meet without being harassed, would this have happened? We are social animals. We will do what we can to be with people we connect with. Nicholas was no different from any of the rest of us.
I used to be against the death penalty. I'm still not sure where I stand on it, to be totally honest. I am against the taking of life - all life, but I've concluded that I'm not even qualified to offer an opinion. The real qualification comes from being on the side of Nicholas West, where the bullets were being fired, where the assault was being inflicted. He is the one who received unimaginable pain and suffering, to say nothing of the absolute horror he must have endured. If we are to offer a fair judgment on if we are for or against the death penalty, we should have to feel what Nicholas felt as well. And that's just not possible. He's gone, and by the end of this day, another one of his killers will be gone as well.
One thing that surprised me was that Donald Aldrich has a website. On this site, he posted an article that appeared in the Houston Chronicle on July 22, 2004. It read:
July 22, 2004
Suit challenges injection makeup
By HARVEY RICE, Houston Chronicle
A death row inmate has filed a lawsuit accusing Texas of using chemicals in its lethal injections that violate the constitutional ban on causing unusual pain and suffering.
The lawsuit by Donald Loren Aldrich, 39, sentenced to death for the 1992 hate slaying of a gay man, is one of a growing number of lawsuits alleging the use of lethal injection by Texas and other states violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
It's amazing to me that Mr. Aldrich can say that lethal injection is cruel, given that he, Mr. Dunn, and Mr. McMillan lead Nicholas West to his death where they stripped him of his clothes, taunted him, and slowly and methodically shot him to death with 15 bullets. Surely, lethal injection will be far more merciful than the death Nicholas faced at their hands.
Further coverage:
Inmate to die Tuesday in slaying of gay Tyler man
Killing the Killers of Nicholas West
From the Attorney General of Texas on Henry Dunn
10/12/2004 - Donald Aldrich executed
10/13/2004 - Aldrich Execution Gives Closure
Following is the what happened that night. I will warn you that it is very graphic. But, I think it should be remembered, because of what Nicholas had to endure that night.
Donald Aldrich is scheduled to die for the 1993 murder of a Tyler man.
The case involved the kidnapping of 23-year-old Nicholas West of Tyler, who was targeted because he was gay. On the evening of Nov. 30, 1993, Nicholas was kidnapped from a Montgomery Ward parking lot in Tyler, driven to a clay pit, robbed and shot at least 9 times. There were two other people charged with his murder. Henry Dunn, who was executed for his part in the crime in February of 2003, and David McMillan, who was given a life sentence for aggravated robbery and kidnapping. The murder was the culmination of a string of crimes of escalating violence and severity perpetrated by the trio of Dunn, Aldrich, and McMillan.
The night Nicholas was abducted was bitterly cold. Dunn later confessed that he, Aldrich and McMillan decided to find and assault homosexuals at Bergfield Park in Tyler. Aldrich, McMillan and Dunn went to the park, which was known as a local meeting place for homosexuals. Upon arrival, Aldrich spotted a red Nissan truck that he recognized from a previous visit to the park. Aldrich approached the red truck, occupied by Nicholas, and posed as a homosexual in order to gain his attention. Nicholas invited Aldrich to join him and the two drove together to a nearby Montgomery Ward parking lot. Dunn and McMillan followed in another car.
Once in the parking lot, Dunn, Aldrich and McMillan brandished weapons and forced Nicholas into the passenger seat of their car. While Aldrich drove the red Nissan truck, Dunn held a gun on Nicholas, and McMillan drove the car to a clay pit approximately 10 miles outside of Tyler. Once they arrived, Dunn, Aldrich and McMillan led Nicholas at gunpoint away from the road and into the clay pit. They began to push and taunt Nicholas as they continued toward the clay pit. Before marching him to the pit where he was murdered (which was located several hundred yards from the road), he was stripped of his clothes, but not his underwear. He had defecated in his underwear and the trio wanted to further humiliate him by making him wear his dirty underwear.
Nicholas was then pistol-whipped. Blinded by the flow of blood from the gashes on his forehead and eyebrow, stripped of his shoes and clothes, he was then forced in the bitter cold to embark on his death march. If he fell, he was kicked, jeered, and taunted. When they reached the clearing where the clay pit was located, Dunn fired his pistol into the air.
According to Dunn's videotaped confession, this act triggered a fusillade of gunfire from Aldrich and McMillan, and Nicholas was knocked face down into the mud. At the pit, the shooting began - methodically, slowly, intentionally - apparently to prolong his life and to prolong the suffering as long as possible. Dunn then walked toward Nicholas's body and fired at least four and as many as six shots into Nicholas. Dunn admitted that one of his shots probably struck Nicholas in the head. The first shots were to the hand. Then there were shots to the arms. These were followed by superficial shots to the torso. A shot to the abdomen, which the forensic expert testified was not the killing shot, would have left Nicholas in terrific pain. And then finally came the coup de grace, a shot to the back of the head.
Nicholas was shot as many as 15 times. As Nicholas writhed on the ground and begged for the shooting to stop, Aldrich, McMillan and Dunn ran back to the road where the vehicles were parked. Aldrich drove Nicholas's truck and McMillan and Dunn fled in the car.
Two days later, on December 2, a pair of dirt-bikers found Nicholas's body lying face-down in the clay pit. A day after the body was found, the authorities, acting on an informer's tip, arrested 29-year-old Donald Aldrich, 17-year-old David Ray McMillan and 19-year-old Henry Dunn, Jr. for the murder of Nicholas West. Dunn was arrested in possession of the red Nissan pickup. He gave a videotaped confession on December 3.
Authorities in East Texas almost immediately classified the murder as a hate crime, noting that evidence obtained during suspect questioning made “it quite clear they targeted Mr. West because he was a homosexual.”
In fact, Donald Aldrich, the reported leader of the group, told authorities, “If you can walk into a 7-11 and rob a 7-11 for 15, 20 bucks, get your face on videotape, have somebody that's gonna call the police; or if you can go into a park, rob somebody that's out in the dark, come away with a hell of a lot more - because of the fact that they're homosexual and they don't want people to know it, they're not gonna go report it to the police. Who you gonna go rob? Where you're gonna get in the least amount of trouble.” (source)
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Nikki was my roommate in Houston right before he moved to Tyler. He was my best friend and I loved him so very much. I still miss him to this day. RIP Nikki
Nick was my best friend and roomate before he was killed. We grew up together in Orange, TX as neighbours and shared an apartment in El Paso.
He was one of the funniest, brightest, warmest people I have ever known. I will never forget his deep voice or his cackling laugh. Such a sweet sweet guy.
rest in peace, little buddy
This is a wonderful entry. I just stumbled into this while trying to find a quote made by Dianne Hardy-Garcia relating to this case.
I'm a student at the University of Texas at Tyler and our GLBT group actually has a copy (recorded off Free Speech TV) of the BBC documentary about aspects of the local East Texas culture that contributed to this crime (Lone Star Hate). I'd like to think things have improved a little since then, but we just lost one of our group members in a suicide that was in part caused by the harrassment of this man and his partner by their town's newspaper owner/editor.
Anyway, thanks for having this on your site.
This morning, my brother and I were reading the newspaper when we came upon 23 pictures of men that have been executed here in Texas. I pointed to a picture that i had recognized seeing so many times on the news. Under the picture was the name Donald Aldrich.
"Do you remember Mr. West?" my brother asked. "Yes why?" i replied. Pointing to Donald's picture, my brother told me that he was the one that killed Nicholas West.
I was one of Mr. West's students when i was little. I think i was in 1st grade or 2nd grade. He taught my ESL class (english spanish language). I can still remember the day that he left and didnt come back for a couple of weeks. We all missed him. When he finally came back one day, we all got happy and ran to the door to greet him. We were so happy he was back, but he had only come back to get the last of his things. He had a very sad face and he looked as if he had been crying all day. Then he left again. We were told he would be back soon but he never did. From that day on i never understood what had happened. I knew his son had died but i was never told how and why.
Today, i am 17 years old. Finally, after looking for an article about him all over the internet, i understand why he was killed. I believe that it was over something very stupid and ignorant and it should have never happened. He was human like everyone else. Except he loved differently. There is nothing wrong with that. I want the West Family to know that i will keep them in my prayers every night and may god bless them.
I also have a friend that goes to school that is gay. He is always being called names and teased. Even the teachers talk badly about him. But of course they would never admit it. I think that all parents of gay teens should stand up to the schools and ask for something to be done. The way they love is something we cant help but im sure we can all learn to accept it.
RIP Nicholas West