From the Mother of a Gay Son

I received this today, in a comment, and decided to share it with you.

This is Sean Ethan Owen’s mother.

Yes, I believe my son was murdered because he was gay and he was the kindest person you could know. The people that murdered my son needs to look deep down and ask themselves why. But there is no reason why you could just kill a person that hasn’t done any thing to you. Just cold blooded murder him. Why could anyone just take a life for no reason? You ask your self many times and you still get no answer.

If they just wanted a car they didn’t have to kill my son for it. He would have gave them the car so that is not why they killed him. You see you can get a car from any where but no, they wanted to kill a gay man that hasn’t done a thing to them. One of the boys, Matthew Taylor got out on a bond. He was smiling like it was no big deal that he killed my son. I don’t think it was fair to just let a man out, after knowing all the evidence and still let him out on bond. Why I ask myself but I have no answer. Can anyone tell me why?

I want justice and I don’t think I am going to get it. I see in my eyes if it was a white boy killing a black person you would not hear the end of it, but since it was a white man killed by three black men it looks like to me that they are saying another white man is gone. That is sad, a person is a person no matter what color they are and they need to only look at that - not the color of my son, that did not deserve to be killed.

I wrote about Sean’s murder on April 20, 2004. He was lured by three men from an Internet chat room to meet him. I’m not sure he knew it was three men. Their plan was to steel his car. Sean ended up being strangled, tortured, and with two bullets in his head. He was found several days later. This happened a year ago.

Then on Wednesday, May 4, 2005, one of the men who did this, Matthew Taylor, received a reduced bail from $200,000 to $150,000, a sum Taylor’s relatives said they could afford.

Saying his bullet-riddled, beaten and strangled son was dumped into the Eno River “like a sack of garbage,” a grieving father was enraged Wednesday after bail was reduced to a manageable amount for one of three suspects in the homicide case.

“It’s damn sickening,” Michael Owens complained after Judge Orlando F. Hudson (pictured left) cut bond from $200,000 to $150,000 for 17-year-old Matthew Taylor.

Taylor’s relatives had indicated that $150,000 was a sum they could afford.

“I’m furious,” said Owens. “They go in and ask the judge for something. They get it. What do I get? I don’t get my son back. I just get the headache of knowing [Taylor] will be on the street again soon.” [...]

The victim’s father and Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cline pleaded with Hudson, who is Durham’s senior judge, not to further lower Taylor’s bond on Wednesday.

“My son is gone,” said Owens. “I’ll never see my son again. Who’s to say that when [Taylor] gets out, he’s not going to be roaming the streets to kill someone else. ... God only knows what this man will do if he gets out of jail. It makes me want to throw up right here. ... They threw my son into the river like a sack of garbage. What is the world coming to to let somebody like him out on the street to hurt someone again?”

Cline argued that Taylor bought the gun that killed Owen and also lured the victim to Durham with an Internet message: “Come on to Durham Sean. I want to meet you. I want to spend some time with you.”

“But for his actions, Sean would still be alive today,” Cline said of Taylor. (source)