Murder of Gwen Araujo
| Murder of Gwen Araujo | |
|---|---|
| Location | Newark, California |
| Date | October 4, 2002 (Pacific) |
|
Attack type
|
Battery, strangulation |
| Victim | Gwen Araujo |
| Perpetrators | Jason Cazares Michael Magidson José Merél Jaron Nabors |
Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 – October 4, 2002) was an American teenager who was murdered in Newark, California. She was killed by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not convicted on the requested hate crime enhancements. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed. Some contemporary news reports referred to her by her birth name, Edward Araujo, Jr.
Araujo, who was undergoing hormone treatment and going by the name Gwen at the time, met Michael Magidson, José Merél, Jaron Nabors, and Jason Cazares in the summer of 2002. She engaged in oral sex with Magidson and anal sex with Merél. She claimed to be menstruating and during sex would push her partners' hands away from her genitalia to prevent them from discovering that she had a penis. On October 3, 2002, she attended a party at a house rented by Merél and his brother, Paul Merél. Also in attendance at the party were Magidson, José Merél, Nabors, Cazares, Paul Merél, Paul Merél's girlfriend Nicole Brown, and Emmanual Merél.
At the party, she was discovered, by forced inspection (conducted by Brown) to be a transgender woman, following which the men with whom she had sexual relations became enraged and violent. Magidson, after vomiting, put her in a chokehold. Later, he punched her in the face and began to choke her, but was pulled off by others. At some point after that, Paul Merél, Emmanuel Merél, and Brown left the house. José Merél struck her in the head with a can of food and a frying pan. Nabors and Cazares left in Magidson's truck to go to Cazares's house to get shovels and a pickaxe.
When Nabors and Cazares returned, Araujo was still conscious and sitting on the couch. At some point, the assault resumed. Magidson kneed her in the head against the living room wall, rendering her unconscious. Cazares kicked her. After this, she was taken to the garage of the home. Nabors testified that Magidson strangled her with a rope and that Cazares struck her with a shovel, but Magidson testified that it was Nabors who strangled her and struck her with the shovel, and Cazares testified that he never struck her and did not see her die. Most accounts have Merél cleaning blood out of the carpet at the time that Araujo was strangled. She was then hog-tied, wrapped in a blanket, and placed in the bed of a pick-up truck. They then drove her body four hours away and buried her near the Sierra Nevada mountains. Her disappearance and murder went unreported for days. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events her death occurred. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head.
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