Suspect Arrested in Murder, Assault and Robbery of Involving Two Gay Men

Written by Doug Riley

Wednesday, 28 September 2005

KCAVP: Cases may have been anti-gay motivated, but now is the time for community to focus on the danger of “pick-up” crimes

Kansas City, MO – Kansas City, Missouri resident Eric Holden was murdered on or about July 13, and property including his vehicle was stolen. In a separate incident, another man was stripped, beaten with a handgun, tied up, and robbed on July 5 after meeting his assailant at Missy B’s—a gay bar. Torry Johnson has been arrested and charged in both incidents with two counts of armed criminal action, one count of murder in the second degree, and one count of robbery in the first degree in both cases.

KCAVP representatives stated that they will continue to monitor these cases as they progress through the court system and implored the community to do so as well. “We urge anyone in the community who has any information about these or other similar cases to contact the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project or call the TIPS hotline at 816-474-TIPS,” said Doug Riley, executive director of the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project.

“We are saddened that this type of crime continues to happen in Kansas City, and it is not clear yet if these crimes were partially or entirely motivated by anti-gay hate, but we do know that Johnson preyed upon these men. Unfortunately, we are all regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity potentially at risk of those who hunt victims in public social setting and certainly heterosexual women have long been aware of such dangers of , but there is a lot of work yet to be done educating the gay community about pick-up crimes,” continued Riley. “To that end, KCAVP will begin distributing safe dating information to the community and planning some educational programming for the community around this issue,” concluded Riley.

Tips for safe dating are currently available online at: http://www.ncavp.org/issues/Pick-UpCrimes.aspx. The public is encouraged to contact KCAVP for more information about hate crimes and the services KCAVP provides by calling 816-561-0550.

The Kansas City Anti-Violence Project (KCAVP) is a Missouri nonprofit committed to providing services, advocacy and education for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and bias crimes within the metropolitan Kansas City area. For more information about KCAVP, visit http://www.kcavp.org/.