STEPHEN V. SPRINKLE | Unfinished Lives
In one of the grisliest murders the local Catawba County Sheriff’s Department can recall, a teen roommate used the gay panic defense to justify his alleged ax-and-shotgun murder of an older gay man.
Michael Anderson, 19, of nearby King’s Mountain, is accused of murdering 38-year-old Stephen Starr at about 4:45 a.m. on Monday in the Hickory house they shared.
The Hickory Daily Record reports that Anderson, claiming he “turned straight” during alleged sexual advances by Starr, shot him with a shotgun and pistol, carved words into his body and wrote some others with a pen, before lodging an ax in the victim’s stomach.
“He shot his roommate and took an ax to him,” Catawba County Sheriff Coy Reid told the Daily Record. “It’s one of the nastiest crime scenes I’ve been to.”
The words carved and written on Starr’s mutilated body were apparently so offensive that officials are not releasing what they were until the trial. Anderson announced the murder on his Facebook page between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., asking God to forgive him, and claiming that no one would be able to take him alive.
In a bizarre twist The Box Turtle Bulletin says is reminiscent of the infamous “Twinkie Defense” used to deflect blame for the murder of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk by a straight rival on the board, Anderson claims that he took too many doses of Mucinex DM, an over-the-counter congestion medication.
In a 911 recording released to the Daily Record on Tuesday, Anderson says that the pills “drove me mad”: “I Od’d on Mucinex DM. Dextromethorphan makes me feel a little weird and I took too many.”
Anderson told the telecommunicator that he shot his roommate three times with a shotgun and pistol, then mutilated the corpse with an ax so brutally that Starr would not be able to be identified: “You’re not going to know who it is,” Anderson says on the recording.
When asked why he killed his roommate, Anderson then says that it was because Starr was gay, and he was heterosexual. “I met [Starr] and went to his house and he took me in and I turned straight again. And he wanted to touch me and stuff and I wouldn’t let him, and he kept trying. And I waited until he went to sleep and then I shot him three times. And I mutilated him very badly and I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Oh God, please help me.”
Starr had likened his relationship to Anderson as a parental one, according to his Facebook page. On February 6, Starr posted that he had a “new son,” a person he was trying to make a better human being. So, Anderson’s account of being picked up at a gay bar and molested seems not to square with Starr’s understanding of the relationship, neither does Anderson’s suggestion that the encounter with his older gay roommate was recent and brief. The two men apparently lived together for several days.
As the case continues to sort itself out, it is well to remember that homophobia is a crooked phenomenon that erupts into violence in a variety of seemingly-irrational ways. It is also important to remember that Starr is unable to answer charges of sexual advances.
News reports are carrying only allegations from the self-interested point of view of the alleged killer. The Unfinished Lives Team sees enough in this story to indicate that a possible anti-gay hate crime was committed by a desperate young man who is ready to blame over-the-counter cold medications and the victim for his actions, but not himself.
i knew micheal before this happened he was bi sexal this was no hate crime and how dare you say such a thing.as for the guy killed im sorry for his family i really am.but micheal has had alot of issues for a while things of this nature can push someone over the edge just saying.
Yeah…how dare you tell the truth. How is this NOT a hate crime?
Things of WHAT nature can push someone over the edge? Religion that makes people feel guilty about who they are? So-called friends and relatives who do not accept people for who they are? Of course he had problems, but I’ll bet his family friends and religion are among them.
Yeah, let’s blame this on God and not the real problem the GAY that forced himself on a confused kid!!
@David: looks like it’s you, me and two Rose Nyland wannabes.
This guy had mental problems, I don’t think it was pills or sexual advances, this guy just has a screwed up mind.
dextromethorphan is a dissociative drug, and it can cause extreme depersonalization and derealization. Its in the same class as PCP and Ketamine. It can make reality just seem like a dream. He could be using it as an excuse, but DXM can seriously make someone a temporary nutcase