As LGBT community says goodbye to a beautiful soul, all eyes remain focused on police investigation into teen lesbian couple’s shooting
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NOT FORGOTTEN | More than 150 gathered June 29 at Violet Andrews Park — a well-maintained nature preserve in an upper middle class suburb of Corpus Christi — for a vigil to remember 19-year-old Mollie Olgin, who was fatally shot while visiting the park with her girlfriend a week before. (Wayne Besen)
When I first heard that a gunman shot a teenage lesbian couple in Portland, Texas, I pictured a small, backward town reminiscent of the one in the movie The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre. The crime scene, however, did not match the picture I had conjured on the plane ride from Vermont to Texas. I was headed for a vigil that would follow the funeral of 19-year-old Mollie Olgin, who was shot in the head. Her girlfriend of five months, Mary Chapa, 18, was also shot in the head, but survived and is recovering in the hospital. (Chapa is now conscious and has even written down “Mollie” several times, inquiring about her slain partner.)
What made this tragedy more chilling was that it occurred at Violet Andrews Park, which is in an upper middle class suburb of Corpus Christi. The exquisitely manicured bayside nature preserve was not secluded, as one would imagine, but surrounded by tony waterfront homes and had a well-maintained trail that passed by a charming children’s playground. As I walked through the park, several families strolled with their children to various scenic overlooks to peer at Corpus Christi Bay.
Violet Andrews Park is the type of serene refuge that people visit to get over the death of a loved one, not the type of place where people are brutally murdered.
Surely, a violent encounter was the last thing on the minds of Olgin and Chapa when they went to the park Friday, June 22, to waste time before a movie.
What happened next is still a mystery. But we do know that the couple was led into a mud-soaked, grassy trail where both girls were shot in the head with a high-caliber pistol. Police describe the suspect as a white male in his 20s with dark hair, standing 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing about 140 pounds.
According to police Chief Randy Wright: “We do have a number of leads in the case and are following up on all of them with the help of several agencies, including the Corpus Christi PD, the Texas Rangers, the U.S. Marshal’s office, as well as local authorities from Aransas Pass, Ingleside and Sinton. There are certain details we will not release at this time due to the scope of the investigation, but we do have numerous witnesses we are in the process of interviewing and there is physical and forensic evidence that is being looked at as well, including lab work that needs to be done.”
While in town, I visited the Portland Police Department, where I was handed a generic statement that read, “There continues to be no evidence that the attack was motivated by the victims’ sexual orientation.”
Of course, we all know this is absurd. Any time a gay couple is murdered without explanation, their sexual orientation has to be considered a top-tier motive. Even as the daily lives of LGBT people improve, the world is still filled with human ticking time bombs primed by preachers and politicians to hate. The LGBT community has been demonized and dehumanized to the point where our lives aren’t worth more than dirt to some people.
Every LGBT person runs the risk of harassment or death simply by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The Anti-Violence Project released their national report on hate violence for 2011 and found that there were 30 killings of LGBT Americans due to hate, the highest yearly total ever recorded. A report published by the Southern Poverty Law Center in November 2010, analyzing FBI data from 1995 to 2008, found that LGBT people are 2.6 times more likely to be attacked than blacks; 4.4 times more likely than Muslims; 13.8 times more likely than Latinos; and 41.5 times more likely than whites.
Given these alarming statistics, I went down to Texas to ensure that the police fully considered hate as a potential motive — on par with other possibilities. To the Portland Police Department’s credit, they appeared fully engaged in finding the assailant, with police cars cruising the surrounding streets and officers walking the park throughout the day.
The vigil began at 6 p.m., as more than 150 people streamed out of Olgin’s memorial at the Limbaugh Funeral Home and into the park where the shootings occurred.
“The community is hurt and scared, but we are pulling together,” Equality Texas field organizer Daniel Williams told me at the vigil.
A common theme by those who knew the young women was that they were first-rate individuals who harmed no one.
“She was the kind of person who would take the shirt off her back — a truly kind hearted person,” said Nellena McCabe, whose daughter went to school with Olgin for two years.
According to reports, Olgin dreamed of one day becoming a psychiatrist, and just finished her first semester of college. She was involved in band and the debate club.
“It’s really devastating to lose any child in such a horrific way,” said Dawn Jagger, who was Mary Chapa’s art teacher in 5th grade. “The damage and pain it causes the other kids in a split second of learning of the tragedy … It is incomprehensible and there are so many unanswered questions. It’s hard.”
Whether this turns out to be a hate crime or not, it is clear that the LGBT community has lost a beautiful soul and the life of her surviving partner will never be the same. The eyes of the world are now firmly fixed on Texas and will remain so until justice is served.
Wayne Besen is founding executive director of Truth Wins Out, a Vermont-based nonprofit organization that fights anti-gay religious extremism. He can be reached at WBesen@TruthWinsOut.org.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 6, 2012.
It is possible that the motive wasn’t exactly about the girls’ sexual orientation. Perhaps the gunman knew of one of the girls from her job. Even a jealous customer at Taco Bell or something? There are guys who become fixated on women and they follow them around. Perhaps that weirdo did that, and then he discovered she was not only taken, but in a lesbian relationship. I am just trying to think of many possibilities. Perhaps he was trying to rob them? Was it a sexual offense as well? There isn’t enough info coming into the new, but yes it DOES appear to be involved in the girls being gay one way or another. No doubt the shooter could observe for himself a romantic couple at the park – even if they were two females. I am sure that 5 months into a relationship, the girls were very romantic together, probably holding hands or some form of affection together, thinking they were alone?
I have confidence that the skank bag who did this to them will be caught and face justice.
I’m a member of the facebook group Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Kristene Chapa, 18, which now has over 1000 members. We regularly post and repost the Wepay donation site for Kristine’s medical care on our FB page to keep reminding our readers to donate. It is now up to slightly over $32,000 but lately, but as coverage and new news stories coming out about this case have slowed the donations to the Wepay site has slowed to a snails pace – it’s gone up less than $100 in the last 2 days I noticed. $32,000 sounds like a lot but as an RN and I can tell you a week in ICU can be around $50,000 and it’s been over 2 1/2 wks now.
And that doesn’t include doctors fees, drugs, MRI’s, Xrays etc… She’ll eventually need extended PT, OT for physical. I’ve heard so many horror stories of medical bankruptcy – extended PT alone can bankrupt even people with good insurance! And undoubtedly, she’ll also need psychological therapy for PTSD to recover. Can you imagine having memories of this attack and murder?! Not only the moments leading up to it and the shots themselves but after surviving she lay there overnight and into the next morning next to her dead girlfriend. Unbelievably, Emergency workers said she was conscious when they found her, so I can only imagine that she saw Molly lying next to her dead – in a pool of blood. Just beyond horrendous. This crime makes me sick. I too have a gut feeling – as a lesbian – that this was a hate crime. What else could it be?! There’s no indication of robbery or sexual assault.
Could you please put an addendum at the end of your article mentioning how much her medical care could be and what she will need and posting the URL for the Wepay donation site? And in the future when you publish articles about this case could you continue to do so? I would really appreciate it. I really fear she will be not only physically and emotionally destroyed but financially by this. You can’t even get a federal student loan if you have a bankruptcy on your record, sadly.
Please keep me anonymous in your article.
Here’s the site: https://www.wepay.com/donations/127673
I have lived in the Corpus Christi area over 20 years, about 10 miles from where the attack occurred. I will say that my feelings are that this was a case of road rage. This has to be the worst area in the country for road rage. If you look at someone wrong, cut them off, even innocently do anything to annoy the wrong person, you will be followed, chased, and many people I know of have been shot and killed. I am an RN in Corpus and have seen it over and again and see it on the news.
The park they were assaulted in is very nice, but there is NO WAY I would be out driving in that or any vicinity of Corpus Christi around midnight on a Friday night unless it was an emergency or I was with my husband. Even if I were with my husband I wouldn’t walk around that park or any park in this area at that hour, especially on a weekend night.
I know many people who live in the Corpus area that are openly gay and I’ve not seen it be an issue. Nobody seems to care, I know I don’t. For this area, it’s road rage that will get you chased down and killed way before being gay will. Those girls may have been driving to an area they felt was safe trying to escape someone following them. The park, (Violet Andrews), is an exit off the freeway, then four or five blocks, if that many.