Scotty Joe Weaver was an 18-year-old murder victim from Bay Minette, Alabama

Bay Minette, Alabama

Bay Minette is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 7,820. According to the 2007 U.S. Census estimates, the city had an population of about 7,726 people. The city is the county seat of Baldwin County...

, whose burned and partially-decomposed body was discovered on July 22, 2004, a few miles from the mobile home in which he lived. He had been beaten, strangled and stabbed numerous times, partially decapitated, and his body doused in gasoline and set on fire.

The Baldwin County

Baldwin County, Alabama

-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*85.7% White*9.4% Black*0.7% Native American*0.7% Asian*0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*1.5% Two or more races*4.4% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...

 District Attorney

District attorney

In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 David Whetstone stated that Weaver's sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

 was a factor in the crime. He remarked that the brutality involved "is suggestive of overkill, which is not something you see in a regular robbery and murder". Alabama's hate crime

Hate crime

In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

s statute does not apply to people targeted because of their sexual orientation.

Three people were charged with capital murder and robbery in connection with the crime, two of whom were Weaver's roommates: Christopher Gaines, aged 20, and Nichole Kelsay, aged 18. Also charged in the crime was Robert Porter, age 18. Nicole Kelsay had been Weaver's friend throughout most of his life.

Three years later in May 2007, with Judge Langford Floyd presiding, Christopher Gaines pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He is currently incarcerated in Holman Prison, in Atmore Alabama. Porter pled guilty to murder and first degree robbery in September 2007, and received two consecutive life sentences. Kelsay pled guilty and was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for conspiracy to commit murder.

This crime was featured in Small Town Gay Bar

Small Town Gay Bar

Small Town Gay Bar is a 2006 documentary directed by Malcolm Ingram that focuses on two gay bars in the rural deep Southeast United States, one in Shannon, Mississippi, and one in Meridian, Mississippi...

, a 2006 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

depicting the difficulties of being gay in the rural South.

External links

• Memorial to Scott Weaver at stophate.us
• Grave of Scotty Joe Weaver (1986–2004) on www.findagrave.com http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Weaver&GSfn=Scotty&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=9272618&