Gwen Araujo

Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 – October 4, 2002, née Edward Araujo, Jr.) was a transgender teenager who died during or shortly after an attack by multiple individuals. The events leading up to Araujo's death were the subject of a pair of criminal trials in which it was alleged that the attackers were angered by the discovery that Araujo &mdash; who, at the time, was living as female &mdash; was biologically male. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but the jury concluded that no hate crime was committed; two other defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter. The circumstances of the case have caused it to become a rallying point for the LGBT community, and a number of underreported and controversial aspects about the case and about Gwen's murder remain points of contention.

Life
Araujo lived in Newark, California. Family members report that she was a happy and energetic child. She expressed the desire to be female from an early age and, just prior to her death, had started to live as a woman. Araujo attended public school and a local church with family members until she began to be ostracized for her sexual identity, at which time she began to withdraw socially. She stopped attending Newark Memorial High School prior to her graduation and began to look for work. She was unable to find a job, which her mother states was the result of intolerance created by her child's gradual transition between genders.

Death
Araujo, who was going by the name "Lida" at the time, was introduced to a circle of friends whom she met during a chance encounter while walking down a local street. The group of young adults enjoyed passing the evening hours with party activities that included playing dominos and consuming drugs and alcohol at the home of Araujo's to-be assailants. Araujo was reported to have engaged in sexual activities with at least two of the men from the group. A few weeks later, she was invited back to the house where a party was planned. She wore her mother's peasant blouse to the party, although her mother had asked her not to and expressed discomfort with Araujo's appearance. Araujo told her mother that she was just being jealous. This was the last time Sylvia Guerrero saw her child alive.

At the party on October 3, 2002 it was discovered, by forced inspection (conducted by a young man at the party), that Araujo had male genitalia. In an explosion of activity, the men that she had had sexual relations with became extremely agitated. Once it was discovered that Araujo was biologically male, Mike Magidson began choking her in the hallway of the house. At this point numerous guests left the residence. Jose Merel and Jaron Nabors remained inside the residence with Mike Magidson. Jason Cazares claimed to go outside at this point; however he did not leave because he had arrived in Mike Magidson's truck. After everyone left, the three assailants continued assaulting Araujo. She was brutally beaten for about 5 hours. Jose Merel struck her over the head with a frying pan and then struck again with a can of tomatoes, causing a gash to her head which bled profusely. Mike Magidson kneed her in the head against the living room wall, with such force that her head caused an indentation in the plaster wall. After this, Araujo was taken to the garage of the home and strangled with a rope. Most accounts have Jose Merel cleaning blood out of the carpet at the time she was strangled. She was then hog-tied, wrapped in a blanket and placed in the bed of a pick-up truck. The three assailants, plus Jason Cazares drove her body to parkland in El Dorado County, California, a wooded area in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada known as Silver Fork, where she was finally buried in a shallow grave. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events Araujo's death occurred. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head.

Trial
Nearly two weeks passed before Araujo's body was discovered by the authorities. For fear of reprisal, the partygoers did not report the crime and the assailants all agreed not to say a word to anyone about the matter. Later, however, Jaron Nabors began talking to a friend about what happened. The friend called the police and Jaron Nabors was later detained and questioned. Under interrogation, Jaron Nabors disclosed the location of Araujo's body.

Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatched four crime scene investigators and two detectives who recovered the body at the gravesite. The deputies were led there on October 16, 2002 by Jaron Nabors, the youngest of the four individuals charged with the crime. The four accused of the murder were: Michael Magidson, 22, Jaron Nabors, 19, José Merél, 22 and Paul Merel, Jose's older brother. Paul Merel was quickly released because his girlfriend came forward to the police telling them that Paul had left that night with her. Paul Merel and his girlfriend were never charged and became witnesses for the prosecution. Nabors later testified against the other three in a deal with the DA for a lesser charge of manslaughter after police monitored a jailhouse letter and information gained during a wiretapped telephone conversation with one of the accused. Jason Cazares was arrested over a month after the other defendants, and only after Nabors implicated Cazares in a letter to Nabors' girlfriend, explaining how he (Nabors) wasn't involved in the killing.

First trial
In their first trial, some of the defendants appeared to use a variant of the gay panic defense. Magidson's defense involved an implicit acknowledgment of his role in Araujo's death, but argued that Magidson acted in the heat of passion, and therefore, should be found guilty of manslaughter, not murder, under California law. Merél's attorney denied any involvement by Merél in the killing. Cazares, the only defendant to testify at that first trial and the only defendant who never had a physical relationship with Araujo, denied involvement but admitted to helping bury Araujo. Prosecution witnesses pointed out that Cazares attempted to intervene on behalf of Araujo (to stop the beating) on as many as five separate occasions prior to everyone fleeing the house. All three attacked Nabors' credibility, arguing that he minimized his own role in Araujo's death and had the most to gain by lying. The jury deadlocked on all three defendants, and a mistrial was recorded. The jury appeared to be unable to decide whether the murders were premeditated, and so whether to convict them of first degree murder or second degree murder. However, another possibility — one that the prosecution appeared to respond to in the second trial — was that the prosecution's lack of a coherent theory as to who was responsible for what role in Araujo's death made it impossible for the jurors to determine who of the three, if any, was guilty.

Second trial
In contrast to the first trial, where only Cazares testified, all three defendants testified in this trial — and blamed each other as well as Nabors. However, Merél conceded (like the prosecution witnesses) that Cazares intervened on behalf of Araujo during the beating. Magidson claimed to have blacked out during the beating and was unable to recall whether Cazares intervened. Cazares again claimed to be only involved in burying Araujo. No witnesses ever testified to seeing Cazares strike the victim in any manner. Merél blamed Nabors as the main killer, and indicated that Magidson helped Nabors strangle Araujo to death; Merél acknowledged hitting Araujo over the head with a pan, but claimed he never wanted to kill her. Magidson also largely blamed Nabors, but also claimed to be heavily intoxicated the night of Araujo's death. Merél and Magidson said that Jaron Nabors struck Araujo in the head with a barbell weight, which had not previously been disclosed. A weight from the house was brought into court and did show a presumptively positive test for blood. Nabors denied that anyone used a weight to strike her. Nabors' girlfriend also testified about the letter she received from Nabors while she was in custody. She testified that the letter contained a number of factual accounts that were lies, and that Nabors often lied to her.

On August 24, 2005, closing argument commenced. Prosecutor Chris Lamiero appeared to abandon the strategy that the prosecution employed in the first trial—blaming all three defendants equally for the crime and arguing hard only for first degree murder—and instead concentrated his argument against Magidson, calling him a "pathetic, despicable excuse for a man". As for Cazares, Lamiero argued that his assistance of Magidson made him as culpable as Magidson for murder. He repeatedly referred to Cazares as "the killer's friend" during his argument. Lamiero further appeared to concede that the murder might not be first degree murder, by arguing that the most important thing for the jury is to find Magidson and Cazares guilty of murder, either first degree or second degree. Lamiero's closing arguments appeared to leave Merél entirely out of his fire — stating merely that Merél's fate was up to the jury. This may be because Merél's testimony, if believed, would tend to establish Magidson's and Cazares' guilt.

Cazares' attorney, Tony Serra, argued that the evidence against his client was weak. He also argued to the jury that it needed to look at the three defendants' culpability individually, and not make a decision just to avoid another mistrial. When he continued his argument on August 25, he argued that his client was an ordinary person who got caught up in group mentality (in burying the body only), and attacked Nabors as a pathological liar who could not be believed. He also pointed out that his client, Cazares, was the only person to render aid to Araujo.

On August 29, Merél's and Magidson's attorneys gave their closing arguments. Merél's attorney, William Du Bois, argued that Merél was, at most, guilty of felony assault, and was not guilty of Araujo's death. He also argued that Merél had merely intended to scare Araujo when he hit Araujo's head with a pan. Magidson's attorney, Michael Thorman, argued that Magidson acted in the heat of passion, stating that Magidson was surprised by the revelation of Araujo's biological sex and suggesting that had Araujo apologized, the death would not have happened. Both Du Bois and Thorman also heavily attacked Nabors' credibility.

On August 30, Lamiero gave his final argument, again attacking and asking for murder convictions for Magidson and Cazares — and noticeably did not do so for Merél. He made no statements at all to rebut the arguments made by Merél's attorney. He also defended Nabors' credibility, arguing that Nabors was the one who broke the case wide open. Afterwards, Judge Harry Sheppard instructed the jury, which then started deliberations.

On September 8, the jury announced that it had reached verdicts on two of the three defendants. As Judge Sheppard instructed, the verdicts were kept secret.

On September 12, after the jury announced that it had deadlocked on the third defendant, the verdicts were announced. As it turned out, the defendant that the jury had deadlocked on was Cazares, while Magidson and Merél were each convicted of second degree murder, but the jury found the hate crime enhancement allegation to be not true. Magidson and Merél each faces a mandatory 15 years-to-life sentence as a result of this conviction.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, juror Max Stern, a San Francisco attorney, indicated that the jury did not particularly believe any of the defendants or prosecution witness Nabors. He indicated that the jury believed that the offense was murder rather than manslaughter because the jurors believed that Magidson and Merél's reactions were not reasonable, but rejected the hate crime enhancement because some jurors did not believe that the crime was committed because of Araujo's sexual identity, but because the situation got out of hand. According to Stern, the jury convicted Magidson and Merél largely based on their admissions of their roles in Araujo's death.

Lamiero echoed the jurors' ambivalence in determining criminal intent by commenting: "Gwen being transgender was not a provocative act. It's who she was. However, I would not further ignore the reality that Gwen made some decisions in her relation with these defendants that were impossible to defend. I don't think most jurors are going to think it's OK to engage someone in sexual activity knowing they assume you have one sexual anatomy when you don't."

Plea by Cazares formally ending the case
On December 16, 2005, pursuant to a plea agreement, Cazares entered a no contest plea to voluntary manslaughter with an agreed sentence of six years in prison. He will serve a little more than three years given his time in custody. He, along with Magidson and Merél, were formally sentenced on January 27, 2006. Nabors was sentenced to 11 years in prison, as his plea agreement indicated, on August 25, 2006.

Remembrance
Araujo's mother, who referred to her child as her little "Angel", has said publicly that she would like her daughter's case to be influential in changing the disciplinary actions for hate crimes resulting in death to include the death penalty. Sylvia Guerrero and her brother David have appeared publicly and before national media to express their grief and to denounce violence against gender-variant youth.

Those who knew Araujo were joined by hundreds of sympathizers for her funeral located at St. Edward's Catholic Church in Newark. Following the ceremonies, there was a march through main streets leading to the community's mall attended by community dignitaries and leaders. She was remembered again during the "Remembering Our Dead" vigils that took place in several major cities to commemorate the deaths of 27 transgender people during the 12 month period that contained Gwen Araujo's own death. A few days after the funeral, members of the Westboro Baptist Church (followers of Fred Phelps) picketed the church and also many other places around the Newark area including Newark Memorial High School where drama students performed The Laramie Project.

At Araujo's mother's request, a judge posthumously changed Araujo's legal name from Eddie to Gwen on June 23, 2004.

A Lifetime Network Movie called A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, starring J.D. Pardo and Mercedes Ruehl, aired on June 19, 2006.

On the first anniversary of the murder, Horizons Foundation created the Gwen Araujo Memorial Fund for Transgender Education. The Fund's purpose is to support school-based programs in the nine-county Bay Area that promote understanding of transgender people and issues, through annual grants. Through this fund, Araujo's mother and family speaks in middle and high schools about transgender awareness and understanding.