Gay chatroom murder in Durham, NC

I remember when I was chatting with other gay men here in Durham a few of them wanted me to pay their cab fare to come to my house. I wasn't sure if they were simply naïve or stupid. Never wondered if they might want my car. After all I don't know how to drive and have never owned one.

... But at a bail hearing for Taylor this month, the first detailed account of the killing became public. The account reveals the three used the gay telephone chat line as a hunting ground, but what began as a robbery plot ended in a violent death.

Owen's father, Michael S. Owens Sr., said he knew his son was gay, but they never talked about it. Owens said he thinks the death was a hate crime.

"They shot him before they even attempted to rob him of anything. From what I understand, my son had $10 in his front pocket when they found him," Owens said in a telephone interview from his home in Stovall. "I think they were on the chat line talking to somebody to actually murder."

North Carolina has a law that makes ethnic intimidation a misdemeanor, but that statute does not include sexual orientation. ...

Man gives chilling account of Durham slaying