Group Believes Hiker Slayings Motivated by Anti-Gay Agitation

NGLTF wants FBI to investigate lesbian double murder as hate crime

by David Reed

Shenandoah National park -- site of hiker slayings.

ROANOKE, VA -- A gay rights group is pressing the Justice Department to investigate the possibility that two women hikers whose throats were slashed were victims of anti-gay violence.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said a letter sent Friday to Attorney General Janet Reno saying that the killers of Julianne Williams and Michigan native Lollie Winans may have believed them to be lesbians.

"We are asking for your help to insure that the FBI and the National park Service are diligent in investigating all aspects of these crimes, including the possibility that the murders were motivated by anti-lesbian bias," wrote Melinda Paras, director of the task force.

Shenandoah National park rangers found the women's bodies at their primitive campsite about one-half mile off the Appalachian Trail on June 1.

The FBI and park Service have declined to discuss possible motives or any details of the crime, such as whether the women were sexually assaulted.

FBI spokesman John Donahue told the Burlington Free Press of Vermont that there was no indication that the attack "is a hate crime of any particular type." But one federal law enforcement official, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, would not discount the possibility that the women were sexually assaulted.

Investigators have said the women were not robbed. They describe the killings as an isolated incident, but will not reveal what evidence led them to that conclusion, park Service spokesman Paul Pfenninger said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Lee Douglass did not immediately return telephone calls Friday, but a secretary confirmed that the attorney general's office received a faxed copy of Paras' letter.

Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn., and Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, were experienced hiking and camping guides on a five-day camping trip in the park in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. They worked on outdoor programs for Woodswomen Inc., a Minneapolis-based adventure vacation travel organization.

Woodswomen director Denise Mitten, who has organized outdoor trips for 20 years, said women who go camping together are often perceived to be lesbians, even if they are not.

"Some people consider hiking and camping as outside a woman's domain," she said. "For some people, that makes them angry enough to do this kind of violent crime. If they are also perceived to be lesbians, that would infuriate them even more. Their actual sexuality doesn't matter. People sometimes jump to that conclusion."

The Washington Blade, a newspaper that serves gay readers in the nation's capital, quoted Rebecca Strader, a Presbyterian minister whose Burlington, Vt., congregation welcomes homosexuals, as saying Winans and Williams were lesbian lovers. The newspaper said Williams attended the church.

Strader has an unlisted phone number and could not be reached for comment Friday.

More than 900 people attended Williams funeral Friday in St. Cloud. A funeral was also held for Winans in Michigan on Friday.

Copyright � 1996 The Detroit News, Inc. and Associated Press