[pitu]

did that ninja guy ever get caught? there's been a stabbing murder in the Vale of Cashmere gay cruising grounds, discovered by some bird watchers, according to 1010WINS.

damn! in that miserable rain yesterday??

R.I.P. William Oliver of Bedford Ave, Brooklyn


Posted: Sunday, 23 April 2006 5:30AM
Brooklyn Man Stabbed to Death
NEW YORK (1010 WINS)  --  A man found stabbed to death in Prospect Park in Brooklyn was identified Sunday as a 61-year-old Brooklyn man, police said.

The body of William Oliver was found late Saturday afternoon after police received a call that an unconscious man was inside Prospect Park near Grand Army Plaza, police said.

Oliver had been stabbed at least once in the chest, police said.

There were no immediate arrests and an investigation was underway, said Officer Kathleen Price, a police spokeswoman.

© 2006 CBS Radio Inc...

[armchair_warrior]

damn thats sad, damn muggers and murders are about in spring time.
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Delete the evil empire!
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[Livetotravel]

Maybe it's just my shitty mood 'cause of the rain. or maybe it's 'cause Im outta of here for few weeks to Eastern Europe in search of more intelligence- but there was something about your "death notice" that really put me off.

Was it important for you personally to note that the place where the body was found is a "gay cruising area?" If it were around the Drummers Grove would you have said "a West Indian cruising area?" Or on the PPW side of Long Meadow "a straight white people's cruising area?"

Is it supposed to make people who are not gay breathe easier that maybe the assailant is only after gay men?

And by the way - The name Vale of Cashmere has absolutely no contemporary reference, gay or otherwise. It was named from a line in Thomas Moore's 1817 poem "Lalla Rookh." "Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere! With its roses the brightest the earth ever gave." There used to be a fountain with a nude boy holding a duck in his arms surrounded by six spouting turtles but the fountain was stolen.
_________________
But that's impossible.

http://unratedunfiltered.com/

[quijibo]

[WhyFi]

[metulj]

[pitu]

[armchair_warrior]

[Livetotravel]

[quijibo]

[Carnivore]

[apollonia666]

Hey, so I don't mean to be a bummer, but back to that whole stabbing thing?

I had to do some Googling to refresh my memory, but in 2000 five African-American gay men were attacked in separate incidents by some freak case in the Vale of Cashmere who was dubbed the Ninja Slasher by some and the Prospect Park Slasher by others; presumably that's who Pitu meant in the original post. The slasher then laid low until another attack in January 2001:
http://tinyurl.com/rdd85

There were rumors that it was some guy named Jason who left town in early 2001, and as far as I can tell there hadn't been any incidents since the January '01 slashing.
http://www.alterarts.net/Ladying0502.html

And the police released a sketch you can see on this page:
http://www.avp.org/pparkslasher.htm

Just last October, two guys who were hooking up in the park were shot; don't know if that was related or ever solved:
http://tinyurl.com/create.php

As far as I know this is the only recent incident in which someone's been murdered, though. So far, the short AP story Pitu posted appears to be out all the coverage there's been.

Scary. If anyone reading this ever cruises, PLEASE be careful out there.

[caaahyoko]

[pitu]

The Times tells the story, in today's Metro section

April 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/nyregion/24.....html?_r=1&oref=slogin

An Avid Walker, 61, Is Stabbed to Death in Prospect Park
By ANDREW JACOBS and ANN FARMER

William Oliver was a housecleaner, a gardener, a patient uncle and a reliable jack-of-all-trades. But more than anything, Mr. Oliver, 61, was known by those who loved him as a walker.

His tireless amblings across the city were almost always accompanied by the music that, wearing oversized headphones, he played on a portable CD player.

On Saturday afternoon, police officers responding to a 911 call from a passer-by found Mr. Oliver's rain-drenched body in a thickly wooded corner of Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

Mr. Oliver, who lived with relatives in Brooklyn, was killed by a knife plunged into his chest, the police said.

Yesterday, the authorities said they had no suspects in Mr. Oliver's killing, which took place about 4 p.m. in the Vale of Cashmere, a lush, hilly swath near Grand Army Plaza, which draws bird-watchers and, in good weather, gay men looking for sexual encounters.

Reared in rural Virginia, one of seven children born to a tobacco-farming couple, Mr. Oliver was a quiet, courtly man who, according to family members, held a variety of jobs after moving to New York in the 1970's: as a worker in a handbag factory, a salesman at a jewelry store and, in recent years, a housecleaner for affluent clients in Manhattan.

Wilson Oliver, 67, said he could not imagine why anyone would want to harm his brother, a pacific soul who mostly kept to himself.

Although he worked when he could, his brother said, William Oliver did not earn enough money to rent his own place so he alternated between his older brother's apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant and his sister's house in Flatbush. Mr. Oliver would get a bed and home-cooked meals, and his siblings would enjoy his good-natured company and the benefits of his industriousness.

In the winter, Mr. Oliver shoveled snow, and in the spring, he prepared his sister's backyard vegetable garden. Not long ago, he painted her living room robin's-egg blue.

"You didn't have to ask him to do anything," said the sister, Shirley Puryear, 69. "He just did it."

Walking and listening to music, family members said, seemed to be his solace. He would regularly stroll the 3½ miles between his brother's and sister's homes. Sometimes, he would hike all the way into Manhattan. "He'd just walk and walk and walk," said a niece, Evelyn Puryear.

Prospect Park is near the route he usually took between the homes of his brother and his sister. Last night, investigators said they were exploring whether Mr. Oliver was the victim of a robbery, a random act of brutality or perhaps an attack motivated by homophobia. When asked, Mr. Oliver's brother and sister said they did not know whether he was gay.

Over the years, the Vale of Cashmere has often been the site of attacks on gay men. Last October, two men were shot and wounded there; in 2000, a man dressed as a ninja slashed and beat five men there. No arrests were made in those attacks.

Clarence Patton, executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said he was consulted yesterday by an investigator from the Police Department's hate crimes unit, who was trying to determine whether the victim was gay.

Though Mr. Patton said he did not know, he said at least 10 percent of victims of anti-gay violence are not gay, but rather are targeted in places thought to be gathering spots for gay men or lesbians. "It's hard to say whether you hope it was a robbery or an anti-gay attack," he said. "At the end of the day, a man is dead, and it doesn't really matter."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

(EDIT: adding the Daily News article)
http://www.nydailynews.com/04-24-2006/news/cr.....tory/411542p-348098c.html

Park slaying renews fears
By RICHARD WEIR, TONY SCLAFANI and DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Cops were hunting yesterday for a cold-blooded killer who stabbed a 61-year-old man to death in Prospect Park - rocking the Brooklyn oasis.

William Oliver was knifed once in the chest and may have been robbed Saturday afternoon in a section of the park that's known as a gay pickup spot, cops said.

"I still have trouble getting over his death," said Wilson Oliver, 67, the slain man's brother.

The attack raised fears that the so-called ninja who prowled the same area of the park more than five years ago, preying on gay men, had returned. Cops said they did not believe the slaying was related to the ninja attacks.

William Oliver, a bachelor who bounced around between relatives' houses, had called his brother at 3:11 p.m. Saturday to say he was on his way to his house in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

But he never made it.

Two parkgoers stumbled onto his bloody body on a path in the lush Vale of Cashmere area of the park about an hour later. "Everything was fine, he was going to come by," said Oliver's brother. "He said, 'See you later.'"

Cops said they found William Oliver's wallet nearby and found some cash in his pockets.

The murder weapon was not recovered. Investigators were searching a nearby man-made pond for clues.

Relatives said Oliver kept to himself and never talked about his sexual preference, although his brother said it was "a good possibility" he was gay. "He was a good person, a kind person," said Willa Oliver, his sister-in-law. "If he could do something to help you, he did it."

The secluded Vale of Cashmere and the nearby Rose Garden are popular hangouts for gay men near Grand Army Plaza.

In 2000, a man dressed in a black ninja outfit stabbed, clubbed or slashed at least four gay men during a two-week crime spree. Another man was stabbed on Jan. 17, 2001, by a man dressed in black.

Oliver's murder was even more worrisome because it came in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, when the park was fairly crowded, even on a rainy day. "It's spooky," said William Davis, 42, sitting in the Rose Garden. "It's really scary because it's daytime."

Even though police said the killing wasn't linked to the ninja attacks, just the mention of the spree was enough to frighten one man, who said he once came face-to-face with the black-clad attacker.

"I hope they catch him," said a 48-year-old man who didn't want his name used because his family doesn't know he is gay. "I won't be coming over here by myself."

Originally published on April 24, 2006

so sad.

[WhyFi]

[apollonia666]

[sweet tea]

it seems to me that their not knowing (or not wanting to make public pronouncements) is very in line with the experiences/behavior of basically tolerant people who grew up in a very different time. i certainly have relatives and ancestors whom the young generation basically assumes were gay, whom their own generation loved very much, and who would very likely have fallen into the "we don't know" category. some of those people are long gone, and some of them are of my parents' generation.

[WhyFi]

[sweet tea]

indeed.

[stacey]

[MikeWalton718]

The area near the vale of cashmere is deffinately a gay cruising area, I walk my dog by there regularly. As a gay man I recodnise cruising when I see it. but as an openly gay man who has lived so for 15 years the appeal of cruising in the park is not there, it's well known how dangerous it is on many levels, sex with strangers in the AIDS era? duh, no thanks. and public sex is an invitation to violence and or arrest. Unfortunately it's mostly closeted gay men who find them selves drawn to places like this, it can be part of the DL homo thing which is bringing AIDS to the women of the black and Latino communities in record numbers. In this area anyhoy it seems to be entirely black and latino men, I could be wrong, I don't hang out just a walk through. It's not an easy situation to solve, more police patrolls of that area might help, but it's the fear of losing acceptance from family and friends that drive men into the closet. I believe as society becomes more tolerant the gay community will respond by becomming less promiscuous. in the 70s and 80s the gay scene was super sluttty, and thanks to changing attitudes ( and AIDS ) that has changed a lot. who knows how much was AIDS and how much has been attitude... I'm no expert.
oh yeah, one more thing, I would bet all my money that the man commiting these crimes against people he thinks are gay is most deffinately a closeted gay man him self who is conflicted and is provong to him self that he is not gay by being an anti gay vigilante.

[RAH]

[alafairnadia]

is it sad that I just had a good cry over this? moving to NYC in early 2001, the things that made me love and want to live in NYC were diversity and acceptance. so reading about the vale of cashmere, I was more than a bit upset, and, given my job, the fact that flight 93 is opening, also made me weep. I feel pathetic, but am also quite aware of myself. it's all terrible. and, the movie, wonderful. will be drunk and maybe high for watching.

[stacey]

[metulj]

[apollonia666]