I live in the East Bay area where this crime took place. The local paper (an ANG newspaper) has had almost daily headlines about this murder.

About 20 miles north is the city of Oakland (also covered by ANG newspaper), which just recorded its 100th murder of this year over the weekend. Not too many of the Oakland murders have grapped front page headlines and none have maintained such coverage for 4-5 weeks straight. A good portion of those murdered in Oakland are young African-American males, which begs the question: are their lives less newsworthy than Eddie's (local news refers to him as her, Gwen)?
Dan | 11.26.02 - 8:48 pm | #

If you search for "Mary Stachowicz" on the ABC News website, it comes back with no hits. Mark - you're spot on - ABC could care less.

KCM
KCM | 11.27.02 - 9:48 am | #

Interesting, isn't it, how no mention is made of how this person had "sexual relations" (presumably fellatio) with three men at a party, which led to his murder? "Guerrero tried to comfort him, but her son sobbed as he told her, "I don't fit in anywhere and I feel like a freak," his mother said. "And I held him and I held him and I said, 'you know what, baby? You're not a freak.' So I gave him confidence to — the approval to be who he was."

To the popular media, cross-dressing and promiscuous anonymous sexual encounters are just all part of "accepting oneself for what one is."

It's interesting how the God of the Sexual Revolution (the sex act is the ultimate goal in life, and has and should have no physical, practical, or moral consequences) still dominates popular culture, while at the same time the New Puritanism universally condemns any drinking of alcohol, drug use, gambling (except in government-sponsored lotteries), or smoking of any kind as fundamentally sinful.
Mike Koenecke | 11.27.02 - 11:38 am | #

To add to what KCM said, my library subscribes to Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. I searched for Mary Stachowicz under General News/Major Papers. That covers the biggest papers in the country. There were two hits, both in the Chicago Sun-Times. One, dated Nov. 15, mentioned the search for her. A second, dated Nov. 16, said the police had found a body they thought (correctly) was hers. There were no subsequent stories about how or why she died. Then I tried U.S. News/Midwest Region and U.S. News/Illinois which cover smaller papers. Both had only the same two stories. Searching Newswires produced one story from a conservative wire service on the media silence. A search of News Transcripts, which includes all the network news programs, produced no hits at all.
Marty Helgesen | 11.27.02 - 1:05 pm | #

Neither Mary nor Eddie deserved to be murdered. But I'm not impressed with either one of them as human beings. Neither deserves any hagiography.
Anonymous | 12.01.02 - 10:42 am | #