Youth Gets Life for Murder of 2 Gay Men in Mississippi : Courts: Jury rejects claim that victims were ‘sexual predators’ whose killing was justified. Case was closely watched by homosexual rights groups.

In a case closely watched by gay rights groups across the nation, a teen-ager was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms Thursday for murdering two homosexual men whom he claimed had tried to rape him.

Despite defense claims that the men were voracious “sexual predators” and a judge’s controversial decision to allow evidence indicating that one of the victims was infected with the virus that causes AIDS, the jury pronounced 17-year-old Marvin McClendon guilty after deliberating for less than five hours.

“Justice was served,” said Matthew Rex McKey, the lover of one of the murdered men, as he left the courtroom. “Our only disappointment was that the grand jury didn’t see fit to call this a capital murder.”

Robert Walters and Joseph Shoemake were each shot in the head on the night of Oct. 7, their bodies found near an abandoned railroad track on the edge of town. The county had already been the focus of national attention because of allegations that homosexuals here had been subjected to threats and harassment; gay groups were quick to brand the men victims of a hate crime.

Law enforcement authorities and friends of the two men maintained they were murdered during a robbery. Dist. Atty. Jeannine Pacific portrayed McClendon as a coldblooded, gun-toting hoodlum who saw an opportunity to rob the men and took it. After committing the murders, she said, he drove the men’s Chevrolet Blazer back into town, abandoned it and played cards with friends, nonchalantly telling them he had just killed two white men.

McClendon showed no visible reaction when the verdicts were announced. His attorney, J. Ronald Parrish, who infuriated gays by invoking images of homosexuals as child molesters and by entering evidence on one victim’s HIV status, said the verdict means it is now “open season” on children.

“It’s a defeat for justice and it’s a defeat for decency, for people who want to keep their children protected from people who apparently are trolling for sex,” he said.

Parrish tried to put the murdered men on trial, telling the jury during his closing argument that they were out on the night they were killed searching for an addition for the “drunken orgy” they had been having at Shoemake’s home.

Parrish’s strategy failed in court but apparently worked on many people in this conservative community of 19,000. City Councilman Manuel L. Jones, president emeritis of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said the organization supported McClendon, who is black. “If one of them had HIV and tried to rape him then he was justified in doing what he did,” he said. “These men were going around picking up boys. There’s no telling how many people they gave it to.”

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Another courtroom observer, a white man who asked to remain unnamed, said of McClendon: “I think he done a good job. I’d like to pat the black boy on the back. Instead of a .22 he ought to be bought a .38 and some bullets.”

But others praised the courage of the jury.

Laurel Mayor Susan Vincent, who knew Walters, said: “I’m glad that there is still law and order in the world. . . . I worried that all the side issues (were) going to detract from the fact that two people had lost their lives.”

In his closing argument, Parrish said: “This case is about people trying to satisfy their base, depraved desires at the expense of another person. . . . I don’t think I’ve ever listened to anything with as much disgust and perversion in it in my life.”

Pacific and Assistant Dist. Atty. Gray Burdick accused him appealing to any anti-gay feelings jurors might have and pleaded with them to resist. “I want you to think about the bias . . . that has permeated this courtroom for three days,” said Burdick. “I’ve sat here and heard (witnesses) proclaim their homosexuality and I’ve heard snickers in the back. It reminded me of the ‘50s.”