Alabaman Pleads Guilty in Gay Man’s Murder

One of two men accused of beating a gay man to death with an ax handle for allegedly making a pass at them pleaded guilty Thursday to murder in hopes of avoiding the electric chair.

Dist. Atty. Fred Thompson said that, in return for the guilty plea, he will recommend life without parole for Steven Eric Mullins, 25.

A judge will make the decision after a trial-like hearing set for Aug. 2.

On the same day, co-defendant Charles M. Butler Jr., 21, will go on trial on capital murder charges in the slaying of Billy Jack Gaither, 39.

The textile warehouse worker was abducted Feb. 19, stuffed into his car trunk and later beaten to death. His body was burned on a pyre of old tires.

Police said Mullins and Butler confessed to plotting Gaither’s slaying for two weeks after he allegedly made a sexual advance at them.

On Thursday, Mullins told the court in a barely audible voice that he kidnapped and killed Gaither. As he spoke, Gaither’s parents stood less than 10 feet away, their arms around each other. Mullins gave no explanation for the killing and no details.

Mullins is an unemployed construction worker known for bullying people in bars and wearing combat boots and racist T-shirts. His hand is tattooed with Nazi-style lightning bolts worn by some white supremacists.

During a separate hearing, Butler withdrew an insanity defense he asserted earlier but maintained his innocence.

President Clinton compared Gaither’s murder to the dragging death of a black man in Texas and the fatal beating of a gay Wyoming college student whose body was left lashed to a fence.

One of the Alabama victim’s brothers, William Gaither, said he would like to see both men get the death penalty. But his father, Marion Gaither, disagreed.

“I don’t believe in the death penalty,” he said. “I think it will be harder for them in prison.”