Arkansas town still reeling over death of 13-year-old
By Hugh Aynesworth
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
He had been bound, blindfolded and gagged, and various objects had been inserted in his anus to rape him. The boy actually died choking on his own underwear.
ROGERS, Ark. � Residents of this small but booming northwest Arkansas
town have circled their wagons � and they don't much care if outsiders
drop by or not.
It's not that they aren't hospitable. It's just because many of
them are angry, irate that outsiders would judge their town harshly
�and so unfairly, they claim � in the wake of a horrific murder a few
weeks ago.
"I don't think people know much about Rogers at all," said
Rosemary Williams, a waitress, "or they wouldn't be blaming us for
things we had no control over."
This bustling little town 20 miles north of Fayetteville in
northwest Arkansas (population 38,000) was no different than many
other such towns in this part of the country �conservative,
law-abiding, church-going, a friendly place � until a horrible death
11 weeks ago left everyone reeling.
A 13-year-old boy, Jesse Dirkhising, died of "positional
asphyxia," the result of homosexual rape and ritual, on the morning of
Sept. 26.
Two homosexual men, Davis Don Carpenter, 38, and Joshua Macabe
Brown, 22, told police they had been "playing games" with the youth.
He had been bound, blindfolded and gagged, and various objects had
been inserted in his anus to rape him.
The boy actually died choking on his own underwear, which had
been stuffed in his mouth by the younger defendant, who told the cops
he wanted to pause long enough to fix a sandwich in the kitchen.
The two defendants were jailed in Bentonville, the county seat,
eight miles north of here.
Within hours, prosecutor Brad W. Butler announced the state would
seek the death penalty.
"To say this town was on fire would be a massive understatement,"
said Roger Edwards, a local salesman. "There was nothing else on
people's minds."
Rogers Police Chief Tim Keck said he could not recall "a case
more brutal." He vowed to make a strong, solid case so that the
perpetrators would be correctly punished.
Then, to further fuel rage, somebody � obviously either the
Benton County Prosecutor's Office or somebody at the Rogers Police
Department � leaked the police reports with the defendants' statements
detailing the gruesome perversions inflicted on the boy, a
seventh-grader. Some lawyers suggest that the disclosure might so
prejudice residents as to make selection of a jury impossible.
The story was widely covered by newspapers and broadcast stations
inside Arkansas, but was largely ignored by the Associated Press and
the media elsewhere.
Some Rogers residents suggest this proved their darkest
suspicions of a liberal press bias favoring homosexuals. Some
commentators and columnists compared coverage of the Dirkhising death
with that of Matthew Shepard, the homosexual killed in Wyoming earlier
in the year.
Hate mail, irate phone calls to police and city offices often
blamed Rogers for a "cover-up." Outsiders arrived to demonstrate
against Rogers as "an evil town."
As the town anticipates what the trials � early next year � might
bring, two unconnected facts confused public perceptions. One of the
most debated aspects of the tragedy is the role of, or the lack of,
parental guidance of the victim. Jesse Dirkhising lived with his
mother and stepfather in nearby Prairie Grove but was said to have
been spending weekends at the Carpenter-Brown apartment so he could do
odd jobs at the hair salon where Mr. Carpenter was a stylist.
Mr. Carpenter was a known homosexual. He was said to be friends
with the victim's parents. It was not only obvious that they knew that
Mr. Carpenter was homosexual, but that he lived with a lover.
"What kind of mother would allow her 13-year-old to be around
that situation?" asks Fran Singleton, a woman who once lived in the
apartment complex near the site of the murder.
"I don't want to pass judgment here," says the mayor. "I don't
know enough about their personal circumstances, don't know how much
they knew about these two individuals' lifestyles." But he added, "I
do find it surprising, even somewhat incredible, they would allow him
to stay with a person they either knew about or didn't know enough
about."
Meanwhile, the prosecutor is facing questions about affairs he is
said to have conducted with two women here, including a 20-year-old
criminal defendant his office was prosecuting. Mr. Butler denies both
accusations. The results of a special prosecutor's report has been
sealed, and reporters have gone to court to have the report made
public. Mr. Butler will not discuss the case.
"The results of that investigation should be made public," says
Kermit Womack, owner of local radio station KURM, who hosts a daily
talk show on which he discusses topics of interest. "If he's telling
the truth and is innocent, that report will be kind to him," Mr.
Womack says. "I think there are things there he does not want the
public to know about."