The Tragic Story of Gwen Araujo

Fast Facts

• Full name: Gwen Amber Rose Araujo
  
  
• Born: February 24, 1985 
• Residence: Newark, California 
• Attackers: Michael Magidson, Jaron Nabors, Jose Merel, Jason Cazares

• Died October 4, 2002

• Former name:Edward Araujo, Jr.

• Fact: 

  Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 – October 4, 2002, née Edward Araujo, Jr.) was a transgendered teenager who died during or shortly after an attack by multiple individuals. The events leading up to Araujo's death were the subject of a pair of criminal trials in which it was alleged that the attackers were angered by the discovery that Araujo — who, at the time, was living as female — was biologically male. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but the jury concluded that no hate crime was committed; two other defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter. The circumstances of the case have caused it to become a rallying point for the LGBT community, and a number of underreported and controversial aspects about the case and about Gwen's murder remain points of contention.  

  
  

  LIFE:  

  Araujo lived in Newark, California. Family members report that she was a happy and energetic child. She expressed the desire to be female from an early age and, just prior to her death, had started to live as a woman. Araujo attended public school and a local church with family members until she began to be ostracized for her sexual identity, at which time she began to withdraw socially. She stopped attending Newark Memorial High School prior to her graduation and began to look for work. She was unable to find a job, which her mother states was the result of intolerance created by her child's gradual transition between genders.

   

  DEATH:  
  Araujo, who was going by the name "Lida" at the time, was introduced to a circle of friends whom she met during a chance encounter while walking down a local street. The group of young adults enjoyed passing the evening hours with party activities that included playing dominos and consuming drugs and alcohol at the home of Araujo's to-be assailants. Araujo was reported to have engaged in sexual activities with at least two of the men from the group. A few weeks later, she was invited back to the house where a party was planned. She wore her mother's peasant blouse to the party, although her mother had asked her not to and expressed discomfort with Araujo's appearance. Araujo told her mother that she was just being jealous. This was the last time Sylvia Guerrero saw her child alive. 
  
   At the party on October 3, 2002 it was discovered, by forced inspection (conducted by a young man at the party), that Araujo had male genitalia. In an explosion of activity, the men that she had had sexual relations with became extremely agitated. Once it was discovered that Araujo was biologically male, Mike Magidson began choking her in the hallway of the house. At this point numerous guests left the residence. Jose Merel and Jaron Nabors remained inside the residence with Mike Magidson. Jason Cazares claimed to go outside at this point; however he did not leave because he had arrived in Mike Magidson's truck. After everyone left, the three assailants continued assaulting Araujo. She was brutally beaten for about 5 hours. Jose Merel struck her over the head with a frying pan and then struck again with a can of tomatoes, causing a gash to her head which bled profusely. Mike Magidson kneed her in the head against the living room wall, with such force that her head caused an indentation in the plaster wall. After this, Araujo was taken to the garage of the home and strangled with a rope. Most accounts have Jose Merel cleaning blood out of the carpet at the time she was strangled. She was then hog-tied, wrapped in a blanket and placed in the bed of a pick-up truck. The three assailants, plus Jason Cazares drove her body to parkland in El Dorado County, California, a wooded area in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada known as Silver Fork, where she was finally buried in a shallow grave. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events Araujo's death occurred. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head.
  
  
  
  TRIAL:
  Nearly two weeks passed before Araujo's body was discovered by the authorities. For fear of reprisal, the partygoers did not report the crime and the assailants all agreed not to say a word to anyone about the matter. Later, however, Jaron Nabors began talking to a friend about what happened. The friend called the police and Jaron Nabors was later detained and questioned. Under interrogation, Jaron Nabors disclosed the location of Araujo's body. 
  
   Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatched four crime scene investigators and two detectives who recovered the body at the gravesite. The deputies were led there on October 16, 2002 by Jaron Nabors, the youngest of the four individuals charged with the crime. The four accused of the murder were: Michael Magidson, 22, Jaron Nabors, 19, José Merél, 22 and Paul Merel, Jose's older brother. Paul Merel was quickly released because his girlfriend came forward to the police telling them that Paul had left that night with her. Paul Merel and his girlfriend were never charged and became witnesses for the prosecution. Nabors later testified against the other three in a deal with the DA for a lesser charge of manslaughter after police monitored a jailhouse letter and information gained during a wiretapped telephone conversation with one of the accused. Jason Cazares was arrested over a month after the other defendants, and only after Nabors implicated Cazares in a letter to Nabors' girlfriend, explaining how he (Nabors) wasn't involved in the killing.
  
  
  On December 16, 2005, pursuant to a plea agreement, Cazares entered a no contest plea to voluntary manslaughter with an agreed sentence of six years in prison. He will serve a little more than three years given his time in custody. He, along with Magidson and Merél, were formally sentenced on January 27, 2006. Nabors was sentenced to 11 years in prison, as his plea agreement indicated, on August 25, 2006.
  
  
  REMEMBERANCE:
  Araujo's mother, who referred to her child as her little "Angel", has said publicly that she would like her daughter's case to be influential in changing the disciplinary actions for hate crimes resulting in death to include the death penalty. Sylvia Guerrero and her brother David have appeared publicly and before national media to express their grief and to denounce violence against gender-variant youth.
  

  

  
   Araujo's mother, who referred to her child as her little "Angel", has said publicly that she would like her daughter's case to be influential in changing the disciplinary actions for hate crimes resulting in death to include the death penalty. Sylvia Guerrero and her brother David have appeared publicly and before national media to express their grief and to denounce violence against gender-variant youth. 
  
  
  At Araujo's mother's request, a judge posthumously changed Araujo's legal name from Eddie to Gwen on June 23, 2004.  
  
  A Lifetime Network Movie called A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, starring J.D. Pardo and Mercedes Ruehl, aired on June 19, 2006.
  
  
  NOTE:You can also find this movie and vew the whole thing on YouTube. Just search: Girl Like Me Gwen Araujo.  
  

  

  If you have Netflix the full 'real' story and the trial can be viewed by looking up. Trained in the Ways of Men.

        Trained in the Ways of MenDocumentary filmmaker Shelly Prevost examines the brutal 2002 murder of Gwen Araujo, a transgender teen who was killed by four men enraged to discover that she was actually a biological male, in this nuanced look at gender identity and aggression. The case became a rallying point for the transgender community when the men, who had all been intimate with Araujo, claimed that her deception justified their actions.

   

  Cast: Sylvia Guerrero, Tony Serra, Michael Thorman

  Director: Shelly Prévost

   Genres:Documentaries, Gay & Lesbian Movies, Crime Documentaries, Social & Cultural Documentaries

  This movie is:Violent, Cerebral, Controversial, Dark.

   

  PERSONAL NOTE:

  I watched the Youtube vid and the movie on Netflix and I'm still in shock and that's putting it mildly. I cried my man-tears and I'm quite traumatized by it all. What this poor young 'lady' went through and the tragedy of it all shows how life IS unjust even in today's world. Something that will remain with me the rest of my life after seeing this is Gwen's words alone: LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT!