District of Columbia

New appeal for help in solving 1987 D.C. gay murder case

U.S. Navy commander was fatally stabbed outside Chesapeake House gay bar

Published

9 months ago

October 13, 2023

Commander Gregory Peirce was stabbed to death in the first D.C. homicide of 1987. His murder remains unsolved.

The family of a 43-year-old gay U.S. Navy commander who was stabbed to death shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 1987, minutes after he left a D.C. gay bar in a yet unsolved case considered a hate crime, is appealing to the public for help in providing police with a tip that may lead to the identity of two male suspects.

D.C. police at the time of the murder said Commander Gregory Peirce, an Alexandria, Va., resident who served as a staff officer at the Pentagon, was approached by two men appearing to be in their early 20s as he and a man he was with left the Chesapeake House, a gay bar at 946 9th St., N.W. at about 12:15 a.m.

A Washington Blade story published on Jan. 9, 1987, reported that police sources familiar with the investigation said one of the male suspects stabbed Peirce in the chest and neck, then kicked him repeatedly while he lay unconscious at the site of the stabbing in a parking lot behind the Chesapeake House.

The second suspect chased the man who was with Peirce toward the entrance of the bar, slashing the back of the man’s coat with a knife as the man sought help from the Chesapeake House doorman, Tom Vaughn, police sources told the Blade.

A police spokesperson said Peirce was pronounced dead about 90 minutes later at George Washington University Hospital as a result of a severed neck artery, the Blade reported. The man he was with, who told police what he observed, was not injured.

Amanda Soderlund, Peirce’s niece, told the Blade she and her family remain hopeful that the two young men involved in the fatal stabbing 36 years ago could be brought to justice.

She said her beloved uncle, who did not openly identify as gay while serving in the Navy, was just a few months away from retiring and being honorably discharged from the Navy.

“My uncle was an incredible man,” Soderlund said in an Oct. 5 phone interview. “We have a very large family,” she said, and family members have long tried to find out exactly what happened and why when Gregory Peirce became D.C.’s first homicide victim of 1987.

Longtime D.C. police homicide Detective Danny Whalen, who is assigned to the homicide unit’s Cold Case Squad, told the Blade last week that the Peirce murder case is among the large number of old homicide cases that cannot be solved unless new information surfaces.

“You know, we would love nothing more than to bring these people to justice,” Whalen said of the two unidentified suspects in the Peirce murder. “The detectives who worked the case at the time exhausted everything in their power,” said Whalen. “And if they could have made an arrest, they would have.”

Whalen noted that the two suspects, who witnesses said appeared to be in their 20s, would likely be in their late 50s or early 60s at this time, assuming they are still alive. Whalen and other law enforcement officials have said for investigators to make an arrest in an old case like this, one or more people who know something about the case and who may have known the two suspects need to come forward with information.

Soderlund, Peirce’s niece, said she has reached out to the Blade and may reach out to other news media outlets to draw attention to the case, with the hope that someone reading about it in the press might just come forward with a tip that could lead to an arrest.

“The Metropolitan Police Department currently offers a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone that provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for each homicide committed in the District of Columbia,” according to a D.C. police statement issued at the time police announce a new unsolved murder case.

The statement says anyone with information about a case should call police at 202-727-9099. It says anonymous information can be submitted to the department’s TEXT TIP LINE by sending a text message to 50411.

Although other news media outlets, including the Washington Post, initially reported that police said the motive for the attack against Peirce and his companion appeared to be a robbery gone bad, police sources and witnesses from the Chesapeake House told the Blade the incident appeared to be an anti-gay hate crime or gay bashing.

The man who was with Pierce told police the incident began when the two male suspects approached the two men as they left the Chesapeake House and one of them said, “Wonder if they have any money,” according to an account by the Washington Post.

But the man accompanying Peirce also told police the two attackers never specifically asked for or demanded money. Words were exchanged between the four men in the parking lot and a fight broke out, police sources said, which led to Peirce being stabbed.

At least two police sources said the man who stabbed Peirce had time to search for Pierce’s wallet while Pierce was lying unconscious in the parking lot, but the attacker did not do so.

Instead, the attacker began kicking Pierce repeatedly while he lay motionless and bleeding, one of the police sources told the Blade back in January 1987. “For all practical purposes [Pierce] was dead when this guy was kicking him,” the source said.

In its Jan. 9, 1987, story on the Peirce murder, the Blade reported that experts familiar with anti-gay violence, including police investigators, consider the action by one of the two suspects in the Peirce case who repeatedly kicked Peirce while he lay unconscious as a form of “over kill” often triggered by a deeply held hatred toward and fear of homosexuality.

Chesapeake House employee Michael Sellers told the Blade the week following the murder that a group of young males were yelling anti-gay names, such as “faggot” and “queer,” at several Chesapeake House patrons and another of the bar’s employees when the patrons and employee stood outside the bar about an hour before Peirce was stabbed.

One of the employees and two of the patrons told the Blade the males who were shouting at them appeared to match the descriptions of the two men who attacked Peirce and the man with Peirce. But homicide detective Whalen told the Blade last week that there is no definitive evidence that the young man who stabbed Peirce was among the group that shouted anti-gay names prior to the stabbing.

The Chesapeake House, which opened sometime in the 1970s and featured nude male dancers, closed in 1992 shortly before its building was demolished to make way for a new high rise office building.

In reviewing the information he is aware of about the case Det. Whalen said that while it appears to be a hate crime, the exact motive of the murder has yet to be confirmed.

“It’s one of those things where it was a street attack,” said Whalen. “Their intentions were never stated,” he said. “However, it was either a hate crime or a street robbery or a combination of both.”

LGBTQ activists at the time said they believed it was a hate crime. And they expressed concern and anger that the news media at the time, other than the Blade, did not report that the stabbing incident took place minutes after Peirce and the man he was with left a gay bar.

In a Jan. 2, 1987, story, one day after the murder took place, the Washington Post reported that Navy officials told Peirce’s brother that Peirce and a group of friends had come to D.C. that night to attend the city’s New Year’s celebration at the Old Post Office building at 12th and Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., which is located about a half mile away from the Chesapeake House.

Other news media accounts left the impression that the murder may have been related to assaults that had taken place among the large crowds of people who turned out for past New Year’s celebrations outside the Old Post Office building.

The Post article reported that police said the stabbing took place in the 900 block of H Street, N.W. and that Peirce and the man he was with had just left a bar that the article did not identify by name.

“The truth was being held back,” Chesapeake House employee Michael Sellers told the Blade.

Soderlund said she and other Peirce family members have speculated that officials with the Navy may have wanted to downplay or hide the fact that a Navy commander who worked at the Pentagon was gay and was attacked after leaving a gay bar.

At that time, under longstanding U.S. military policy, active-duty military members discovered to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual were almost always discharged from the service as potential security risks. The so called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy initiated by President Bill Clinton, which eased the anti-gay policy to a small degree, did not take effect until 1994.

Soderlund told the Blade she and her family members thought there was more to Peirce’s murder than a street robbery, but they had little information to go on until she contacted one of the two Washington Post reporters who wrote the Post’s initial story on the case. That reporter, John Ward Anderson, who has since retired, informed her about the Blade’s possible coverage of the story and suggested she contact the Blade.

Anderson told the Blade that the Post was not aware of information by police sources that the murder was a possible hate crime at the time the Post published its initial story on the case. He said the Post would have mentioned the possible anti-gay angle to the case had it known about it.

When Soderlund contacted the Blade, the Blade sent her a copy of the Blade’s Jan. 9, 1987, story, which Soderlund said provided information about the case that she and other family members were not aware of, including information that the murder was likely an anti-gay hate crime.

In yet another development in the ongoing saga of her uncle’s murder, Soderlund said she reached out to Det. Whalen, who gave her the name of the man who was with Peirce at the time of the murder and informed her that the man had died of natural causes in 1994 at the age of 58. In doing an online search, she found a May 1, 1997, Washington Post story about this man, Orrin W. Macleod, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and member of the U.S. Merchant Marines before becoming a ground crew employee at Washington National Airport.

“He never reached out to our family,” Soderlund said. “We never heard from him,” she said, adding that she has long assumed, like her uncle, Macleod was not out as gay and most likely did not want to speak out publicly about the Peirce murder.

But the Post article about him said he became a hero of sorts in Fairfax County shortly before he died of leukemia when he donated most of his life savings and inherited wealth of $1 million to the Fairfax County Public Library.

“The money, at Macleod’s request, will be invested in books on tape, which he used near the end of his life when his vision was impaired,” the Post article states.

Soderlund said it’s her understanding that Fairfax Public Library officials were unaware that the generous donation they received was from a gay man who survived a violent attack that took the life of her uncle.

Shortly after the murder, D.C. police spokesperson Quintin Peterson described one of the men involved in the Peirce murder as being Black, with dark-complected skin, about 5-feet-9 inches tall, slender, with a mustache and wearing dark glasses, a blue knit hat, a dark blue jacket, and dark pants.

Peterson described the second man involved in the murder as being Black with a medium complexion, about 5-feet-9 inches tall, with hair on his chin, and wearing a green coat, a light-colored knit hat, and dark pants.

Police sources said witnesses told police the two attackers calmly walked away from the scene of the crime along H Street, with their whereabouts unknown.

In keeping with longstanding D.C. police policy, a reward of up to $25,000 is offered to anyone providing information leading to an arrest and conviction of persons responsible for a homicide committed in D.C.

Anyone with information should contact police at 202-727-9099 or submit an anonymous tip to the department’s TEXT TIP LINE by sending a text message to 50411.

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District of Columbia

D.C. man fatally stabbed by partner was convicted twice for domestic violence

Ted Anthony Brown faces second-degree murder charge

Published

6 days ago

June 27, 2024

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

D.C. police said Tommy Hudson, 58, was found unconscious on the front steps of this house at 517 Harvard St., N.W. on May 26 shortly after he was fatally stabbed inside the house by his partner. (Blade photo by Lou Chibbaro, Jr.)

Prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. disclosed in court filings that Tommy Hudson, 58, the gay man who was stabbed to death by his domestic partner on May 26, had a criminal record of eight arrests and convictions between 1987 and 2018, including two domestic violence assault convictions in which the partner charged with killing him was the victim.

Ted Anthony Brown, 54, who court records show had a longtime romantic relationship with Hudson, was charged on May 29 with second-degree murder while armed for allegedly fatally stabbing Hudson inside Brown’s apartment at 517 Harvard St., N.W., following an argument He is being held in jail without bond while awaiting trial.

Charging documents filed in D.C. Superior Court show that at the time of his arrest, Brown waived his Miranda rights to remain silent and confessed to having stabbed Hudson, saying he did so after Hudson punched him in the face while the two were arguing.

“Brown reported that he and the decedent have been involved in a romantic relationship for a significant period and that he was very jealous of the decedent’s possible infidelities,” an affidavit by police in support of his arrest states. “Suspect 1 [Brown] reported to detectives that he believed the decedent punching him to the face did not justify Suspect 1 stabbing the decedent, which ultimately killed him,” the affidavit says.

Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney on May 31 sent a letter to Brown’s defense attorney, Todd Baldwin, disclosing Hudson’s prior arrests and convictions as part of a required discovery process in which prosecutors must disclose information relevant to a criminal case to the defense, even if the information may be harmful to the prosecutors’ case at trial.

The prosecutors’ letter, sent by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Galloway, says Hudson’s prior convictions include a 2018 charge of violating a Temporary Protection Order requiring he stay away from someone he was accused of threatening with domestic violence; a 2015 charge of domestic violence related simple assault against his partner Brown; and a 2014 domestic violence related simple assault and unlawful entry charge also involving Brown.

The letter says Hudson was also convicted of a 2012 charge of Bail Reform Act violation; a 2010 charge of possession of cocaine; a 2002 charge of cruelty to an animal; a 2001 charge of felony “escape;” a 2000 charge of second-degree theft; a 1997 charge of violation of the Bail Reform Act; and a 1987 charge of criminal “contempt.”

Court records, meanwhile, show that on June 17 D.C. Superior Court Judge Anthony Epstein approved a motion by the defense calling for defendant Brown to undergo a mental health competency screening to determine whether he is competent to stand trial. Prosecutors did not oppose the motion. The judge scheduled a “Mental Observation” hearing for Brown on July 11 to review and assess the findings of the competency screening.

Court records also show that prosecutors agreed to keep a plea bargain offer they made earlier open until the findings of the mental health exam become known.

District of Columbia

Bernie Delia, attorney, beloved Capital Pride organizer, dies at 68

Activist worked at Justice Department, White House as attorney

Published

1 week ago

June 22, 2024

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Bernie Delia (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Bernie Delia, a founding member of the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most D.C. LGBTQ Pride events, and who served most recently as co-chair of World Pride 2025, which D.C. will be hosting next June, died unexpectedly on Friday, June 21, according to a statement released by Capital Pride Alliance. He was 68.

“It is with great sadness that the Capital Pride Alliance mourns the passing of Bernie Delia,” the statement says. “We will always reflect on his life and legacy as a champion, activist, survivor, mentor, friend, leader, and a true inspiration to the LGBTQ+ community.”

The statement says that in addition to serving six years as the Capital Pride Alliance board president, Delia served for several years as president of Dignity Washington, the local LGBTQ Catholic organization, where he helped create “an environment for spiritual enrichment during the height of the AIDS epidemic.”

“He also had a distinguished legal career, serving as one of the first openly gay appointees at the U.S. Department of Justice and later as an appellate attorney,” the statement reads.

Delia’s LinkedIn page shows that he worked at the U.S. Department of Justice for 26 years, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney from 2001 to 2019. Prior to that, he served from 1997 to 2001 as associate deputy attorney general and from 1994 to 1997 served as senior counsel to the director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, which provides executive and administrative support for 93 U.S. attorneys located throughout the country.

His LinkedIn page shows he served from January-June 1993 as deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel during the administration of President Bill Clinton, in which he was part of the White House staff. And it shows he began his career as legal editor of the Bureau of National Affairs, which published news reports on legal issues, from 1983-1993.

The Capital Pride Alliance statement describes Delia as “an avid runner who served as the coordinator of the D.C. Front Runners and Stonewall Kickball LGBTQ sports groups.”

“He understood the value, purpose, and the urgency of the LGBTQ+ community to work together and support one another,” the statement says. “He poured his soul into our journey toward World Pride, which was a goal of his from the start of his involvement with Capital Pride.”

The statement adds, “Bernie will continue to guide us forward to ensure we meet this important milestone as we gather with the world to be visible, heard, and authentic. We love you, Bernie!”

In a statement posted on social media, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she and her administration were “heartbroken” over the news of Delia’s passing.

“Bernie leaves behind an incredible legacy in our city and country — through his life and advocacy, he helped pave a path for LGBTQIA+ residents in our city and within the federal government to live and work openly and proudly,” the mayor says in her statement.

“He helped transform Capital Pride into one of the largest and most inclusive Pride celebrations in the nation — a true reflection and representation of our people and values,” the statement says. “This is the D.C. that Bernie helped build and that he leaves behind.”

“All of the hopes and dreams that we had about what Pride could be and what CPA could do, are things that Bernie actualized over the last many years and in his work for next year,” said Vincent Slatt, Rainbow History Project’s director of archiving in a statement. “He wasn’t the first one to say it, but he always reminded everyone: ‘we make each Pride special because, for someone, it is their first Pride, and they’ll remember it always.’ Bernie lived that ideal each and every year. WorldPride 2025 will be a testament to his efforts and his legacy will live on — it will be someone’s first Pride. We’ll try to make Bernie proud of us.”

Delia’s oral history interview is part of the Rainbow History Project Archives. You can access it at rainbowhistory.org.

Ashley Smith, the Capital Pride Alliance president, said he and other Capital Pride officials became concerned when Delia did not respond to their routine calls or messages. Smith said he called D.C. police to arrange for a welfare check on Delia at his house in Northwest D.C. on Friday, June 21. He said police accompanied him to Delia’s house and police entered the house and found Delia unconscious.

Smith said an ambulance was called and attempts to resuscitate Delia were unsuccessful. Smith said a definitive cause of death had not been determined other than it was due to natural causes. “He had a heart attack last year, so he had been recovering from that, but he seemed to have been doing in fairly good order,” Smith told the Blade.

Smith said the emergency medical technicians who arrived at the scene and who declared Delia deceased said, “it looked like it probably had to do with the previous heart condition that he already had, and that it’s more than likely what it came from,” Smith said in referring to Delia’s passing. “He died peacefully at home,” Smith added.

Smith and Dignity Washington spokesperson Jake Hudson said Delia’s two sisters, one from Baltimore and the other from Charlotte, N.C., were in D.C. working on funeral arrangements. Smith and Hudson said Capital Pride and Dignity planned to consult with the two sisters on plans for a possible Catholic mass in Delia’s honor as well as a celebration of life that Smith said would take place in D.C. in August or September.

Capital Pride was also working with the sisters to create a memorial fund in Delia’s honor that would raise money for the causes and programs that Delia supported over the course of his many years as an activist. “It’s still being formulated,” Smith said. “That will be forthcoming when we get ready to do the celebration of life ceremony and everything else,” he said.

According to Smith, the sisters, in consultation with Joseph Gawler’s and Sons funeral home in Northwest D.C, were making arrangements for a cremation rather than a burial.

District of Columbia

D.C. Council budget bill includes $8.5 million in LGBTQ provisions

Measure also changes Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs

Published

2 weeks ago

June 20, 2024

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The D.C. Council approved Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget proposal calling for $5.25 million in funding for World Pride 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The D.C. Council on June 12 gave final approval for a $21 billion fiscal year 2025 budget for the District of Columbia that includes more than $8.5 million in funding for LGBTQ-related programs, including $5.25 million in support of the June 2025 World Pride celebration that D.C. will be hosting.

Also included in the budget is $1.7 million in funds for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which includes an increase of $132,000 over the office’s funding for the current fiscal year, and a one-time funding of $1 million for the completion of the renovation of the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community’s new building in the city’s Shaw neighborhood.

The D.C. LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition earlier this year asked both the D.C. Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser to approve $1.5 million for the D.C. Center’s building renovation and an additional $300,000 in “recurring” funding for the LGBTQ Center in subsequent years “to support ongoing operational costs and programmatic initiatives.” In its final budget measure, the Council approved $1 million for the renovation work and did not approve the proposed $600,000 in annual operational funding for the center.

The mayor’s budget proposal, which called for the $5.25 million in funding for World Pride 2025, did not include funding for the D.C. LGBTQ Center or for several other funding requests by the LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition.

At the request of D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member, the Council approved at least two other funding requests by the LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition in addition to the funding for the LGBTQ Center. One is $595,000 for 20 additional dedicated housing vouchers for LGBTQ residents who face housing insecurity or homelessness. The LGBTQ housing vouchers are administered by the Office of LGBTQ Affairs.

The other funding allocation pushed by Parker is $250,000 in funds to support a Black LGBTQ+ History Commission and Black LGBTQIA+ history program that Parker proposed that will also be administered by the LGBTQ Affairs office.

Also at Parker’s request, the Council included in its budget bill a proposal by Parker to change the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs to become a “stand-alone entity” outside the Executive Office of the Mayor. Parker told the Washington Blade this change would “allow for greater transparency and accountability that reflects its evolution over the years.”

He said the change would also give the person serving as the office’s director, who is currently LGBTQ rights advocate Japer Bowles, “greater flexibility to advocate for the interest of LGBTQ residents” and give the Council greater oversight of the office. Parker noted that other community constituent offices under the mayor’s office, including the Office of Latino Affairs and the Office of Veterans Affairs, are stand-alone offices.

The budget bill includes another LGBTQ funding provision introduced by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) that allocates $100,000 in grants to support LGBTQ supportive businesses in Ward 6 that would be awarded and administered by the Office of LGBTQ Affairs. Allen spokesperson Eric Salmi said Allen had in mind two potential businesses on 8th Street, S.E. in the Barracks Row section of Capitol Hill as potential applicants for the grants.

One is the LGBTQ café and bar As You Are, which had to close temporarily earlier this year due to structural problems in the building it rents. The other potential applicant, Salmi said, is Little District Books, D.C.’s only LGBTQ bookstore that’s located on 8th Street across the street from the U.S. Marine Barracks.

“It’s kind of recognizing Barrack’s Row has a long history of creating spaces that are intended for and safe for the LGBTQ community and wanting to continue that history,” Salmi said “So, that was his kind of intent behind the language in that funding.”

The mayor’s budget proposal also called for continuing an annual funding of $600,000 to provide workforce development services for transgender and gender non-conforming city residents experiencing homelessness and housing instability.