Courtesy of Denver Police DepartmentJames Holman, 35
The similarities between the murders sent chills through Denver’s gay community.
Four gay men were stabbed to death in Central Denver in 1992. Police were investigating whether they were all hate crimes committed by the same killer.
Several leaders within the gay community proclaimed their fears that someone was targeting gays in bars, going to their hotels and murdering them.
They worried that the anti-gay-rights Amendment 2, which was passed in November of 1992 may have stirred emotions. Reports of violence against gays and lesbians had increased ninefold in 1992 over 1991.
They complained that Denver police were not investigating the murders as aggressively as other cases because the victims were gay.
Since then only one of the murders has been solved.
The first man killed was James Leroy Holman, 35. He was stabbed in his apartment on the 500 block of East 11th Avenue on Feb. 13, according to news accounts.
His body was discovered wearing only a pair of socks.
Courtesy of Denver Police DepartmentAnthony Carr, 33
That night he had been at the 22 Club with a Hispanic man.
On July 17, Benjamin Zesch, 71, of Virginia. The father of three sons was vising Denver on a business trip.
He was a house guest in a Capitol Hill townhouse before his body was found in a room at the Royal Host Motel on East Colfax Avenue.
Earlier in the evening he had been seen leaving Mike’s Bar on South Broadway with a younger man.
Neighbors of Zesch’s Royal Host Motel later told police they heard a struggle at about 8 p.m. They saw a white man with straight, light brown hair leaving the room.
Hotel employees later found his body.
