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 David Adkins Found Guilty-- First Degree Assault Brutal Beating Could Cost Assailant 20 Years in Jail |
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Courtesy of The Letter Kentucky's GLBT Newspaper [Based on information from the Daily Independent, Ashland, Ky.]
An eighteen-year-old man was convicted July 9 in Greenup County, Kentucky,
for the brutal beating of a gay man near a local dam in May 1998.
A jury took just two hours to find David Adkins, of Sand Hill, guilty of first-degree assault. He could be sentenced to as many as twenty years in prison. The beating took place on May 18, 1998 near the Greenup Locks and Dam. Adkins and two friends, already stoned on marijuana, went to the dam that evening looking for more. The area is reputedly a local hangout for drug dealers but attracts local gay men as well. When they spotted Darrel Earwood, 48, a hairstylist from nearby Portsmouth, Ohio, they asked him if he had any marijuana to sell. Earwood told them he didn't but, according to Adkins, suggested they might like to have sex with him instead.
Earwood lay bloodied until the next day, when he was found and taken to a local hospital. He lay in a coma and was on life support for several days. He now has permanent damage to his brain and has to use a cane to get around. He is no longer able to work. After the trial, Adkins' attorney, Brian McCloud, expressed dismay at the verdict. "I just feel sorry for David and his parents," he told a reporter. "It's not [the verdict] we expected." An appeal is planned. Trials for the other two defendants, Jonathan Brown, 18, and Brandon Evans, 17, are scheduled to take place in early August. The Letter Subscriptions: $25 for the first year, $20 for renewals. Address: Phoenix Hill Enterprises P.O. Box 3882, Louisville, 40201 |
