" I'm not doing this just for myself," she told GayToday, "but for all the other parents of these serial killers preying on gays and straights alike."

Frustrated by police inaction Mrs. Smith has written as an anguished parent to Justice Department head Janet Reno, as well as to Virginia's Senator Robb. The result? "Are they form letters or are they form letters?" she asks pointedly after reading one aloud.

They are, in fact, form letters from Senator Robb allowing little more than a standard-line thank-you "for the time you've taken to share this information with me," and not even a single such form letter from Janet Reno.

Mrs. Smith speaks bluntly, "What's the difference between my son and Versace? Money and notoriety," she snapped. The 54-year old mother watched the horrific made-for TV drama surrounding Cunanan and Versace with wonder. "If only there could be a TV program about serial killers period," she said, "because there's about 100 of them out there, preying on gays and straights alike. People would watch that." The killer that robbed her son of his life has performed on nearly a regular schedule around Chesapeake, Virginia since 1987, his methods nearly identical in each case.

It is exactly 10 years since Donna Smith's happy-go-lucky, outgoing 18-year old boy, Chucky, was brutally strangled. The personality that was snuffed out that night, says the still-grieving mother, was passionately loyal, fun-loving, and good-natured.

Though Donna Smith is sure her son was not gay, since, she told GayToday, his regular girlfriend gave birth to his child after his death, she points out that in any case it has been individuals in the gay and lesbian communities--in contrast to the police-- who've given to her plight the greatest understanding.

And, she says, her case shows that anti-gay police prejudice affects straights too-- those like her son and whom the police have assumed (incorrectly) to be gay, their murders a matter of machomanic unconcern.

"The reason the police don't want to deal with my son's case," she says, "is that they don't care anything about someone they think is gay or maybe a druggie. Also, many of the murdered young men were Black. My son had a wonderful mixture of Native American blood and French Canadian." She twinkles, remembering how handsome he was and a mother's unwavering love is easily discernible in her tones.

"I would love my son just as much if I found out he was gay," she says, "Love is unconditional."

During recent years following Chucky's murder, according to Mrs. Smith, the Chesapeake police investigator, Detective Mike Fishcetti, assigned to solve the crime had been warm, friendly, and helpful when they spoke, though "neither he nor anyone" in the Chesapeake police department ever called once unless she left a message. But then, suddenly, for suspect reasons, Detective Fishcetti was removed from the case and another, Detective Whitehurst, was installed.

"He refused talking with me from moment one. After Detective Fishcetti was taken off the case, the Chesapeake police never once telephoned me again. The murders continued to happen. Every year. 12 murders. They could have called at least once a year to tell me they were still working on it or something, but they didn't. Detective Whitehurst just said, 'I don't discuss my cases with anybody," and that was that.

Donna Smith believes that certain conduits in mainstream media, those which initially showed interest in her struggle, backed away from her story in each case, perhaps after talking to the unfriendly Detective Whitehurst.

Now that her Associated Press story has revived her energies, she is turning, she says, to America's gay and lesbian communities in an urgent plea to put spotlights on both the Chesapeake, Virginia and the Isle of Wight, Virginia police departments.

To assist Mrs. Smith in the spotlighting of anti-gay police behaviors, journalists and activists nationwide can contact her through e-mail at donna1134@aol.com