Daniel Fetty
Daniel Fetty (1966 - October 2, 2004) was a hearing-impaired, homeless gay man in Waverly, Ohio. On October 2, 2004, he was attacked by Martin Baxter, Matthew Ferman, and James Trent Jr. Fetty was beaten with bricks, bottles, boards, stripped naked and thrown into a dumpster. Fetty died in a hospital 12 hours after being found by police. His murder was prosecuted as a hate crime.
Background
Daniel Fetty
Daniel Fetty, 38, became homeless when his apartment was destroyed by fire. At the time he was attacked, Fetty was living in his car.1) He had begun working at Emmitt House, a local bar and restaurant, to save money for a new apartment.2)
On Friday, October 2, 2004 Fetty went to the Canal Pub in Waverly, OH. Baxter, 28, and Ferman, 22, were there as well, and Ferman got into an argument with Fetty, accusing Fetty of stealing a pack of cigarettes that he'd let on a table with money stuck under the cellophane. Outside the bar, Ferman was nicer to Fetty, even offering to sell him some marijuana.3)
The Attack
Once outside, Ferman led Fetty across the street, to a parking lot behind a building, where he hit Fetty over the head with a beer bottle.
Ferman later said that Trent hit Fetty with a stick after he fell to the ground. Trent, 19, later told police that he was walking by when he heard Baxter call to him. Baxter then showed him Fetty, nude and unconscious in the garbage bin, and jumped up and down on Fetty while Ferman poked him with a piece of wood.4)
Plea agreements for that Ferman, Baxter, and Trent would ultimately prevent the details of the attack from being fully revealed in court. However, Fetty's mother – Juanita Meek – would speak at Baxter's plea hearing, and catalog her son's injuries5):
“You put out both his eyes, broke his nose, knocked out his teeth, broke his Adam’s apple, broke his neck, broke all but one of his ribs and punctured his heart and lungs.”
Discovery & Death
Police were summoned to investigate a fight, and upon arriving on the scene at about 1:00 a.m., an officer spotted Baxter, Ferman, and Trent run behind a building. Upon investigation, the officer discovered Fetty – nude, beaten, and unconscious – in the dumpster.6) Fetty's car was found nearby. The week's worth of wages he had just been paid was missing, leading police to initially call the incident a robbery.7)
Fetty was taken to Pike Community Hospital, and then flow to Grant Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He died around 1:00 p.m. the next day.
Baxter, Ferman and Trent were arrested within hours of the police being called. They were arraigned on October 4, and bond was set at $1 million each.8)
Aftermath
Hate Crime
On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, prosecutor Rob Junk presented new evidence to a special session of the grand jury, resulting in hate crime charges being added to the aggravated murder charges Baxter and Ferman were facing.9) Junk said that the fact that Fetty had been stripped naked and the severity of the beating led his his office to consider all possible motivations10), though Ohio does not have a hate crimes law that includes sexual orientation.11)
Baxter – who said that he'd been drinking and doing cocaine that night – told a reporter that the attack on Fetty had been carried out by Trent and Ferman, over the missing pack of cigarettes, and not because of Fetty's sexual orientation.12)
Pleas & Sentencing
On December 6, 2004, Trent was convicted of voluntary manslaughter,13) and negotiated a plea deal with prosecutors in exchange for testifying against Baxter and Ferman.14) He received a seven year sentence.15)
On December 10, 2004, Baxter and Ferman were charged with capitol murder in addition to being re-indicted on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, and tampering with evidence. The new charges meant that both men could receive the death penalty. Both pleaded not guilty. The trials, set to begin on December 13, were delayed until December 27, so that public defenders certified in death penalty cases could be brought on to defend them.16)
On September 23, 2004, Baxter pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and received a life sentence, with eligibility for parole in 20 years.17) When Fetty's mother, Meeks, spoke to Baxter during his hearing and asked if her son had begged for his life, Baxter laughed.18)
On November 3, 2004, Ferman accepted a plea agreement. He pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and tampering with evidence, and received sentences of 15 years for the murder charge and three years for the tampering charge, making him eligible for in 18 years.Ferman's plea meant that his trial – scheduled for January 9, 2005 – would not take place, and a detailed account of Fetty's murder would not be heard in court.19)
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