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www.ebar.com Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971 Vol. 54 • No. 52 • December 26, 2024 -January 1, 2025

From B.A.R. Archive

Rick Gerharter

Timothy Charles Lee

Mayor London Breed waved to spectators during the 2019 Pride parade.

Family wants new look at 1985 cold case

Breed leaves office on an LGBTQ high note by Matthew S. Bajko

by John Ferrannini

he cousin of a Black gay arts student found hanging outside the Concord BART station back in 1985 wants the case reopened. The initial investigation ruled the death of Timothy Charles Lee a suicide. Frank Sterling, a 53-year-old Antioch resident, told the Bay Area Reporter that he held a memorial walk last month in honor of Lee, a Berkeley resident who was found dead November 2, 1985, at the age of 23. Lee is the son of Sterling’s aunt. “Although I didn’t know him very well – we only hung out a few times – I feel like it could’ve been me,” Sterling said during a phone interview. “If it was me, Timmy would be fighting for me. That’s how I feel. I’m fighting for Timmy. I got to do it now because I feel like we’re the last chance for any accountability.” According to the sole previous B.A.R. article on this case, published March 27, 1986, and titled “New Evidence of Suicide in Lee Death,” Lee’s family and friends maintained that he’d been lynched outside the Concord BART station. At least one woman told police that she “heard screams and people running on the night of Lee’s death,” but changed her story under hypnosis, the paper reported. But what apparently clinched a ruling of suicide was Lee’s roommate, identified in the 1986 B.A.R. article as Russell Wright, changing his story and telling investigators that Lee was depressed and suicidal. “I remember his depression and low-keyed behavior a week prior to his death,” Wright told investigators at the time, according to the B.A.R. article. “He seemed to be down and easily upset. On the night I called him at the BART station I tried to find a ride for him. … At the time I asked him what he was going to do. He said, ‘Maybe I’ll throw myself in front of a car. He hung up and that was the last that I heard of him.’” The B.A.R. also reported there was a note purporting to be a suicide note. The paper reported that the NAACP had brought in a handwriting expert from Los Angeles who said the handwriting in the note was not Lee’s, but Wright’s. Wright maintained that Lee fell asleep on BART and ended up in Concord, then the end of the line, as the system was shutting down for the night. Wright said he tried to find a ride for Lee, but was unsuccessful. See page 10 >>

A Noel Valley Christmas

udging for the first Noel Valley Holiday Window contest took place December 18 in Noe Valley and included gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), left, who joined his out colleague, District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, in considering the elaborately decorated facade of Salon Bello and the flower shop next door. Mayor London Breed served as a judge,

Rick Gerharter

as did Lyanne Melendez of ABC 7-TV. As the Bay Area Reporter previously noted, the holiday decorating contest was the brainchild of gay business owner Dave Karraker, who recently opened with his husband a branch of MX3 Fitness in the neighborhood. The winner for most elaborate window was When Modern Was; Terrasol was the runner-up, Karraker said.

rom housing transgender individuals and addressing LGBTQ health concerns to paving the way for a return of gay bathhouses and finding a permanent home for an LGBTQ history museum, San Francisco Mayor London Breed is leaving office with a long list of LGBTQ achievements. Her mayoral legacy is likely to produce benefits for the city’s LGBTQ community for years to come. “Whether it was my appointments or my investments or my policy changes or my willingness to stand up for the community as a whole in every turn, I am very proud that … I have done some really transformative things to really support the LGBTQ community,” Breed, the city’s See page 8 >>

Harvey Milk Plaza project still 2017 0of total Media a Kit millions shy needed by Matthew S. Bajko

he project to reimagine a public plaza and transit station entrance in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro district to better honor its namesake, the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk, is The Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, still millions of dollars shy of the total needed bepolitics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and fore work on it can commence. City officials and international backers of the proposal are hopeful the bulk of coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting team. Be the money will come from private donors. part of this exciting publication serving LGBT Los Angeles from the team Anywhere from $5 million to $15 million is behind the Washington Blade, the nation’s ﬁrst LGBT newspaper. From the freeway to the Beltway we’ve got you covered. still needed in order to fully fund the renovation of Harvey Milk Plaza at the corner of Castro and Market streets, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman told the Bay Area Reporter. A better sense of how much needs to be raised will Courtesy Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza come once the construction drawings for the A rendering of Harvey Milk Plaza shows the familiar corner of Castro and Market project are completed, he added. streets, transformed and activated with a gathering around the new pedestal feature. “The first thing for the project is finding some funds to just finish that work and then we can alistic for them to raise.” Brian Springfield, a gay man who’s executive get an actual cost estimate,” said Mandelman in a He was referring to the Friends of Harvey director of the friends group, has said in several December 19 interview. “The numbers we have Milk Plaza booster group that for nearly a interviews this month with the B.A.R. that it are still kind of general estimates and they need decade has championed a reimagining of the has committed to raise nearly $8 million of the to be more tightly nailed down. Then I think we plaza areas built atop the Castro station for remaining funds needed, working off a figure need to have a conversation with the mayor and the city’s Muni subway system to provide a of $10 million. He expects the city will be able our state and federal partners whether there are more fitting commemoration of Milk, his civil to make up the difference. any additional public funds. And we need to rights legacy, and the LGBTQ community he have a conversation with the friends and those championed. who support the project about how much is reSee page 10

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