Twenty-four-year-old Jerry Stamper originally hailed from Battle Creek, Michigan, though he had moved to Las Vegas, Nevada when he was a teenager. For the previous five years, he had been in a relationship with Allen Wellborn, and the couple lived together in an apartment not far from a nightclub Jerry was known to frequent.
On the night of Friday, January 29th, 2001, Allen had gone to bed early while Jerry had headed out to the club to hang out with some friends of his who worked there. When Allen woke up for work before six a.m. on the following morning and found that Jerry had not come home, he was not initially concerned, as Jerry had been with good friends, and since Las Vegas was known for its all-night-party atmosphere. Allen went on to work.
Several hours later, though, he received a devastating phone call from the police department, telling him to come home immediately. Jerry Stamper had been found dead on the sidewalk not far from their apartment complex. A security guard had spotted him there shortly after one in the morning on June 30th, and though paramedics rushed to the scene, it was too late to save Jerry.
According to witnesses, Jerry had last been seen alive at a 7-Eleven convenience store about an hour before he was found dead. He had purchased a hot dog and a pack of cigarettes, both of which were found lying next to his prone body. The victim had been viciously beaten in the head, perhaps with a metal bar or a baseball bat. Authorities also theorized that the perpetrator may have slammed the young man’s head into the concrete repeatedly.
Because Jerry’s empty wallet was discovered alongside the remains, police suspected it was a robbery, but Jerry’s family and friends are of the opinion that he was likely targeted because he was gay. The Southern Poverty Law Center listed Jerry Stamper’s case as a possible hate crime in an issue of their magazine Intelligence Report, but according to Allen Wellborn and the victim’s father, police did not consider it as such because the murder was “not brutal enough.”
The case remains open.
Crime Immemorial 