Suspect arraigned in slaying of ‘beloved’ butcher
Sunnyvale man, 25, does not enter plea on single murder count in death of Safeway worker, 54
SANTA CLARA » A man who reportedly told police he strangled his co-worker after the male victim made sexual advances on him was arraigned on a murder charge Monday, as a former roommate described the defendant as being prone to violent outbursts.
Gage Teran McCartney, 25, of Sunnyvale, appeared in a San Jose courtroom where he answered to a single murder count in the July 20 death of 54-year-old Campbell resident Raynard Hyde, whose body was found that morning in Central Park in Santa Clara.
McCartney did not enter a plea and was sent back to the Santa Clara County jail where he is being held without bail. He is scheduled to next appear in court Sept. 25.
A group of people who attended the brief court hearing Monday in support of McCartney declined to speak to a reporter. Similarly, friends and family of Hyde declined comment.
Hyde, a married father of three who was a longtime member of the Cathedral of Faith church in San Jose, was a popular butcher at the Safeway on Homestead Road about a block from the park where he died. McCartney worked at the same grocer, also as a butcher.
“Mr. Hyde was beloved in his community,” Deputy District Attorney Alaleh Kianerci said after the arraignment. “Everyone was shocked by the way he was so brutally and violently murdered. Our goal is to bring justice to his family.”
According to Santa Clara police, McCartney and Hyde had finished a shift at the Safeway the night of July 19, then ate dinner together at a local McDonald’s. Around 11 p.m., they returned to the supermarket to purchase a bottle of liquor, and were seen in surveillance footage “dancing in the video and appeared to be in good spirits and intoxicated.”
Court documents show that McCartney told detectives that the two then walked to Central Park,
and that Hyde made several sexual advances toward him and that he punched and choked Hyde to keep him away. McCartney reportedly told police that at one point he “put his hands on each side of the victim’s neck and squeezed, causing him to fall to the ground,” but that he walked away believing Hyde was merely unconscious.
Hyde was found lying on the ground the next morning. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
When he was interviewed by detectives, McCartney told them “he was shocked about what happened and was furious with the victim
for making sexual advances toward him,” and that “his instinct took over.”
McCartney declined a jailhouse interview with this news organization.
McCartney’s defense, if centered on his police account, could be curtailed due to a state law signed in 2014 that formally banned so-called “gay panic” or “trans panic,” defenses from being used to lessen the severity of criminal charges. California, Rhode Island, and Illinois are the only states to have such a restriction, though the the American Bar Association has condemned the practice and Congressional legislation
has been proposed for a federal ban.
The California ban was inspired by cases like the fatal 1998 beating of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and the 2002 murder of Gwen Araujo in Newark, by attackers who presented gay and trans panic defenses at their trials. The National LGBT Bar Association said such defenses, while rare, are still being used effectively, most recently in a 2015 stabbing death in Austin that was adjudicated in April and resulted in the defendant avoiding prison
time after a murder charge was downgraded to criminally negligent homicide.
“The goal of these laws is that you don’t get to use the identity, perceived or actual, of the victim to say, ‘Hey, they brought it on themselves,’ ” said D’Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the LGBT Bar. “We’re in the darkest ages when you can say, a gay guy made a pass at me, so I killed him and I shouldn’t be held accountable. We don’t want to live in world where that happens.”
A former roommate of McCartney’s told this newspaper that physical violence was not an unusual occurrence with the defendant. Joseph Toman said McCartney was prone to unpredictable outbursts and distorting conflicts to evade responsibility.
“I don’t like him making the victim seem like he was attacking him. Gage always tries to play the victim, always tries to flip things,” Toman said. “I want the full story out there.”