local 19yo gay man murdered :'(

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I saw my friends posting missing posters on FB a bit before Halloween as their friend Oliver had been missing for a couple of weeks - last seen on Granville Street in Vancouver.

Article: http://vancouversun.com/news/crime/miss ... suspicious

I may have met him, but didn't know him. Chances are we were at parties together, though, given how many of my friends knew him.

He was 19. NINETEEN! His young age makes this sadder as he had such a full life ahead of him.

Apparently he was shot. His body was found ~5 hour drive away. Some friends went to the Catholic funeral, but then we had our own celebration of life in the new Jim Deva plaza. I built a tent to protect candles from the rain and set it up before anyone else arrived. My friend Chase, who organized the whole thing, was beyond happy that someone had done that. It was a very moving evening. People came and went, made speeches, sang songs, shared memories, cried.. but also smoked and drank in the street like Ollie would have wanted them to. Once I knew this I walked across the street and came back with a case of beer to share. It was a nice send off.

I can't even remember a local gay person being murdered before. This is sort of a once in a generation thing here. From the time I saw the missing poster I couldn't help but think he was dead and that him being a young out gay male had something to do with it. Time will tell if we ever know who and why, but the general consensus amongst his friends is that he went home with the wrong bad date/guy from a club/got in the wrong car kind of thing and something went bad. He was a party boy who would sometimes go on benders or disappear for a few days. I know he also had some drug addicted friends he hung out with, so it's likely he used some hard drugs and it's possible that it was drug/money related. Nonetheless, regardless of the type of lifestyle someone lives it's not OK for them to be killed. I didn't know him and didn't know how "high risk" a life he led, but still, no one deserves this.

He'll be remembered fondly by his friends and everyone will be a little more vigilant about their and their friends' safety for sure. It's weird how such a tragedy can shift thinking and bring "us" as a community a little closer.

His friends want to have a park bench installed in one of his favourite spots dedicated to him. It's a thing here - you can pay the city to do it. Ollie wore signature 8" platform shoes. I suggested we see if they'd allow the bench to be on 8" risers. His friends LOVE the idea. I hope we can make it happen.

thats really sad, i hope the murderer gets proper justice, i mean this dude was the same age as me! thats scary

Mmhmm.

I relayed this story to a young gay guy last night. He hadn't heard about it. I made sure to remind him that we still don't know if his murder was over a drug debt or argument, or if there's some seriously bad person out there targeting young gay men in this city. There hasn't been another murder, yet, and I sure hope there isn't one.. but out of an abundance of caution I made sure to drive home the point about not leaving the club district with strangers. This particular guy isn't like that, but many are - and up until this point it hasn't been a problem. People meet at bars/clubs and decide to go home together all the time. It's pretty normal social behaviour. But right now, not knowing whether or not there's an active killer out there, it's probably best to be really really cautious. No going home with strangers, walking dark alleys alone etc. I mean, those are good general rules for safety anyways.. but until the murderer is caught and motive determined, I hope everyone out there is a little more proactive about their safety.

i think i just appretiated that im both living in England and an extreme introvert, despite how many times my mother has encouraged me to go to a gay bar. but even then this kind of thing could happen in England. i guess it probably seems more real when the murder/ murderer on the loose thing is close to home.


if it is a hate motivated killer, please stay safe!

Meanwhile, the most high profile serial killer of gay men in PRESENT times is Stephen Port, who murdered (at least) 4 gay men in England recently: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/11/23/gr ... th-murder/ (I follow pinknews.co.uk on Facebook since they post a lot of international gay news, not just UK.)

Many serial killers have targeted gay men. Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind. etc. It can happen anywhere, really.

In general, though, Vancouver is an extremely welcoming & safe city for gay people. Our Pride parade attracts more than half a million people every August - many of them international visitors on vacation in our little piece of paradise.

Sorry to hear about the loss of this bright young man.

I hope they can find the culprit - so many murders seem to remain unsolved and the trail grows cold..

well that just got real. really? the most high profile one is british? and is recent? for some reason im not surprised because this is our pride parades:



I usually dont read into it because the more I do, the more paranoid I feel.

i mean at least we know about that guy, so i assume he got caught. but I think its weird that crimes like this can be fueled by hating a perticular group of people, it seems like "wheres the justification", because it seems weird that you'd decide "ive met 1 person whose gay/a different race to me/ different religion, now i know all of them" but i guess since we are individuals there are these rare people who can justify that.

its seems these days alot of crimes are slipping through the net. how did investigation methods get more flawed in modern times? or perhaps it was even worse in the past, they just didnt have the internet to hear about it from.

The most recent one was British, yes. But we've had bad ones over here in North America, too.

I think you're right at the end - crimes are likely solved at higher rates today. We just didn't hear about as many unsolved crimes before.

N America is enormous so really i expected it to be mainly there. since theres so much diversity and a really high population.


i wonder if homophobia is stronger in england or america as a whole. i hope we raise people as a society better in the future, and have better security