According to media accounts, a 15-year-old witness said he was present when two 17-year-old youths beat and kicked Warren to death with their fists and heavy work boots when he showed up at a house they were painting late in the evening of July 3. They then took Warren's body to a nearby road where they ran over it repeatedly to make the death look like a hit-and-run. Afterward the three teens, all of whom are white, cleaned the house, and burned and buried their clothing.

The 15-year-old went to police early the next day and the two others were arrested while attending local Fourth of July activities with their parents, and reportedly confessed. Recent articles in The Dominion Post and Pittsburgh Post Gazette allege the two youths were enraged because they believed Warren had spoken of a sexual relationship with one of them.

From the beginning the police have acted with callous disregard for Warren's family. His parents, Brenda and Arthur Warren, learned of their son's death when police chief William Gower came to their house inquiring when their son had left the night before. Only after asking about their son did Gower tell them he had been found dead and his body has been identified.

The West Virginia Lesbian and Gay Coalition called the July 11 protest after repeated statements by Marion County sheriff Ron Watkins that there was nothing to substantiate accusations that Warren was killed because he was gay. On July 10, Marion County prosecutor Richard Bunner told the media he did not charge the youths with a "hate crime" because the state's hate-crimes statute does not cover crimes against gays. First-degree murder charges carry the possibility of a life sentence with no parole; the state hate-crimes law carries a penalty of no more than 10 years in prison.

On July 12, Judge Rodney Merrifield issued a sweeping gag order preventing anyone involved in the case from talking to the media. In response to the rally and the broader community's reaction of outrage, it was announced July 13 that the Marion County sheriff had asked the FBI to look at the department's continuing investigation, hoping, according to detective Doris James, "to dispel controversy surrounding the case."

In an outpouring of human solidarity, the protest, called as a vigil, filled the center of this small town located in the heart of Appalachian coal country. Hundreds of working people from the area, both Black and white, turned out. They were joined by students and other youth, and members of gay and lesbian organizations, some coming from as far away as Charleston, West Virginia, and Marietta, Ohio. Those interviewed by the Militant said they were there to condemn the brutal killing and "to call for justice," as speaker Marcus Lewis put it.

A handful of right-wing counter-protesters, led by Fred Phelps, a minister of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, attempted to get into the center of the crowd carrying signs declaring, "God hates fags" and "Matt in hell" with pictures of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man murdered last year in Wyoming. The disciplined crowd silently surrounded the right-wingers and kept them from disrupting the vigil.

Diana Newberry is a member of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees Local 133H.