James Patrick Zappalorti (September 29, 1945 – January 22, 1990), a disabled veteran of the Vietnam War, was the victim of a highly publicized, fatal gay-bashing attack on Staten Island, New York.
His life came to an abrupt end on the evening of January 22, 1990, after Zappalorti bought beer and invited a neighborhood resident and his companion to a small hut he had built on the beach beyond the woods across the street from his family's home.
[3][4] Taylor was taken into custody at 2:30 A.M. on January 24 as he stepped outside a bar in the South Beach section of Staten Island, but Sarlo fled the area and was not apprehended until February 18, after he was found in Ocala, Florida.
[5] (The victim in the 1986 case was attacked near a boardwalk in the South Beach area reportedly frequented by homosexuals, and Zappalorti's sexual orientation was common knowledge in the neighborhood where both he and Taylor resided.)
It is reported that the district attorney's office was reluctant to go to trial because of fears the defendants might have attempted to use the gay panic defense, and may have garnered considerable sympathy from a potential jury in culturally conservative, heavily Roman Catholic Staten Island.
[9] The murder and subsequent attacks led to increased efforts to pass a statewide hate crime law, which was supported by Mayor David Dinkins and John Cardinal O'Connor and ultimately enacted in 2000.