Killing of Fernando Rios
On September 28, 1958, Fernando Rios, a 26-year-old tour guide from Mexico City who was working in New Orleans, died due to injuries sustained during an assault he experienced the previous night.
That night, Rios had been at the Cafe Lafitte in Exile, a gay bar in the city's French Quarter neighborhood, when he began talking to John Farrell, a 20-year-old student at Tulane University.
Earlier in the night, Farrell, who had been enjoying the nightlife of the French Quarter with two fellow Tulane students–Alberto Calvo and David Drennan–had recommended that the three "roll a queer", a slang term for robbing a gay man.
The district attorney for New Orleans later initiated another case against the three for robbery, but the litigation dragged on for several years, during which time Calvo returned to his home country of Panama and the other two moved to other states.
In 1964, Drennan and Farrell agreed to a plea bargain where they pled guilty, but served no jail time, and in 1966, the district attorney's office filed a nolle prosequi regarding Calvo, ending their litigation.
However, the 2017 publication of a book on the killing written by local LGBTQ historian Clayton Delery revived interest in the incident, leading to increased contemporary coverage of the event.
[5] In the early part of the century, urban decay in the area caused property prices to drop, prompting an influx of LGBTQ individuals that turned it into a gayborhood.
[5] By the 1950s, the French Quarter was widely regarded by residents of the city to be a place of vice, with a significant LGBTQ population and many dive bars, though the neighborhood was also a popular tourist attraction.
[7] Starting in the 1940s and going into the 1950s, there was a significant push from New Orleanians to clean up the French Quarter, with opinion pieces published in local newspapers highlighting the blighted status of the neighborhood.
[9] In 1955, the superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), Provosty A. Dayries, publicly referred to homosexual people as the city's "Number One vice problem", further stating, "They are the ones we want to get rid of most.
"[9][10] These actions in New Orleans can be viewed as part of the nationwide Lavender Scare,[11] a moral panic regarding homosexual and other LGBTQ people in American society.
[24] On the afternoon of September 27, the two of them drove from the campus to the local train station to pick up David P. Drennan, another Tulane student who was a friend of Calvo's, with the intention of hanging out in the city.
[34][note 3] As a tour guide, Rios was probably familiar with the area and the alley, as it was a popular daytime thoroughfare for pedestrians located adjacent to Jackson Square, a focal point of the French Quarter.
[38] They then went through the contents of the wallet, amounting to about $40 (equivalent to $422 in 2023) in American, Canadian, and Mexican currency, and destroyed any identifying information, burning Rios's identification cards.
[41] Television and radio news programs reported on Rios's death on Monday, September 29, with the first print record appearing in The Times-Picayune the following morning.
[43] In separate statements made to the police, the three recounted the same basic story, stating that they had went to a movie theater, bar, and steakhouse, before going to the Cafe Lafitte because Farrell wanted another beer, with the other two staying outside.
[44] According to LGBTQ historian Clayton Delery, the three made several notable omissions in their statements, including the wallet theft and Farrell's desire to "roll a queer" before entering the Cafe Lafitte.
[49] On October 20, 1958, the three pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder,[50] and the following month, the judge overseeing the case, J. Bernard Cocke,[51] granted a continuance.
[48] None of Rios's relatives were present for the trial, as his widowed mother and grandmother, for whom he had financially supported, were unable to afford to travel to New Orleans.
[52] Concerned about a fair trial for Rios, the Mexican consulate in New Orleans retained an attorney, Jim Garrison, to assist the prosecution.
[57] This was part of the defense team's strategy of damaging Rios's character by drawing attention to his sexuality and thus sway the jury to believe that what had occurred to him was in some way justified.
[56] This last point was considered exceptionally important to the defense, as, under Louisiana's felony murder rule, the death penalty could only be applied if the killing occurred in the service of a robbery.
[68] In a rebuttal to Baldwin's closing statements, Dowling called Farrell, Calvo, and Drennan "educated thugs" who were attempting to defend their actions by slandering Rios's reputation.
[74] Farrell was a college student in Louisiana, but officially a resident of North Carolina, requiring Garrison to file paperwork against him in both states.
[78] In October 1959, Judge George P. Platt heard arguments over the case, and the following month, he ruled that a new trial would constitute double jeopardy.
[76] The defense sought certiorari from the Supreme Court of the United States, who declined in November 1960, thus clearing the way for the trial to continue in New Orleans.
[76] However, after the defendants were granted permission to leave the jurisdiction of New Orleans in February 1959, the three moved out of the city, leading to complications in beginning the new trial.
[44] However, some records that were stored at the courthouse in New Orleans, including all transcripts from the court proceedings, were destroyed by flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.
[86] In an interview conducted after Farrell's death in 2016 with his son, Sean, he told Delery that he believed his father may have been trying to show off to his companions in an act of braggadocio.
[18][1] In his discussions on the event, Delery notes that, despite the progress made by the LGBTQ community in the United States at large and New Orleans in specific–with the city being considered one of the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the country in 2024[9]–there are some comparisons to be drawn with various anti-LGBTQ acts and measures in the United States,[18] including the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that left dozens of primarily Latino gay men dead.
