Gay bar clubs around miami airport

Simpson in August of Like most gays at the time, Simpson lived a pretty modest life. He was 27 and among many gay men who worked for Eastern Airlines as a flight attendant. He rarely visited the underground gay bars that existed in Miami at the time. Simpson had no family nearby.

1954 Miami murder leads to ‘Homosexual Panic’

He came to Miami in from Louisville, Ky. For the most part, the gay community in Miami lived in obscurity, but if you were gay, you knew Miami was full of gay men. On the evening of Aug. For most of the flight, his colleague, fellow flight attendant Dorothy Hoover, remembered him having a giddy attitude, mentioning several times a date he had planned for that evening.

Simpson reportedly left his NW Fourth Avenue apartment around 10 p. Simpson never made it to his date. It is believed that on the way there, he was propositioned by a airport man named Charles Lawrence on the side of the road. Usually, Killen would wait until Lawrence began engaging in sexual activity with the victim before attempting the robbery.

Leave me alone! They said they were surprised when they gay out the next day that he had died. Miami Daily News reporter Milt Sosin was on the story from the moment it broke. Sosin suspected Simpson was gay because of the location in which the murder took place. Sosin referenced the club killer as a man and suggested that it was possibly a sex crime.

At the time, homosexuality was rarely mentioned in mainstream media. Following the police investigation, Sosin learned that police felt they were busting a colony of maybe 30 gay men in the area, but he knew he had a major story when he learned that police actually discovered the area was actually home to about gay men — much larger than they could have imagined.

The article detailed that nearly gay men conjugated in a northeastern part of downtown Miami around where the Omni Center is today. They claimed Simpson made them feel unsafe and made unwanted sexual advances towards Lawrence. The jury appeared to be influenced by the fact that local newspapers alarmed them and the rest of the public about the activity that was going on.

The Miami Herald and Miami Daily News around ignored the trial, instead focusing on stories of homosexuality around the Miami community. Lawrence and Killen were eventually convicted of a bar charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Both men are alive today and in their 80s, living in Palm Beach County.

SFGN contacted miami men by phone. Lawrence hung up after learning what the call regarded and Killen never returned the voicemail.