BRIAN DEER
on JUSTIN FASHANU Page
2
Detective
First Class Glenn Case of the Howard County police
department was first told of the Fashanu matter
shortly after noon the following day, March 25. The
information came through to his desk at the district
public safety complex, a prosaic, one-story concrete
slab and redbrick structure shared with the fire
department behind a shopping mall, six miles south of
Ashton Woods.
Details
were sparse. A sexual assault. The victim was a
minor. A male. A uniformed unit had responded to a
911 call received that morning from the boy's home on
Tamar Drive. After a brief assessment by a sergeant
and an officer, the kid, accompanied by his mother,
had been ferried for tests to the emergency room at
Howard County General Hospital.
Case
was 31, with a heavy chin and grey-blond hair cropped
tight in military style. His police experience was
six years in uniform and three as a county detective.
He drove to the hospital, and at 4.25 began the
delicate task of taking a statement. The kid seemed
shocked, and his mother was angry. The father was out
of town. The detective listened as the party was
described, the drinking, the marijuana. He heard of
the phone calls, the liquor store, the couch and then
a blank. The victim thought he was drugged.
DJ
said when he woke, at 8am, he found himself in
Fashanu's bed. His undershorts were around his knees
and his host was performing fellatio on him. He said
he yelled "no", struggled up, got dressed
and immediately left the apartment. He walked to
Tamar Drive, approximately one mile. In tears, he
told his mother what happened. There had been no
delay. There were no doubts in his mind. He was clear
about what had occurred.
Case's
questions were intrusive, but the interview wasn't
the worst part of what happened at Howard County
General. DJ had already undergone the standard
physical and forensic checks for a suspected sexual
assault on a male. A doctor had recorded a tear in
the kid's rectum and noted a quantity of blood. He
had looked for pubic hairs that may have been
acquired from an assailant. He used a proctoscope for
DNA samples.
Next
morning, the detective drove to Ashton Woods, where
Fashanu appeared polite and co-operative. He gave the
impression of being surprised. Case noted a bible
lying on the floor. Yes, the kid had slept there, the
suspect agreed, but nothing untoward had occurred. He
said that he had heard the front door close when DJ
had left to go home.
Case
explained that Fashanu was not under arrest, but that
answering some questions could help. Fashanu agreed,
and didn't ask for a lawyer. He had chosen to brazen
it out.
"Are
you a homosexual?" the detective asked.
"No
I am not."
"The
boy says that you took him to buy beer. Is that
true?"
"No
it is not."
The
detective had been trained to appear non-judgmental.
He kept the heat down by taking slow notes.
Fashanu
said that he was concerned about publicity, because
he was waiting on news of a job. "I want to get
this over with," he said. "I want to clear
my name."
"Would
you be willing to take a polygraph test?"
"Yes,
I would."
"And
provide us with a sample of your blood for forensic
examination?"
"Yes,
of course."
Case
left the apartment puzzled by Fashanu's
self-assurance. Given the possibility of a rape
charge, self-assurance was an incongruous demeanour,
whether he committed the offence or not.
The
detective, like the kids, knew nothing about soccer.
His favourite sport was lacrosse. So a couple of days
later, he sat at his desk and accessed the world-wide
web. He tapped "Justin Fashanu" into a
search engine field, hit return and studied
the screen.
There
were two particularly helpful sites: one local, the
other in Britain. There was first a page called
"The Out List" compiled by a guy at
Maryland's Washington College: an inventory of
"living, famous, or distinguished people who
have publicly acknowledged that they are lesbian, gay
or bisexual." Among the Fs, Case located
"Justin Fashanu, British pro soccer star."
The
second site, from South Bank University, London, was
titled "The Knitting Circle". This included
a condensed biography. Evidently, the suspect was a
celebrity. Born 1961. Played for various teams.
Ranked 99 in The Pink Paper's list of 500
lesbian and gay heroes. And there was a quote from a
book of essays, Stonewall 25, about how he
"came out" in The Sun newspaper.
"I genuinely thought that if I came out in the
worst newspapers and remained strong and positive
about being gay," he was quoted as saying,
"there would be nothing more that they could
say."
Strong
and positive about being gay? The detective did not
think so.
By
now police had spoken to the other kids at the party
and had witness statements that Fashanu and DJ had
indeed driven out to buy beer. So that was two lies
established in the interview. And he was waiting on
the forensic tests. The Maryland state crime lab in
Baltimore soon confirmed the presence of semen in the
samples that had been collected at the hospital.
Fashanu hadn't used a condom in the offence. Case was
ready to charge.
On
Thursday April 2, eight days into the investigation,
detectives obtained a search warrant and entered
Fashanu's apartment. The suspect, his clothes and
personal effects were gone. Case looked in vain for
the bible. The telephone was fitted with caller ID,
which revealed a string of incoming calls back to
Friday March 27, suggesting flight within 24 hours of
the interview. He would not now be available for the
polygraph test or to give a blood sample to the crime
lab.
Next
morning, an arrest warrant was sought from a district
court commissioner. "DFC CASE has received
information that FASHANU has not been in contact with
friends or associates since he was interviewed by DFC
CASE," the application noted. "DFC CASE
fears that FASHANU is a flight risk." The
charges cited were first and second degree assault
and second degree sexual assault. The maximum
punishment was 20 years in jail, although the tariff
was closer to 10.
DJ
was hoping, even more than the detective, that his
assailant would quickly be found. Since word had got
out about his ordeal, there had been ugly, whispered
speculations. Surely this kid was too strong to be
raped. He bench-pressed 200lbs! Maybe he was gay and
just didn't know it yet. Why the hell did he stop
overnight? With Fashanu missing, there was no chance
of silencing those who gossiped that DJ was willing.
They conjectured that the kid must have changed his
mind. He must, really, have asked for it.
Then
there were DJ's more private turmoils, as memories
and flashbacks surfaced. He appeared to suffer from
rape trauma syndrome, a form of post-traumatic stress
disorder. What was it that attracted Fashanu's
attention? He wanted to know: why him? He felt
guilty, ashamed, confused, invaded. He became
withdrawn and disliked being touched. He collapsed
his social circle to his parents, Laura and his only
close male friend, Josh. Previously, people said he
was calm, easygoing. Now, he was quick-tempered,
angry.
He
received weekly counselling, but the therapy was
poor. The counsellor had never dealt with men. A
consensus has formed among specialists in this field
that up to one quarter of all rapes involve male
victims, but there is an extraordinary reluctance to
come forward. Such few studies as exist show that
victims (and also their assailants) are most often
heterosexual. And also that in the United States the
median age of who are attacked is 17.
DJ's
question "why me?" wouldn't be answered. At
least, not by Justin Fashanu. On Wednesday April 15,
the soccer player turned up in England and travelled
to a religious retreat in Leicestershire, to which
ten years before he had (unsuccessfully) applied to
become a novice monk. He used his mother's maiden
name, Lawrence, in an effort to stay hidden, before
journeying to London, contacting family and friends,
and trying to sell his story to the press. He called
his old agent, hoping to place an
"exclusive", claiming that his victim was a
blackmailer. But his agent, Eric Hall, was ill and
never called back. Fashanu's last story went unsold.
Two
days later, he was discovered in a garage, hanged
with electric flex.
*****
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