A 29 year old Newark, New Jersey man, Richard McCullough, accused of fatally stabbing a fifteen year old girl remains at large today. Sakia Gunn was killed at a bus stop in downtown Newark early Sunday morning while returning with four friends from a party in Manhattan. Sakia’s mother, LaTona Gunn, said her daughter was gay, and authorities believe her sexual orientation may have been a factor in her killing. "Based on witness statements, we're investigating the possibility that it may have been a bias crime," said Newark Detective Todd McClennon. Her friends and gay rights advocates believe Gunn was attacked because of her sexual orientation. Law enforcement officials have said the girls told McCullough they were gay when he and one other man, whose name has not been released, tried to strike up a conversation with them. A spokesman for the Newark Police, Lt. Derek Glenn, said that the assailants at first did not know the girls were gay. "They pulled up in a white station wagon and tried to strike up a conversation with the teenagers," he said. According to Glenn, the girls rebuffed the men and said they were lesbians. At this point McCullough got out of the car and stabbed Gunn in the chest after a scuffle with the group. the second man was questioned by police but has not been charged.

Gay rights advocates said they are more saddened than shocked by the killing. Michael Adams, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Manhattan, a gay rights advocacy group, said he was outraged, but not surprised, by the stabbing. "It is, sadly, not that unusual for men who make overtures to lesbians to respond with hostility, and sometimes even with violence, in these kinds of situations," he said. Clarence Patton, executive director of the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs added, "We do know that, unfortunately, visibility can bring danger to us, but we also know that the alternative is unacceptable."

A crowd of more than 150 people attended an emotional vigil last night at Broad and Market streets, where Gunn was killed. The mostly youthful crowd wore white and rainbow colors and lit an assortment of colored candles in Gunn's memory. The vigil was organized by two of Gunn's friends, Jaimekai Johnson and Esh Walker who said better laws are needed to protect gays. With a shrine of balloons, candles and teddy bears as the backdrop, the vigil featured tearful poems, demands for more police presence and fond memories of Gunn. Gunn was remembered as a fun-loving teen who didn't like to see anyone sad or in pain. Friends said she shared what she had, kept a smile on her face and lived for the moment. Jamon Marsh, 19, who said she was Gunn's partner for the past five months, told supporters not to cry for Gunn, "because that's not what she would really want."

A demonstration is slated for 3 p.m. today in front of Newark City Hall to bring attention to what protesters point out are inadequate laws protecting gay rights.

Just last week, in a Charlottesville, Va., federal court, prosecutors said they were dropping the hate crime charges (he is still charged with murder) against Darrell David Rice accused of abducting Julianne Williams, 24, and Laura "Lollie" Winans, 26, tying them up with duct tape, torturing them for hours and slitting their throats. He has told investigators that the women "deserved to die because they were lesbian (expletives)." This despite the fact that a year ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference to announce plans to file federal hate crime charges against the man accused of murdering the two as they hiked in the Shenandoah National Park in 1996. Only one federal law includes sexual orientation, a 1994 provision by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that covers hate crimes on federal property. But the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act of 1994 had never been applied to a crime targeting sexual orientation until this case, and activists at the time were pleased, although somewhat surprised, to see Ashcroft blazing the trail.

Supporters of a federal hate crimes law which would cover gays and lesbians reintroduced the same measure last week that went down to defeat in a Senate procedural vote in June 2002. However, they failed to reach a compromise with Republican opponents that could have ensured passage in the Senate. The bill would authorize the federal government to prosecute hate crimes based on a victim's sexual orientation, gender and disability. It calls for amending an existing law that allows the federal government to prosecute hate crimes based only on a person's race, religion and ethnicity.