Police in Seattle are still searching for 30-year-old Ali Muhammad Brown, the man they have charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in connection with a brutal hate crime they believe was premeditated and arranged on a gay social networking app like Grindr.
The bodies of two gay men, 27-year-old Ahmed Said and 23-year-old Dwone Anderson-Young were found in the early morning hours of Tuesday not far from Seattle’s Capitol Hill gayborhood. According to police, they were both executed by Brown no more than 17 minutes after they had picked him up via a social networking app near a popular gay bar in town.
Both victims were shot in the head and police say there was no evidence of a struggle, robbery, exchange of drugs or any other type of crime. Neither of the victims had a criminal history, leading police to believe the crime was motivated exclusively by hate.
“It is evident that the murders were premeditated and unprovoked and part of a common scheme or plan,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Wyman Yip wrote in the court documents, obtained by KIRO TV. “The evidence from the crime scene, Said’s vehicle, and the autopsies suggest that the victims were essentially executed.”
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Friends of Said and Anderson-Young told police they had been hanging out among friends at R Place earlier in the night. The two left shortly after they told friends they were “meeting a friend outside the club,” a man who was later identified as Brown. One of Said’s friends told police he didn’t believe Said had ever met Brown previously, and that he was “creeped out” by the man when he saw the three get into Said’s car together.
The car Said had picked Brown up in was later found in South Seattle, the interior covered in blood, including an incriminating bloody palm print belonging to Brown in the back seat. Police believe Brown may now be in New Jersey, and is possibly connected to a robbery in the Point Pleasant Beach area.
Brown has been charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder, a sentence that could get him the death penalty if convicted. Seattle police have also identified Brown as a convicted sex offender, and want him in connection to a third homicide in Washington. They’re urging anyone with more information to call Crime Stoppers at (206) 343-2020.
Though court documents don’t directly implicate Grindr as the app used by the victims in this case, a friend of Said’s is quoted telling police officers that Said was texting frequently on “an app like Grindr or Jack’d” before his murder.
In April, a Philadelphia man claimed he was raped by a man he met on Grindr. Last December, an elderly man was murdered by three men he allegedly also met on Grindr. Just a simple reminder to stay safe and always remember our five great tips on how to protect yourself while hooking up with strangers, if you must.
tukid
You guys forgot about the 25 y/o guy murdered outside of Philly in May thru Grindr.
Stache99
a sentence that could get him the death penalty if convicted.
If that doesn’t get you the death penalty I wonder what would.
manjoguy
@Stache99: Ask any liberal in Massachusetts, no death penalty, not even for the Boston Marathon bomber.
Stache99
@manjoguy: I consider myself a liberal but this is a case of someone who clearly enjoys hurting and killing people. He’s a rabid animal that needs to be put down IMO. If they just give him life then why even have the death penalty. You can’t get much worse then these people.
bearclawmn
This says self-hating closet-case all over it. Wonder if he had sex with them before he killed them. Would be interesting to know what his sex offence conviction was for and why was let out to find more victims.
Stache99
@bearclawmn: Yeah, I noticed that myself. This guy is a time bomb and maybe the conviction finally set it off.
He was convicted of trying to solicit sex with a child in 2012.
Stache99
@litper: Umm.. I think I’ll pass. Somehow the thought of sex with this murderous child molester just makes me feel ill. Yeah, death penalty much more appealing.
litper
Why death penalty? Make him a sex slave for life!
RSVP1056
@Stache99: The crime indeed does deserve a strong and possibly lethal sentence, but remember, the Governor of Washington banned the death penalty in WA for as long as he was/is in office…so that’s probably not going to happen. AND, If he’s doing this kind of shit all over the country, the States involved will be fighting over who deserves to try him first…!
Ihadtosayit
In my opinion gay men need to learn and accept what women have for a long time…MEN CAN BE DANGEROUS…just because you are on a gay website (or gay bar or cruising spot) it does not down play the dangers…
There are many mentally unstable and physically violent gay and/or straight men online (however they can be anywhere but with the internet people are more inclined to hide)…also we have become an easy target for those men who are willing to put up a false ad in order to rob and/or hurt the person…these criminals know and/or feel that we are disposal in the eyes of the cops and sometimes our families and sadly sometimes sometimes ourselves..
http://www.vocativ.com/underworld/crime/death-grindr-swipe-right-murder/
stanhope
I was hanging out with a very attractive friend of mine at a bar. We stayed until the bar closed and were outside since the weather was decent. He pulled out his phone. I was amazed at the speed with which he was working the Grindr app. Hitting the keys like a virtuoso and he had 4 hookups within literally minutes. He was still getting offers while deliberating on which of the earlier 4 to accept. I was a bit amazed being old enough to recall when people actually met in a bar, talked some and then went home. I said to my friend you haven’t interacted enough to know whether this is an ax murderer or a movie star. He laughed and said this is how it’s done. He chose the nearest one since all 4 were essentially equally hot and as he said, it’s all about the nutt.
Mezaien
That what happen when you let Muslims, in to the USA! but they have learned that from fucking Cristian.
lykeitiz
With every one of these articles, I keep saying: Bathhouse Bathhouse Bathhouse!
I know the younger generation considers it a dated idea for old queens, but I’m telling you, they check ID, and you’re in a “community” environment.
Nothing is 100% safe when it comes to anonymous hookups, but Grindr (& other apps like it) are really no different than picking up a street hustler. You’re still just relying on their story being true.
money718
@Mezaien: His last name is Brown. I’m pretty sure he was born in the US.
Teeth
@lykeitiz: I totally agree with you– if you want annon hookups, reduce your risk by using a place like a bath house. You still need to watch yourself, but it’s much safer than going on scruff or Grinder, or whatever, and giving people that you never met your GPS info.
cvdixon29
So sad! I have a friend who was held captive for almost a week by a guy he met on craigslist but he didn’t go to the police because he is in the closet and was afraid of losing his family and friends for being gay. That man tortured him, anally raped him with sex toys until he bled etc. It’s a downright shame how we as a community are being treated and that we can’t freely report such crimes, some can’t because they are in the closet and for fear of losing jobs, family etc. I have a feeling more of this goes on than we actually know.
justSomeGuyFromNJ
@stanhope: So…it’s like a sex vending machine?
justSomeGuyFromNJ
@cvdixon29: Well, at the risk of sounding like a victim basher, did/does your friend ever consider the possibility that the monster who did this to him is doing it to someone else right now?
Mezaien
drown him in a tea spoon!!.
EGO
There are homophobes in every religion, some of them are murderers. Gay people need to be more cautious about who they meet, especially on the web.
Yes, Massachusetts is liberal and does not have the death penalty. Fortunately this is Seattle, Washington where Brown should receive the death penalty for such a heinous crime.
RSVP1056
@EGO: NO! NO! NO! In the State of Washington, the governor placed a moratorium on the death penalty as long as he is/was in office. There will be NO death-penalty verdicts while he’s governor! I was speaking only about Washington State.
Ben Dover
The death penalty is not a deterrent, since the states that have it mostly have higher murder rates than the “liberal” states without it. The state that uses it the most (Texas) has a higher murder rate than states that technically have it but use it rarely (e.g. Calif.). (Also Texas routinely executes innocent people, but I guess some of you don’t care about that!)
And however illogical or counter-intuitive it might seem to some here, a lot of murderers would rather be executed than spend life in prison. Maybe that was this murderer’s intention.
Stache99
@Ben Dover:I believe in an eye for an eye. Plus, I would just feel better knowing he was on death row when he gets caught and convicted. That’s at least a good 10 years of thinking long and hard of their past actions.
Ben Dover
@Stache99: “at least a good 10 years of thinking long and hard of their past actions.”
Most murderers don’t seem very capable of deep thought. BUT, if you want 10 years of them thinking, why not 20? Or 70?
The death penalty also creates “martyrs” real or imagined. For instance, we wouldn’t want a bunch of religious nutjobs going around killing gays and hoping to get into heaven quickly that way. (Just an example, guessing from the suspect’s obviously Muslim name.)
On an unrelated note: With all the recent World War I anniversary stuff, I was interested to learn that the Austro-Hungarian Empire didn’t even sentence Gavrilo Princip to death for assassinating the archduke (and by extension, creating the rotten sucky world we all live in). Yeah, they gave him a life sentence for that! It was another thing to kill millions of people in a WAR over that assassination but… go figure. Although maybe they dealt with him in an even more old-fashioned way by giving him poor health care in prison so that he died of tuberculosis. Well, that’s another method, I guess.
vive
@lykeitiz, I concur, bathhouses are actually a lot safer and hugely more time-efficient places to hook up in. Plus you can see what you are getting so no surprises and awkward excuses as with apps, if you don’t click with someone’s chemistry you can stop and immediately find someone else, or have several nice experiences with different guys on the same night, no worries about annoying your roommate by having tricks over to your place, and no worries about having to clean the place beforehand, having refreshments available, having to launder your sheets afterwards, etc., etc.
RSVP1056
@vive: I also concur. But I have a story that is also a cautionary tale: I meant a man and we dated for a while, but for whatever reason, it didn’t work out. He told me a story that still chills my bones. He and his roommate were on their way back in NYC from a trip (I don’t remember where they’d been), but they met these two nice-looking guys and decided to bring them to their brownstone apartment in Brooklyn. It started off well, but quickly turned into a nightmare. One of the boys picked up went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife and killed the roommate straight away, the other took nothing less than a butter nice and stabbed my friend almost a hundred times. He lay there slowly dying suffocating in his own blood. It was in all the papers at the time. Somehow my friend had the wherewithal to get the cops on the phone, and he lived. Lucky for him his attacker used that butter knife,because though he missed all major organs and arteries, hi did horrific damage to his abdomen. In the years since the attack, he’s had dozens of surgeries and still walks with a crutch. He is the gentlest man I’ve ever met, too. Somehow they caught the two attackers, tried them and convicted them to very close to life in prison. They are there still.
But it just goes to show that there are no 100% safe hook-ups in our world, be they ‘Grindr’ or the baths, or just a bar hook-up…Be wary. Be prepared. Be safe.
vive
@stanhope, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of regular guys reading this would indeed like to slowly murder your very attractive friend by beating him with the silver spoon he was born with and the platter he gets everything handed to him on. 🙂
redzoneguy
Everybody seems to blame Grindr as using the social network app can lead you to be killed. If somebody decided to shoot people on a Sunday during a service in a church, are we going to blame religion for that crime?
What we have is crazy people using different tools to commit crimes, but tools can’t be blamed for those crimes.
vive
@RSVP1056, but it would have been difficult for something like that to happen in a bathhouse. That was my point, that bathhouses are probably the safest place for a hookup.
Ben Dover
@manjoguy: Actually you’re incorrect about the Boston Marathon bomber. Despite it happening in Massachusetts, he’s in federal custody and the feds ARE seeking the death penalty. Don’t know why the trial is taking soooooo long to get going, unless they just dislike calling attention to the immigration debate (since the Tsarnaevs were poster boys for useless, lazy, welfare-mooching, ungrateful LEGAL immigrants!)… anyway, he might still get the death penalty. And I still think it would be a mistake, because he probably wants that and wants to be a “martyr” or some such stupid religious bullshit.
Ben Dover
@vive: Gotta agree with you on the bathhouse debate! I haven’t been in a long time and you’re making me curious to go again.
Stache99
@RSVP1056: Wow. That’s terrible. It’s amazing that they didn’t see any signs. Then again these types are usually sociopaths and can easily play a part.
Maude
@Ben Dover: Stache99
By your logic the death penalty increases the murder rate, and the lack of the death penalty decreases the murder rate. Forgive me, but that’s just plain nonsense.
There has to be another factor…mentally disturbed comes to mind, and if that is a factor, it’s the lack of interest in finding the potential murder before the crime is committed.
Hate is a great motivator, and is in turn, greatly exaggerated in the tormented mind of the afflicted.
Although they say they do, the States hardly ever consider the grief of the murder victims family.
No, it doesn’t bring back the family’s loved one. but it does bring closer.
I know, I am an uncle of a 13 year old murdered child, and the four torturers, and killers are out of prison because of New York’s liberal caring for the killers rather then for the killed, and their families.
They are walking around enjoying life, and my nephew is dead, and his family still suffers.
We no longer have family gatherings on holidays, and birthdays, etc.
Maude
@Ben Dover: Stache99
By your logic the death penalty increases the murder rate, and the lack of the death penalty decreases the murder rate. Forgive me, but that’s just plain nonsense.
There has to be another factor…mentally disturbed comes to mind, and if that is a factor, it’s the lack of interest in finding the potential murder before the crime is committed.
Hate is a great motivator, and is in turn, greatly exaggerated in the tormented mind of the afflicted.
Although they say they do, the States hardly ever consider the grief of the murder victims family.
No, it doesn’t bring back the family’s loved one. but it does bring closer.
I know, I am an uncle of a 13 year old murdered child, and the four torturers, and killers are out of prison because of New York’s liberal caring for the killers rather then for the killed, and their families.
The killers are walking around enjoying life, and my nephew is dead, and his family still suffers.
Because it was heartbreaking on the first Christmas after my nephews murder, we no longer have family gatherings on holidays, and birthdays, etc.
cvdixon29
@justSomeGuyFromNJ: He did place an ad on Craigslist warning people of his name and to avoid him, but if he went to the police he would lose everything. It’s sad he got into such a situation, but I understand his decision in not going to the police, not everyone has families who are supportive and can rely on for help.
hwc2016
The moral of this story don’t ever! ever! rush out of the house to meet people you don’t know on the internet. Just because they look good online, you could be meeting the killer. I tell you, guys will run out of the house in a minute for sex, but ask them to hang out or go to a movie, and they won’t leave the house.