Corinne Schwab and Ashley Sams (L-R) — the two 18-year-olds accused of trying to push classmate Cheyenne Williams off a cliff because she is gay — won’t face kidnapping or attempted murder charges, because there’s not enough evidence for felony charges, a judge ruled. Instead they’ll face misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault and menacing; it’s unclear what charges a third suspect, the as-yet unidentified 17-year-old, will face.
Williams, however, told Judge Henria Bailey-Lewis a very different story about her attack, but Sams’ attorney claimed Williams “has videotaped fake or silly things in the past to post on the Internet, and said she laughed throughout the alleged attempt on her life,” reports the Kentucky Lexington-Herald Leader. Indeed, there is video of the account.
State police Detective Joie Peters said a few small bruises he saw on Williams the Tuesday after the attack didn’t square with her account. Peters confirmed Williams laughed throughout most of the video, which was not played in court. The video did not show the chain tight around her neck, he said. Peters said he had gotten inconsistent statements in his investigation. Williams’ mother, for instance, said the girls tried to shove Williams over Flat Lick Falls, but Williams did not say that, Peters said.
[…] Bailey-Lewis reduced the charges after viewing the video in private, but had some stern words for the teens. “For young adults to exhibit so little common sense and good judgment is appalling,” she said.
We all know videotape cannot tell the whole story, but if Judge Bailey-Lewis watched it and found conflicting reports in Williams’ testimony and what was on the tape, it’s understandable why she may have reduced the charges. Most telling on the tape, of course, is whether it can be determined whether Williams was indeed in on a prank, or actually the victim of a hate crime. Maybe the FBI should figure that one out?
Seth
WOW. Is this really the first time an entire nation, not to mention a court-room, has been ‘had’ by a girl/boy who cried wolf?
Why did anyone take her seriously without any evidence in the first place?? Don’t people usually assuage their emotions about such potentially devastating transgressions through thorough investigation BEFORE public denunciation of persons?
Mike
Why does Queerty continue to report about this “story”? We didn’t care at first and we still DON’T CARE. Find something else to report about.
P.S. The ginger guy in the photo is cute:-)
Mike L.
@Mike: I was thinking the same thing, about the gingerman lol.
Well I hope this gets taken care of, but seriously teenagers can be so totally stupid.
It also seems that the victim was out of the loop as to the possible prank. Even if it was a prank it’s totally cruel to have done this to her and use the sex-orientation as the focus of the prank.
AlwaysGay
The heterosexual police are working to make sure these heterosexual girls get the least amount of punishment. I had a similar thing happen to me when I was a teen. I told school officials and they did nothing with the heterosexual males that wanted to harm me. Instead, I was the one they looked after afterward.
Baxter
@AlwaysGay: I’m sorry that you’ve had bad things happen to you, but you seriously can’t imagine any scenario here where maybe the straight people weren’t actually bad guys? You have major trust issues.
Hyhybt
See if I have this right: the victim (if indeed she is one) has been friends with these people forever, they’ve always known her orientation and didn’t seem to have any problem with it before, and later the same day as the incident she had dinner with them? No, whether she was in on it or not beforehand, I cannot believe it was an attempted murder.
Bill Courson
Having recently moved from New Jersey (one of the most progesssive states in the US in terms of extending legal protections to lesbian and gay citizens) to Berea, Kentucky, I am saddened and disgusted, by this turn of events but by no means surprised. I have come to love Kentucky and feel great affection for its warm and neighborly people, but on the issue of respect for gay and lesbian rights and in the movement toward LGBT equality, it has a very long way to go.
Why is this?
Henria Bailey-Lewis’ decision (though most likely pathetically misinfomed and misguided) needs to be viewed against the backdrop of Kentucky society: poorly educated, impoverished, isolated and poorly nourished – with what moral nourishment does take place coming from a fundamentalist religious context that has supplanted courage with fear and sacrificed the rights of the individual on the altar of its own hate-driven cultic agenda.
In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, judges are elected by a populus colored by that agenda and driven by that fear. Thus, until the social matrix changes considerably, one is forced to ask whether Kentucky’s courts and its law enforcement apparatus can or will protect the rights, lives and property of lesbian and gay citizens equitably.
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