Maine community gathers to remember gay man killed 40 years ago
Four decades after Maine resident Charlie Howard was brutally killed by a group of teens, the Bangor community gathered to honor his life and legacy.
Four decades after Maine resident Charlie Howard was killed, the Bangor community gathered to honor his life and legacy.
In the summer of 1984, Howard and his boyfriend were walking down a main road in town when a group of teenagers yelling homophobic slurs approached them. They threw Howard, then 23, off a bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream, where he died by drowning.
The teenage suspects, all minors, were initially charged with murder, but the charges were eventually reduced to manslaughter, according to the Bangor Daily News. They pleaded guilty to the reduced charges in October 1984.
On Sunday, the 40th anniversary of Howard’s death, community groups, including the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor, came together to hold a remembrance service.
The service re-created the one held after Howard was killed four decades ago, where attendees walked to the site of his death and dropped flowers into the stream below.
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