A Brooklyn, New York jury has convicted
a teenage boy of the 2007 knifing to death of a gay man he said came
on to him, reports gay weekly Gay City News.
Eighteen-year-old Omar Willock was
found guilty of second-degree murder on Wednesday for the May 2007 murder of Roberto Duncanson, 20.
Duncanson was assaulted during the
early hours of May 12, before 1AM, on St. Marks Avenue in Brooklyn's
Crown Heights section. Investigators allege Willock hailed down
Duncanson on the street accusing him of looking at him, calling him a
“faggot.”
Duncanson, who had been drinking
earlier, responded to the taunts: “Batty boy, you look like
somebody want to suck your dick,” Jeimar Brown, Duncanson's cousin,
testified.
When Duncanson again passed by Willock
the slurs escalated and the two men came to blows. Brown said it was
not until the fighting ended that he noticed Willock had a knife and
Duncanson had been fatally wounded by four punctures in the back.
Duncanson was rushed to Kings County
Hospital where he died roughly one hour later.
Prosecutor Howard Jackson called the
murder a hate crime, but eventually that charge was dropped.
“[Willock] did so because of his
perception that Roberto Duncanson was a gay man who was looking at
him in a sexually suggestive way,” Jackson said during his March 10
opening.
Willock faces as much as 25 years to
life in prison for killing Roberto Duncanson.