Salon.com > Jeff Stryker

Sleepstabbing

Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Guilty as charged. Murder one. After eight hours of deliberation, a Phoenix jury returned this verdict last week in the murder trial of Scott Falater, 43, an engineer, family man and Mormon priest.

The facts were never in dispute. Falater killed Yarmila, his wife of 20 years, by stabbing her 44 times with his hunting knife before pushing her into the family swimming pool and holding her head underwater. Falater also hid the evidence: He wrapped his blood-drenched clothes and boots in a plastic bag, sealed the bag in a Tupperware container and stashed it in the wheel well of the family Volvo. He changed into pajamas and bandaged his hand, which had been cut in the struggle.

Case closed, right? No question. Why, then, did the jury deliberate for eight hours?

Scott Falater claimed he had no memory of any of the events surrounding his wife's death, that he was sleepwalking throughout the entire bloody event. When the police arrived to take him to jail, Falater came to realize he was dealing with the homicide division. "Does that mean my wife is dead?" Falater asked, making him either a tragically bereaved husband or a psychopath with a flair for acting and chutzpah to spare.

Will the real Jeff Stryker please rise?

Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:00:00 +0000

I am a God -- at least according to an article in my local
newspaper: "Porn God Takes to the Stage: Jeff Stryker's 'Hard Time' in SF." I spied the San Francisco Chronicle headline over someone's
shoulder in the bus on the way to work. I shuddered.

Jeff Stryker. God. Icon. Superstar. Bigger than Life.
Reporters and critics dig deep into their bags of superlatives when
reaching for an adjective to describe the reigning king of gay male
porn, not to mention the legendary member upon which his carefully
nurtured career rests so securely (sometimes referred to as the "eighth
wonder of the world").

I should be used to it. Let me clarify. I, personally, am not
divine. It is my doppelgdnger, the porn star who took my name, who has
earned the international acclaim and divine status. His star has
ascended steadily in the pornography firmament over his 13-year
career. As a result, the mere mention of our name evokes giggles,
guffaws or more. Being named Jeff Stryker is like being wired with an
ultra sensitive "gaydar" device -- I can usually tell which team people
play on by how they react to the mere mention of my name. With
Stryker's "hilarious erotic comedy" coming to my backyard, I braced
myself for more than the usual ribbing. Overnight, the whole town was
festooned with "Jeff Stryker Does Hard Time" posters, with pictures of
the star behind bars and the fetching tagline, "On the Inside, It's Not
Your Back You Have to Watch, It's Your Butt."

Asking for it

Fri, 23 Oct 1998 19:00:00 +0000

By now, most of America knows what happened to Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was pistol-whipped, lashed to a fence and left to die Oct. 6. No one knows yet why Shepard was murdered. But statements made to the press and prosecutors hint at the direction the defense might be tempted to take this case -- down a road that has been too well traveled in American jurisprudence.

Accused murderer Aaron McKinney's girlfriend, Kristen Price, told reporters that robbery was the motive for the crime, but not the only one. Shepard, she says, embarrassed her boyfriend and his friend, Russell Henderson, by making a pass at them in the bar, setting the other patrons to "snickering." "He said that he was gay and wanted to get with Aaron and Russ," Price told ABC's 20/20. Her friends killed Shepard "to teach him a lesson not to come on to straight people," she said.

The idea that it might be somehow permissible to "teach a lesson" about the perils of flirting by beating and killing a gay man is not as far-fetched as it might sound. In fact, this notion has proven persuasive in courtrooms around the country.

Cracking down

Fri, 10 Jul 1998 08:25:00 +0000

"They're having litters. They are literally having litters."

Barbara Harris is not talking about puppies or kittens, but about addicted women who have given birth to five, 10 or 15
drug-exposed children, despite being unwilling or unable to care for them.
And Harris is not just mad as hell -- she is trying, almost single-handedly,
to do something about it. Last year, she founded CRACK (Children
Requiring a Caring Kommunity), a nonprofit organization in Anaheim, Calif., that
offers $200 to any
drug-addicted or alcoholic mother who agrees to be sterilized or have Norplant
implanted, or to any male drug addict or alcoholic who has a vasectomy.

"I'm not saying these women are animals," she hastens to add.
Nevertheless, her words can't help but evoke images of animal shelters that
offer pet owners a few dollars to encourage them to spay or neuter
their animals. The idea also seems uncomfortably close to
population control efforts such as Peru's program to sterilize poor women by offering them small gifts as bait. Harris' proposal is certainly in a
similar vein: Why not see
if money will convince parents addicted to crack, heroin,
alcohol or speed not to bring any more children into the world?

Cracking down

Tue, 30 Jun 1998 19:00:00 +0000

"They're having litters. They are literally having litters."