The cousin of a Black gay arts student found hanging outside the Concord BART station back in 1985 wants the case reopened. The initial investigation ruled the death of Timothy Charles Lee a suicide.
Frank Sterling, a 53-year-old Antioch resident, told the Bay Area Reporter that he held a memorial walk last month in honor of Lee, a Berkeley resident who was found dead November 2, 1985, at the age of 23. Lee is the son of Sterling's aunt.
"Although I didn't know him very well – we only hung out a few times – I feel like it could've been me," Sterling said during a phone interview. "If it was me, Timmy would be fighting for me. That's how I feel. I'm fighting for Timmy. I got to do it now because I feel like we're the last chance for any accountability."
According to the sole previous B.A.R. article on this case, published March 27, 1986, and titled "New Evidence of Suicide in Lee Death," Lee's family and friends maintained that he'd been lynched outside the Concord BART station.
At least one woman told police that she "heard screams and people running on the night of Lee's death," but changed her story under hypnosis, the paper reported. But what apparently clinched a ruling of suicide was Lee's roommate, identified in the 1986 B.A.R. article as Russell Wright, changing his story and telling investigators that Lee was depressed and suicidal.
"I remember his depression and low-keyed behavior a week prior to his death," Wright told investigators at the time, according to the B.A.R. article. "He seemed to be down and easily upset. On the night I called him at the BART station I tried to find a ride for him. ... At the time I asked him what he was going to do. He said, 'Maybe I'll throw myself in front of a car. He hung up and that was the last that I heard of him.'"
The B.A.R. also reported there was a note purporting to be a suicide note.
The paper reported that the NAACP had brought in a handwriting expert from Los Angeles who said the handwriting in the note was not Lee's, but Wright's.
Wright maintained that Lee fell asleep on BART and ended up in Concord, then the end of the line, as the system was shutting down for the night. Wright said he tried to find a ride for Lee, but was unsuccessful.
A March 20, 1986, Los Angeles Times article on the case also reported that a handwriting expert in Los Angeles suggested that Wright forged the note, but that local police discounted that theory and said Wright was never a suspect.
Wright said that he initially gave police a false statement in December 1985 when he described Lee as "basically" happy, the B.A.R. reported.
Asked about the B.A.R.'s reporting, which Sterling said he had not seen before the phone interview, Sterling said that the roommate's changed testimony could've been "I feel like someone got to him," Sterling said.
Sterling contends that the female witness who changed her statement under hypnosis had come forward to say she went out of her house to investigate the source of the screams to see several men standing around someone writing on the hood of a car.
When she was noticed, one person in the group shouted and rushed at her, leading her to run back into her house and lock herself in before she heard more screams, running, and a car driving away, Sterling said. (The B.A.R. reported that one woman "heard screams and people running on the night of Lee's death.)
Sterling also contends that there was a Ku Klux Klan-related stabbing of two Black people at a Concord bar the same night, which is confirmed by the FBI file on the Lee case.
He theorizes Lee's death might be Klan-related, too.
Sterling maintains the inquiry that found Lee had died by suicide was a "sham investigation." Asked why, he pointed to the woman whose statement changed under hypnosis, who said she saw a uniformed officer among those in the group around the car.
"It's all speculation, of course, but it's educated speculation based on looking at what happened during the time," Sterling said. "Timothy had been awarded a $2,000 grant to study in a noted fashion house in Milan. He was on the verge of realizing his dream of becoming a fashion designer. His family and friends had no reason to believe he was suicidal."
The B.A.R. reported at the time that, "No one, according to [Concord Police Captain Bob] Evans, has been able to find anything about the supposed scholarship his sister had told police he had won to study fashion in Milan. All that was discovered, according to Evans, was that Lee had looked into paying for his own trip to Milan a year before his death."
The B.A.R. also reported that Lee's grades at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising had slipped, according to Evans, and were one A, two Cs, and two Fs. The Times had reported he had quit the school.
Sterling has 740 signatures on an online petition asking the case be reopened.
"We must hold the Concord Police Department accountable for their mishandling and cover-up of this case and bring justice once and for all to Timothy Charles Lee and our community," the petition states.
Sterling said, "I need the [Contra Costa County] DA, [California Attorney General] Rob Bonta, anybody that could look into this legally and decide 'could it be reopened?'" but that "we haven't made a formal request to speak with them but that's coming up in the near future."
Reached for comment, a Contra Costa County District Attorney's office spokesperson stated, "The FBI is the investigating agency, so you'll have to check with them to see if there's new information in the case." The B.A.R. reached out to the FBI after that, but did not hear back after multiple requests for comment.
A Bonta spokesperson said that while "obviously we knew about the initial situation ... we don't know people are asking about old cases unless they speak to the public inquiry unit."
"Anything we receive we take seriously and we look at it and we'll be able to reach out to them directly and state whether we will be reopening the case," the spokesperson added.
The FBI file includes a letter to the bureau from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California dated January 17, 1986, about Lee, contending that "we have been concerned that his death was not a suicide but murder motivated by race and/or sexual preference" and that the "Concord Police Department's investigation was not adequate" and, in fact, was "disturbing."
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Northern California stated December 12, "We looked into this but no one who is here now was here when this happened. We don't have anything to add to your current reporting."
Sterling said that "if this was a murder, and a group was forcing him to write a suicide note, if they were around Timmy's age, they'd be 60-65 now."
"They could still be alive," he continued. "If we wait, people will be dying and get away without accountability."
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