CANANDAIGUA, NY (AP) — New York State Police charged five people Friday with murder in the killing of a missing man who authorities said died following repeated acts of violence and torture for more than a month by multiple individuals who later discarded his body in a field.
The victim, Sam Nordquist, a 24-year-old transgender man originally from Minnesota, was reported missing on Feb. 9. Police said he arrived in New York in September and had lost contact with loved ones.
Major Kevin Sucher, commander of the state police troop that includes the Finger Lakes region, said the facts and circumstances of the case were “beyond depraved” and “by far the worst” homicide investigation the office has ever been part of.
“No human being should have to endure what Sam endured,” he said, during televised news conference. Police did not share many details of the case, noting it remained under active investigation.
Five people have been arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Sam. Ages range from 38 to 19. Other than one person, they’re from the little towns south of Rochester, including Canandaigua, which is a roughly 30 minute drive from Rochester.
Rochester is a LGBTQ+ friendly town that serves as a refuge for the kids who grow up in the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, areas where you’ll often see Trump signs and the stars and bars flying. Some of the kids who stay in the poor towns where they grew up are often bigots like their parents. There’s not a lot in those towns — most of the money made there is from tourists visiting the lakes and wineries that dot the area.
Moving from horror to courage, a group of medical professionals have signed an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. No lies told:
With the Trump administration now in control of federal leadership, those of us who work in the field of gender medicine — particularly gender medicine for young people — have experienced a challenging last few months. Gender care for youths and related issues such as bathroom use and sports participation have become ubiquitous topics in both national and local media. This is despite the fact that gender-diverse youths represent only a small fraction of our population (1.4% of young people, according to the UCLA Williams Institute) and are by far some of the most vulnerable members of our community.
Manufacturing a good enemy is the best way to stay in power. The right wing has certainly seized upon that strategy in recent times. Lately, it has been hard to ignore all the stories about gender-diverse people, just trying to live their lives, that have been spun into false narratives about abusive parents and health care providers, potential assaults in restrooms and the imminent end of women’s sports.
During the election season, Donald Trump actively ran ads that attacked and denigrated transgender people, aiming to score cheap political points with a riled-up base of supporters who generally know nothing about how gender care actually works. Since he took office those attacks have continued with recent executive orders. It is disappointing that someone who engages in this behavior could manage to win the presidency of the United States. The truth is that fearmongering has been an effective strategy thus far, and left unchecked it is a strategy we expect to continue for the foreseeable future.
[…]We’re not going anywhere. What’s more, we’re expanding. Over the coming days and months, we will work alongside our partners to protect our communities, deepen our impact and stand up as Minnesota has always done: as a source of safety and care. Our commitment is unwavering, and we invite you to stand with us as we forge a path forward.
The women and men signing that editorial are heroes.
Baud
Seconded.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yes.
satby
@Baud: and they are in danger, just as Sam was, from the despicable hate promoted by our government now. Led by a man who calls his transgender daughter “dead”.
Chief Oshkosh
Some of the gun humpers that I have to deal with are getting upset that their egg prices (narrator: beer prices) are going up even more. I’m subtly encouraging their discontent with Trump and Musk.
And rooting for injuries
ETA: This in response to the horror that is the current GOP and the effects that they are having on my niece. I think it’s a banning offense to call for violence, so…
dc
Why are theses 5 monsters being charged only with 2nd degree murder?
If it were a federal crime, Trump would have already pardoned them.
Nukular Biskits
I said this, I think, on Bluesky and I have absolutely no reason to change my mind about it:
The Trump DOJ will attempt to have the charges dismissed against these five people.
Actually, strike that. Instead, they’ll never consider bringing federal civil rights charges against them.
Baud
@dc:
First degree murder is restricted in NY, although it seems to include torture. But it’s not an open ended standard like in other states.
RaflW
It’s not for nothing that the right wing chose trans people as their first target (though they’re now – very predictably – rampaging through any and all DEI / equity / queer / POC communities). As that letter notes, trans and gender diverse folx are around 1.4% of the population. Jews in Germany were just under 1% of the population when the Nazis operationalized their hatred as a political tool.
different-church-lady
They’re heroes, and we need to have their backs when the goons come for them.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Nukular Biskits: This is a state crime, investigated by the NY State Police (they’re decent) and in under the jurisdiction of the Ontario County DA and/or the State AG (if they’re called in).
Ontario contains a large mall that serves Rochester and the northern part is a bedroom community to Rochester. The more southern part of Ontario is the sticks. So the county government there is at least competent.
These people will be prosecuted, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the charges are upgraded to 1st Degree Murder due to torture. I’m going to guess that some of those arrested will flip. One of them is a 19 year-old woman, versus the rest being 30+, for example.
Leto
Similar to the National Park Service guy who posted about being fired, here’s a veteran who was fired from the VA. 20 year vet, combat medic, joined the VA to help vets. More and more of these stories will emerge.
Leto
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I think the oldest guy in this had already served a 10 year term for raping two children (9 and 7 at the time, iirc). Monsters doing monster things.
Barbara
@dc: I think Baud responded, but 1st degree murder in NY is reserved for things like murder for hire. They might upgrade the charges but 2nd degree is more clearly applicable until they get more evidence. I assume they will be trying to get that evidence of intent and other special circumstances by turning the perpetrators against each other.
Barbara
@Leto: It’s hard to imagine the level of depravity it takes to be so inured to someone else’s suffering.
Nukular Biskits
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Oh, I realize it’s a state crime. But, in similar cases in less hateful times, the DoJ has stepped in to file federal charges and/or outright provided assistance to state/local authorities.
I simply do not see a Trumpian DoJ doing any of that and, given the “quality” of his DoJ nominees (and the absolute spinelessness of the US Senate), I fear the worst won’t be limited to disinterest in the case.
Ohio Mom
Off topic, good news, Kevin Drum appears to be back. He posting again, complete with his signature graphs: https://jabberwocking.com
Hooray for his doctors
Barbara
@Nukular Biskits: You might be right but until it happens it’s probably not productive to worry about it. Probably more effective to support the state prosecutors as loudly as you can.
Nukular Biskits
@Barbara:
It’s posts like yours and MM2 that make me sometimes wish we had a “like” button here.
different-church-lady
@Barbara: Hard for us, sure.
different-church-lady
@Leto: Look, the guy was trying to help people, what else could Musk do?
cmorenc
@Nukular Biskits:
More likely, the Trump DOJ will ignore it as a case they have no interest in dealing with, in order to not help feed any media focus on the incident beyond just a local crime. They don’t want to inadvertently help this grow into a Matthew Shepherd sort of cause celebre. I Even as trans-bigoted as the Trump Admin and Bondi-led DOJ are, they likely realize the best tactic here is to stay out of it directly but let the violent intimidation factor directed at trans folks speak for itself via their silence on this case.
Instead, they will focus on finding some cherry-picked situations to redirect attention, situations which can be framed as someone violating restrictions against gender-affirming care attempting to pressure a confused or not entirely willing minor to go along, or else trying to facilitate a trans kid playing recreational yourh sports.
different-church-lady
@RaflW: We are going to have to totally restructure Godwin’s Law, or suspend it, or maybe even revoke it outright.
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits: Strike that too: he’ll just go right to pardons.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@different-church-lady: He was helping veterans… can’t do that, it’s DEI
/snark
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: Hell, strike that strike: he’ll give them cabinet positions.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Leto:
My God.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
“If confirmed, I promise I’ll stop
drinkingmurdering people.”NeenerNeener
And Canandaigua Lake is some of the most expensive real estate in the US. A Microsoft VP has a lake home there, or did a few years back before this latest real estate boom made cashing out so attractive.
TBone
Palate cleanser: Janey Godley does Texas Hold ‘Em
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e594eNdAWuw
Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Gamer friend of mine, one of the few who isn’t a glibertarian or rwnj, was on his 2- year probationary period at Haskell Indian Nations University. He worked hard to get the spot, is a great person, great teacher. He. Didn’t. Deserve. This. None of them did. And yet, another of the rwnj gamers from that area last week called these firings “getting rid of deadwood and corruption”. What. An. Asshole.
https://theindianleader.com/2025/02/14/haskell-indian-nations-university-faces-major-staffing-cuts-students-left-without-teachers/
His FB post:
trollhattan
@dc: Does not first degree murder cover malice aforethought? This seems like that, in spades.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@different-church-lady:
Godwin on Godwin’s Law:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/19/godwins-law-trump-hitler-00132427
Betty Cracker
@Leto: Jesus.
ArchTeryx
@different-church-lady: He can’t pardon state crimes. Since no federal charges will be brought in the first place, there’s nothing to pardon.
That won’t stop him making the murderers martyrs in the cause of the Twelve Words. Because that’s how those scumbuckets roll.
WTFGhost
I would love to know how it can be “second degree” when a person has been held for a fucking *MONTH*. I would also love to see prosecutors charge each and every one of those fuckers with obstruction of justice and failure to provide assistance, as a way of reminding people, if you don’t *SAY* anything, YOU ARE GUILTY. Not of the original crime, but of a REAL CRIME.
(*USUALLY* “Second degree” means “without premeditation”. But they’ll charge you with premeditation for PICKING UP A GUN and then immediately using it. Well – if we agree that’s “premeditation”, how does “we’re giving injuries that are expected to result in his death – we sure as fuck ain’t releasing him!” not equal premeditation?)
ETA: I welcome answers from lawyers, but, please remember I’m an educated layperson, not even a paralegal, so what seems stupid-simple to you sometimes seems like magic to me. THAT SAID: if you agree that “picking up a gun” *shouldn’t* be premeditation, call that out. That’s part of why I ask questions like this – because I see double standards that broad to me.
ArchTeryx
@different-church-lady: Godwin, all the way back in early 2016, said that Godwin’s Law does not apply if the people involved are actually using the Hitler/Nazi playbook, as the trumpanzees were. And that Trump and his unmerry Krewe absolutely qualified as straight up nazis.
Basically, if the shoe fits, the law doesn’t apply.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
A valuable lesson about people who are not your friends.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Corollary: If they openly identify as one of the enemy, believe them.
Ten Bears
What I would like to do to that crew would make the Inquisition blush …
NaijaGal
When the police say it is the worst homicide that they have *ever* investigated and there was torture *for a month* it seems incomprehensible that the charges are for second degree murder. I acknowledge that there may be a consideration by the prosecutor that getting convictions is easier when you don’t have to show premeditation but this is just horrible.
RaflW
Just heard in service this morning that my congregation in Minneapolis hosted a trans and gender-expansive pancake breakfast yesterday, and over 100 people attended. It was Valentine’s themed and also had art & creativity time as part of the morning.
A small thing, but we will continue to stand firm in the face of a coordinated hate campaign.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
It’s amazing how many people won’t believe them.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Or are secretly enemies themselves, and are smart enough not to blab it openly to everyone around them. They’re the ones I worry about more than the stupid ones. The ordinary-looking ones that will torture and murder when the right dog-whistles are issued.
ArchTeryx
@Ten Bears: I’d join you.
WTFGhost
@ArchTeryx: Friend, you are right FOR THE HATEFUL.
This is the sort of thing that turns a normal evangelical’s stomach, and causes them to shed hate. Maybe it doesn’t cause them to believe liberals DON’T have horns, and don’t eat children, but, it will cause them to shed hate. (OR, I must confess, start to love it. But only a few learn to love hate.)
I don’t want to deny your experience – not in the least. You’re right – they will be feted as heroes, but only by the *really* horrible people. Most people want trans folk to vanish – they don’t realize they’re excusing the three percent’s bloodlust, and letting it turn to murder.
(Hm? Oh, I said “three percent” not “three percenters” but… yeah, one person in thirty probably is hateful enough to turn to murder, so, yeah, “the three percent’s” is a *GOOD* expression.)
Look: I know hate better than you realize. I know how hate works, and I know how, when *you* think “everyone is hating or laughing along” there are some who are horrified into being unable to act, and some might laugh, but only because when people around you laugh, it’s hard *not* to.
This is far, far, more than those people on the edge expected, and now, a lot of them are sickened.
That said: You’re right. There are people who will consider them martyrs. But unless I’m wrong (and I have been wrong before, alas) not even Fox can polish a “5 men murder a captive” turd.
Kay
Not just the Right wing. Lots and lots of centrist pundits climbed aboard the trans panic train. Gleefully. Happily.
The NYTimes had an entire roster of anti trans opinion writers and even the stuff that was supposed to be “news” was fearmongering.
The Right had a lot of help. Remember who did it. They’ll do it again.
Kay
I’m not an expert but I did do a project on the satanic child abuse panic in the 1980s – what happened, why did the legal system fail, could it happen again.
The far Right ignites panics, but they do not reach critical mass without elite centrist and media buy in. This was a joint effort by the far Right and the rigidly conventional, secure center. It always is. Every single panic has that in common.
Leto
Syracuse.com: Missing transgender man was tortured for over a month and killed in Finger Lakes
If my previous comment seemed glib, I apologize. I read about this yesterday and just kinda went numb. They’re all monsters, and I don’t really see a difference between them and the worthless racist fucks of the now, 1930s and 1870s. It’s a continuing trend in this country and I just don’t fucking know how to make it stop, or to even stem the tide of it.
Raoul Paste
Maybe they should teach the Golden Rule in kindergarten. But I suppose that’s too “woke“ for these fake Christians
tobie
This story is beyond ghastly. We’ve reached the point of needing protection crews for our fellow citizens, beginning with trans people.
ArchTeryx
@WTFGhost: I was thinking about Trump and the Muskrats, not necessarily lay people. We’re still at the stage, I think, that just ordinary people may think it, but aren’t going to trumpet it in front of national media. The DC wrecking crew figures they can do anything they want with no consequences, so of course they’ll turn these people into martyrs and celebrate their hate. I hope they do. The more openly hateful and supportive of murder they are, the more the normies tend to get repulsed. None of what you said is invalid. I just wasn’t talking about normies.
Almost Retired
@Kay: Interesting. I pass the site of the former McMartin Preschool every day on my way to work, and that shitshow unfolded exactly as you described it.
Sister Golden Bear
@RaflW:
It’s worth remembering that the famous photo of Nazis burning books was them burning the library of Berlin’s
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft,* which was advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and provided some of the first gender-affirming healthcare for trans people.
*For years it was believed that night the Nazis also killed a trans woman, Dora Richter, who worked at the institute, but it turns out she escaped.
wolf parade
I hope the New York Times is happy with themselves, maybe a celebratory trip to Carbone is in order.
WTFGhost
@ArchTeryx: truly smart, truly *competent* people don’t carry stupid hatreds and bigotries. Alas, in a reasonably sized town, with enough bigotry, most of those people will leave to make big bucks in the big city, while the less competent fight over local corruption wealth.
Alas, today, you don’t have to be all that *competent* to be, e.g. a billionaire. In fact, the *really* smart people tend to be shut out of the gigs that bring big wealth. (Wealth, yes – and a cunning investor *could* hit the big-B, but really smart people are often bored with “investment”)
So you’ve got a lot of people who’d normally run the biggest car dealership, and have their fingers in a dozen city, state, and municipal pies, who are now hedge fund managers and thinking how NICE it would be if The South Rose Again. And they have “wealth” entirely disconnected from the means of production – they don’t have to choose “farm, factory, housing complex, mall, toxic waste dump” for a piece of land, the way you did in old style capitalism.
They can literally set money on fire, because it’s not attached to *anything* real, except “the current market price of these investments.” You’re not choosing where to use limited resources to best effect (old style capitalism): resources are effectively unlimited.
And the media is a *great* way to set money on fire.
So: yeah, Emusk should be a greedy, filthy, mine-owner in South Africa, known as a petty, corrupt, venal man who’d sell his own mom out for a 4% discount on the spot price of gold. But he got a stake, got it mixed in with some startups that already proved themselves (Paypal, Tesla), and has tens of billions he could, literally, set on fire if he wanted, but, instead, because $$$, he’s making the entire nation look like… well, like some of the old style, Apartheid White South Africans.
Ahem. I might be a genius pulling in disparate threads, but I’m more likely an ND idiot making spit-paintings with a corner of my coverlet that I frayed. Still, those are my thoughts. Probably unrelated to what you wrote, because my brain is broken now.
Sister Golden Bear
Meanwhile at least eight red states are now trying to ban trans healthcare for adults. Why it’s almost like the “poor misguided children” thing was a pretext.
Florida has already effectively banned trans healthcare for all trans people regardless of age.
Ksmiami
@Leto: destroy them all and salt the earth. Follow General Sherman’s manifesto.
Leto
@Sister Golden Bear: “America is finally being run like a business: a business acquired by private equity that’s being stripped for parts before being liquidated.”
Edit: yup, it was always a pretext. Not like they were being subtle about it, but too many people “ThE ChiLDruN!”
Professor Bigfoot
@RaflW: They’ve been Nazis (note, not NAZIs, ’cause they’re not members of the NSDAP) for a long time.
Nazi rhetoric: “Vermin! Poisoning the Blood of our Country!”
Nazi policy prescriptions: “MASS DEPORTATION NOW”
Nazi threats of political violence: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by!”
It’s been disturbing how little Americans* seem to recognize this… or the dangers inherent in putting Nazis in power, even to themselves.
The Thin Black Duke
I got nothing.
But the response ( or non response) to this atrocity will illustrate how far down the rabbit hole America has fallen.
Kay
@Almost Retired:
It was a reaction to mothers entering the workforce, deliberate by the religious Right, stupidly gone along with by centrist media and opinion.
Panics do real damage, as in this one.
The NYTimes should admit their role in this. It was blatantly obvious what was happening to observers. After the satanic panic media vowed to do better, 40 years later here we are. Again.
Sister Golden Bear
@The Thin Black Duke:
Not sure if you’re specifically referring to the murder itself, but assuming you are, there’s almost never a response from cis people to trans people being murdered.
That’s why we had to create the Transgender Day of Remembrance ourselves. Which for years was the only annual event for and by trans people — how fucked up was that. International Transgender Day of Visibility, celebrating trans people, was actually formed in reaction to that fact.
A Ghost to Most
@Raoul Paste:
They act like almost all the christians I know in WNY. Maybe you are the outlier.
bluefoot
This is so horrifying. I can’t even.
My trans nibling lives not too far from there.
I was arguing with someone I know that trans people are the thin wedge that will be used to come after everyone else who doesn’t grovel before Dear Leader and his ilk. He’s much younger than I, and doesn’t remember when AIDS was used as the wedge to go after anyone homosexual or gender non-conforming. And he doesn’t believe me when I say the people who voted for this are fully on board with the suffering it will cause. Hell, they WANT to be the perpetrators of violence and cruelty.
Starfish (she/her)
@dc: It may not have been premeditated. They might have seen a trans person and decided let’s torture this person to death. Are there hate crime laws in the state that can enhance sentences?
Geminid
Another murder, this one the assasination of Capetown imam Muhsin Hendricks. From BBC:
BBC was not yet able to confirm a report that Hendricks had just officiated at a wedding between two women.
Darkrose
@Sister Golden Bear: This year the LGBTQIA+ Center on campus called it Transgender Day of Remembrance and Rage for a reason.
YY_Sima Qian
Having lived in or adjacent to the Souther Tier region for quite a few years, I always knew it was culturally closer to Alabama, but this is utterly depraved for any society.
Gloria DryGarden
@Barbara: it’s hard to imagine.
But, there are, and have been, people who are into it.
here are some examples, hard to forget about (Trigger Warning)
There are people who get hired to use torture to interrogate and get confessions from prisoners. (There have been people..) Didn’t other countries send their people to the US to get trained in that? Wasn’t Guantanamo one of the centers for it?
Remembering the inquisition. People were hired to extract confessions, usually made up by the examining bodies. There’s a whole book of these made-up confessions, an old book, I’ve only read about it, called the malleus malleficarum.
And the recent history when German doctors and physiologists amassed the body of knowledge that is modern human physiology. (They tell you in physiology class where all this information came from. They didn’t just experiment on animals)
You know how there is a holocaust museum? To be aware of a terrible time, and terrible actions? I’ve heard there was a witch-hunt museum, as in Salem, with samples of torture devices, but they had to close it because it was so horrendous people were getting nauseated and sick in there. It’s in the oral modern folklore in certain circles, and no I didn’t fact check it.
From medieval European history, there have come stories of the village, the town, coming out to see public punishments of various sorts. Things w fire, and things like the Anne Boleyn story. People would come out in huge crowds to watch. The village, the town, etc. Also the stories of Rome, and the coliseum.
I don’t understand it. But some of these stories have been singing in the background music of my mind, and I don’t really ever forget, I just bury it, operate on top of it. The book gets closed, but it sits out there on the table.
People from certain lineages, or who’ve been through violence, or who are in marginalized groups, I think it’s just there, for some of us. Being able to forget about it sometimes, or heal from the PTSD/ chronic/ generational forms of it, that’s been a privilege. To proceed as if one is safe.
I don’t know how soldiers do what they have to do.
End dark trigger.
Go play some nice music, and if your health allows, eat eat some yummy treats
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: The courage! Omg!
@Darkrose: Day of Remembrance and Rage.
sensible name. I like that.
Liminal Owl
@Gloria DryGarden: Thank you for the excellent reminders.
Did you know that the Malleus Maleficarum was said to be the favorite book of King James I (he who commissioned the Authorized Version of the Protestant Bible)? There must be scholarship somewhere about how the kingly patron’s beliefs influenced the translation.