God help any of us if the police can use this kind of "evidence" to make us a suspect in a murder: 'Suddenly, the very qualities that had endeared Joe to his c

God help any of us if the police can use this kind of "evidence" to make us a suspect in a murder: 'Suddenly, the very qualities that had endeared Joe to his community — his demonstrativeness, his warmth, his volubility — were cast in a different light. “Homo tendencies?” one investigator jotted down during an interview. Similar observations were scrawled in notebooks and on scraps of paper that litter the case file: “He gay?” “Feminine acting.” “Absolutely no homosexual advances but Joe is a ‘toucher’ when talking to people.” “Joe would bake pies & cook etc rather than fish, play poker.” One theory that investigators entertained was that Joe killed Mickey because she had discovered his dark secret.'