A judge yesterday [6/21/2004] declared a mistrial in the 2002 killing of Gwen Araujo (born Edward), a transgender teenager who was brutally beaten to death, then buried in the Sierra foothills after partygoers discovered that their woman friend was transgendered.
Judge Harry Sheppard declared the jury “hopelessly deadlocked” after the jury foreman told him the panel of eight men and four women have been “unable to pass over the point of reasonable doubt. In my personal opinion, further deliberations would not yield a verdict.”