Isimemen Etute acquitted of charges in murder of gay man posing as a woman

Former Virginia Tech football player Isimemen Etute, who beat a gay man to death last year, was recently acquitted of murder charges by a Virginia court after he claimed that he felt “violated” because the victim posed as a woman on a dating app.

Etute, who was 18 when the incident took place, had met 40-year-old Jerry Paul Smith on Tinder, where Smith pretended to be a 21-year-old emergency room doctor named Angie Renee.

After connecting on the dating app, Etute met Smith on April 10, 2021, when Smith performed oral sex on the former football player.

Also read | How US schools reacted to the Uvalde shooting

However, Etute, as per his testimony, felt in his “gut” that something wasn’t right with Smith, and went back to the 40-year-old’s apartment on May 31 with two teammates to try and ascertain his gender.

While Etute’s teammates did not go into Smith’s apartment with him, the former football player pulled off Smith’s hoodie and found that he was, in fact, a man.

“I felt violated,” Etute told the court, recalling his feelings when he found out that Smith had duped him on Tinder.

“I was just in shock, in disbelief that someone tricked me and lied to me,” the 19-year-old further said during the three-day trial that began on May 25 this year.

Also read | Oklahoma festival shooting: 1 dead, 7 injured in Memorial Day event in Taft

Etute went on to claim that Smith tried to attack him after he pulled off the latter’s hoodie. He also claimed that Smith tried to reach for something, which Etute thought was a gun. The incident led to a physical confrontation between the two, in which Etute beat Smith to death. The then 18-year-old was subsequently charged with second degree murder.

While the former football player told the jury that he had only punched Smith some five or six times, experts testified that the beating, contrary to Etute’s claims, was extensive and left all the bones in Smith’s face fractured.

Although the prosecution conceded that the “brutal beating” of Smith met the level of malice required for a second degree murder conviction, Etute’s lawyers argued that the former football player was the victim.

Also read | Uvalde school shooting: Why police officials had a delayed response

“Who is the real victim here?,” Etute’s lawyer Jimmy Turk asked the jury during the trial, painting Smith as a “deceitful and dishonest man” who “defrauded young men for his own sexual gratification.”

While Virginia, last year, had passed a law banning the gay and trans panic defence that allowed defendants in murder cases to attribute their actions to the “panic” felt upon the discovery of an LGBTQ+ person’s identity, the court hearing Etute’s case ruled that the law was not applicable to the football player as his altercation with Smith had taken place prior to the law’s passage.

Ultimately, after nearly three hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted Etute on May 27.