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Printed March 3, 2001
By TAD DICKENS
THE ROANOKE TIMES
The man accused of shooting to death one man and wounding six others in the Backstreet Cafe in September refers to himself as a "Christian Soldier working for my Lord," and condemns homosexuals in a rambling, nearly indecipherable letter to The Roanoke Times.
"When I am gone another will take my place," Ronald E. Gay writes in the letter the newspaper received Friday.
Gay does not implicate himself in the shootings at the predominantly gay and lesbian nightspot. Still, he says of homosexuals that "their meeting places and bars will be destroyed with them" if they don't move to "their city," San Francisco.
"Well that's just lovely," a clearly frustrated Roanoke Assistant Public Defender Roger Dalton said Friday when told of the letter.
Dalton said that a psychiatrist hired by Gay's family examined him in February. The analyst is still working on his evaluation, which Dalton expects soon.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney John McNeil said they had never heard Gay refer to himself as a Christian soldier. Gay's statement to detectives after his arrest, however, had "religious undertones," McNeil said.
"That will come out in court," said McNeil, who declined to elaborate.
Gay, 55, faces trial the week of May 21 for first-degree murder, six counts of aggravated malicious wounding and seven firearms charges. Police say he has confessed to slaying 43-year-old Danny Lee Overstreet and shooting six other Backstreet customers that night.
The native Canadian -- a naturalized U.S. citizen and Vietnam veteran -- has been jailed without bail since his arrest shortly after the shootings. He faces seven terms of 20 years to life on the murder and wounding charges, and at least 40 years on the firearms charges.
Police say Gay was angry over what his name had come to mean, and humiliated that three of his sons had changed their last name.
In the letter, he focuses on his perception of gays' moral flaws, and faults The Roanoke Times for leaving out those flaws in its four-part "Living Gay" series about gays and lesbians in the Roanoke Valley.
He accuses homosexuals of engaging in pedophilia and promiscuity and other sexually deviant behavior.
"Jesus does not want these people in his heaven," Gay writes.
Of gay "meeting places and bars," Gay writes that God prefers they be "burnt to kill" the AIDS virus, "or slow it down."
Tad Dickens can be reached at 981-3236 or tadd@roanoke.com
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