Philadelphia Gay News Honesty Integrity Professionalism
Mar. 27 - Apr. 2, 2009
Vol. 33 No. 13
Former area newsman murdered after Internet tryst By Jen Colletta PGN Staff Writer
A radio broadcaster who grew up in the Philadelphia area was murdered last weekend in his New York City apartment. Police found the body of George Weber, 47, who had been stabbed dozens of times, on the morning of March 22 after a fellow staffer at ABC News Radio, where Weber worked as a freelance anchor, grew concerned when he did not show up for work. Police arrested 16-year-old John Katehis of Queens for the murder in upstate New York earlier this week. Paul Browne, New York Police Department spokesman, said Katehis had been hiding out in Middletown, N.Y., where police apprehended him at about 11 p.m. March 24. Browne said police have not determined a motive but that Katehis “has made statements implicating himself.” Katehis told police he answered an ad that Weber had placed on Craigslist.com requesting a partner in “rough sex.” The pair met up on the night of March 20 in Brooklyn and went to Weber’s apartment, where the two drank vodka and inhaled cocaine together, the suspect told police. Browne said the murder took place sometime after 6 p.m. “[Katehis] met the victim online through Craigslist and they met up at the victim’s
Jones contacted apartment, where police again later that he was stabbed morning and they approximately 50 returned, this time times in the neck, the entering the apartment upper torso and arms and finding the murder and the victim also had scene. defensive wounds on “We are shocked his hands,” Browne described. and deeply saddened Police found Weber by the death of our in his bedroom, halfcolleague and friend naked, with his feet George Weber, who bound together by duct was the victim of what tape. police have deemed a Although the teen homicide at his home admitted to stabbing in Brooklyn,” Jones Weber, he said he said in a statement. “blanked out” during “Our condolences GEORGE WEBER (RIGHT) AND and prayers go out to the attack. NEW YORK MAYOR MICHAEL George’s family and According to some BLOOMBERG AP Photo/ABC News Radio news reports, Katehis friends at this very said Weber initially difficult time.” brandished a knife at him, but Browne said Weber had worked at WABC-AM in New he could not comment on that allegation. York as a news reporter for several popular Katehis allegedly attempted to clean up shows, such as “Curtis and Kuby,” but the after the murder and left the water running station let him go last year amid budget in both the bathtub and a sink. cuts. Since then, Weber had done freelance work for the national network. The murder weapon has not been found. Weber described on his Web site that he’d ABC News Radio vice president Steve Jones contacted police at about 12:30 a.m. been fascinated with radio since a young March 24 after Weber failed to report for age, “so much so I took over the basement work the previous night and did not answer of my parents’ home to set up a makeshift his home phone. Police were dispatched radio station.” He landed his first position in the field at to Weber’s apartment but left after finding nothing suspicious. age 15 at the Centennial School District’s
WCSD-FM in Warminster. According to his site, while still in high school, Weber “talked [his] way” into a job at WBUX in Doylestown, a position he held for about three years before he accepted a job as a news reporter at WAEB in Allentown. Weber spent about two-and-a-half years at the station but left for a station in Denver in 1985. Prior to moving to New York, Weber also worked at stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. On his Web site, Weber compiled a list of his most memorable radio moments, which included a brief encounter with former President Jimmy Carter during his days at his school’s radio station; the San Francisco Earthquake of 1989 and the Oklahoma City bombing. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, ranked first on Weber’s list. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who used to host a weekly radio show on WABC to which Weber contributed, said Weber was a consummate professional. “George was the kind of professional who could give you the news and his views without one getting in the way of the other,” Bloomberg said. “On or off the air, and especially during our commercial breaks, his views were incisive and insightful. He will be missed by millions of radio listeners, including me.” ■ Jen Colletta can be reached at jen@epgn. com.
Vt. Senate OKs gay-marriage bill The Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. — The northeastern state of Vermont has moved a step closer to becoming one of the few U.S. states where same-sex marriage is legal. The Vermont Senate gave its final stamp of approval to a bill that would allow gay couples to marry in the state. Lawmakers passed the measure on Tuesday in a voice vote with no debate. Now the issue moves to the state House, where a committee has scheduled a week’s worth of testimony on the bill. “It provides ... gay and lesbian couples the same rights that I have as a married heterosexual,” said Sen. John Campbell, vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and chief sponsor of the bill. The measure would replace
Vermont’s first-in-the-nation civilunions law with one that allows marriage of same-sex partners beginning Sept. 1. Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, announced during a press conference March 25 that he would veto the bill if it reaches his desk. “Because I believe that by removing any uncertainty from my decision we can move more quickly beyond this debate, I am announcing I intend to veto this legislation when it reaches my desk,” Douglas said. The legislation would need a two-thirds vote in each house to override the governor’s veto. If approved, Vermont would join northeastern neighbors Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only U.S. states that allow gays and lesbians to marry. The committee approval last
Friday ended an intense week highlighted by a public hearing last Wednesday night in which more than 500 people swarmed the Statehouse to speak for and against allowing same-sex marriages. Civil unions, which confer some rights similar to marriage, would still be recognized but no longer granted after Sept. 1. Campbell said marriage is an improvement over civil unions both substantively and as a matter of wording. On the first score, he said, marriage is more widely legally recognized than civil unions. If a couple from Vermont got into an accident in Kansas, a spouse likely would have a stronger claim to hospital visitation rights if they were married than if they were in a
RAINBOW WARRIORS: Organizers of the University of Pennsylvania’s 2009 QPenn Week sported their LGBT pride during the kickoff party of the annual LGBT Awareness Week March 22 at the Fox Art Gallery. QPenn supplement editors Curtis Rogers (from left), Phil Shecter and Paul Richards (back row, right), who helped design a multi-page LGBT supplement to the university’s student newspaper, gathered with QPenn secretary Tyler Ernst (back row, left), co-chairs Paul Richards (center) and Katherine Atkinson and publicity chair Marianne Mondt. QPenn Week See MARRIAGE, Page 15 activities will continue until March 29. Photo: Scott A. Drake