Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 7, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, September 14, 1990 Page: 3 of 36
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This Week
NEWS 3
AIDS Resource Center arsonist con-
victed, sentenced, Evidence that gay
Dallasiles are 'relapsing' into unsafe
sexual behavior; More.
FOCUS 7
A continuation of our series on the
Gay and Lesbian Vote ’90- The
Midwest.
HEALTH 9
A reprint of the government’s recently
released report on hyperthermia as a
treatment for AIDS and KS.
CALENDAR 14
Events scheduled over the next 10
days, including Texas Freedom Festi-
val events; Announcements; Enter
tainment listings; Sports Notes;
Letters.
LIFESTYLE 23
Dallasites are planning to attend Gay
Ski Week in Aspen this January —
and you’re invited!
FILM 24
An interview with Whit Stillman,
filmmaker of ‘Metropolitan’; and a
review of the film.
GOSSIP 29
Heda's school days were not quite the
conventional sort!
DALLAS
VOICE
THE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
FOR GAY AND LESBIAN DALLAS
©1990 VOICE PUBLISHING CO.. INC.
521-3230 521-3239
ADVERTISING NEWS
Robert Moore Dennis Vercher
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR EDITOR
Tim Self Tammye Nash
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
John Bode
GRAPHIC ARTIST
Lee Lynch Heda Quote
Jerry Garrett David Taffet
Allen Smalling Ivor Davis
Steve Tracy Steve Warren
Cliff O'Neill Dell Richards
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Gabriel Vangelys James Crook
PHOTOGRAPHER CIRCULATION
New York Times Syndication Sales Co.. Inc.
SYNDICATION
Don Ritz
CONTROLLER
DIRECT CORRESPONDENCE TO:
DALLAS VOICE
2525 WYCLIFF AVENUE. SUITE 123
DALLAS. TX 75219
Paid advertising copy represents the ctaim(s) of the
advertiser False or misleading information should be brought
to the attention of the Director of Advertising
The Dalles Voice reserves the right to make its own
independent judgment as to the suitability of advertising copy,
illustrations and/or photographs
Unsolicited,manuscripts are welcomed and we will exercise
care in their handling We cannot, however, guarantee their
safe return
\News
Biddy convicted of setting
fire at Resource Center
ALSO CONVICTED ON OTHER ARSON AND BURGLARY COUNTS
By TAMMYE NASH
A jury this week convicted Dale
/% Wesley Biddy on four counts
/ % of arson — one of which in-
JL JL.volved the February 1989 fire
which destroyed the AIDS Resource
Center and several businesses in the
3900 block of Cedar Springs Road —
and one count of burglary. The jury
handed down the verdict after hearing
three days of testimony and deliberating
for slightly more than 45 minutes.
Following the guilty verdicts, the
jury sentenced Biddy to 20 years in
prison on the burglary charge and 99
years in prison on each of the four ar-
son charges, and assessed a $10,000 fine
■on each charge.
Although Biddy confessed last sum-
mer to setting a number of fires and
committing burglaries in Dallas, Farmers
Branch and Irving — through signed
Clinic Celebration
statements given to police and in letters
of apology sent to the Dallas Voice and
to the owner of one business he had
burglarized — he entered a plea of not
guilty by reason of insanity. When he
took the stand in his trial, Biddy alter-
nately denied or claimed not to remem-
ber having committed the burglary or
arsons. He also said he did not recall
writing either letter of apology. He said
police officers forced him to write and
sign the confessions.
“They told me I couldn’t leave until
I gave it [the confessions] to them, so I
did it,” Biddy said during cross-examina-
tion by prosecutor Dennis Jones.
“You wrote down exactly what they
wanted you to write down, then you
signed it?" Jones asked, to which Biddy
replied, “Yes, sir.”
While being questioned by his
Jean Nelson, mother of the late Bill Nelson, cuts the ribbons to
herald the opening of the newly-remodeled Nelson-Tcbedo Com-
munity Clinic for AIDS Research. The clinic, located at 4012 Cedar
Springs, held a reception Sunday to celebrate the renovated facili-
court-appointed attorney Paul Wisdom,
Biddy repeatedly insisted he had no
psychiatric disorders, saying that admit-
ting to mental problems would mean
being forced to take medication he did
not want to take. But he told the jury
“I’ve tried suicide four times. I’m afraid
of pain; if I could find an easy way out,
I’d take it. “
Breaking into tears, Biddy added, “I
know that if I’m sent to prison without
some kind of [psychiatric] treatment I
won’t survive.” He said that while he
has been incarcerated in Lew Sterrett
Justice Center since being arrested last
June, nurses in the jail had forced him
to take medication he did not want or
need by “taking all my property from
me, all my clothes, and putting me in a
cold cell with no bed or blanket. I took
the medication so I could get my stuff
back. I don’t like being treated like
that.”
Although he became emotional sev-
eral times while being questioned by his
own attorney, Biddy became haughty
and sarcastic during Jones’ cross-exami-
nation. After Biddy had denied having
set the AIDS Resource Center fire and
Jones had read aloud Biddy’s signed
statement in which he admitted setting
the fire and taking several thousand dol-
lars’ worth of equipment from the Re-
source Center, Jones asked, “And now
you’re denying having set that fire? Now
you’re saying you didn’t do it.”
“I told you I don’t remember,” Bid-
dy answered coldly. “Would you con-
fess to something you don’t remember
doing?”
The only witness brought to the
stand by the defense, other than Biddy
himself, was the defendant’s mother,
Dixie Biddy, who told the jury that her
son had a history of psychiatric prob-
lems and had once been confined in a
straightjacket in a hospital in Victoria,
Texas. She said she had taken him out
of the Victoria hospital against doctors’
advice, and had been financially unable
to obtain psychiatric treatment for her
son.
“I believe he’s mentally ill,” Mrs.
Biddy said. “I don’t think he knows
what he’s doing is wrong.”
As District Judge Tom Price pointed
out in his instructions to the jury, in any
criminal case it is the duty of the prose-
cution to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that the defendant committed the
crimes with which he is charged. How-
ever, in a case where the defendant has
entered an insanity plea, it is up to the
defendant and his counsel to prove that
he was, at the time of the crime, insane.
Legally, insanity means having a severe
mental disorder which keeps one from
knowing the difference between right
and wrong.
The prosecution brought in a pa-
rade of police and fire department offi-
cials and two court-appointed psychia-
trists, along with Maher Maso, the
owner of Computer Designs, the busi-
ness which Biddy was convicted of bur-
glarizing; an employee of Video Techni-
cal Institutes, to whom Biddy sold the
computer equipment stolen from Com-
3
THE DALLAS VOICE ▼ SEPTEMBER 14, 1990
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Vercher, Dennis. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 7, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, September 14, 1990, newspaper, September 14, 1990; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth615959/m1/3/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.