by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

An attorney representing a man charged with murdering a Roman Catholic priest in the bedroom of a church rectory in Germantown, Md., last June stunned a packed courtroom Tuesday when he told the jury the priest provoked his client into a rage by pressuring him to perform oral sex.

Defendant Robert Lucas, 26, a drifter and part-time tree trimmer, fatally stabbed Monsignor Thomas Wells, 56, pastor of the Mother Seton Catholic Church, after Wells’s sexual advances prompted Lucas to experience "anger, shame, and humiliation," according to Brian D. Shefferman, the Montgomery County assistant public defender.

"And that is not murder," Shefferman told the jury in his opening arguments at his client’s trial in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Montgomery County police have charged Lucas with first-degree murder, robbery, and burglary in connection with Wells’s death. Deputy State’s Attorney Katherine Winfree, one of two prosecutors in the case, said authorities have evidence to show Lucas stole personal belongings from Wells, including religious coins, a watch, and more than $800 in cash. She said the government would prove its case that Lucas is guilty of murder and robbery "to an absolute and scientific certainty," the Washington Post quoted her as saying.

"We can’t tell you why Robert Lucas did these terrible things," the Post quoted the prosecutor as saying.

Experts familiar with gay-related murder cases have labeled the type of defense employed by attorney Shefferman as a "homosexual panic defense." Gay activists who monitor anti-gay violence say prosecutors sometimes have trouble responding to this type of defense. In many cases, activists have said, defendants use the homosexual panic defense to conceal premeditated schemes aimed at gaining the trust of their gay victim by pretending they are gay. When the victim invites them inside his home, activists have said, the perpetrator assaults and sometimes kills the victim to facilitate a robbery.

When arrested and charged in such cases, the perpetrators often use the homosexual panic defense to deflect the blame from them to the victim, activists have said. Gay activists familiar with cases like these say the prosecutor often fails to obtain a conviction from a jury unless he or she convinces the jury that the defendant engaged in a scheme to mislead the victim into thinking the perpetrator was gay and was willing to engage in sexual relations.

In the case of Father Wells’s murder, friends, church leaders, and law enforcement officials have given no indication that Wells was gay. On the day following Shefferman’s allegation that Wells sought out sexual relations with Lucas, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington released a statement saying the developments in the trial were making it hard for parishioners and Wells’s loved ones to cope due to "accusations against his integrity."

Parishioners found Wells’s body June 8, 2000, in the bedroom of the church rectory where he lived after he failed to show up for a Mass over which he was scheduled to preside. Police initially declined to provide any details in the case and refused to speculate on a motive for the slaying. Law enforcement officials subsequently said robbery appeared to be the motive, noting that a ground-level window of the rectory had been broken and the rectory had been ransacked.

In his opening arguments Tuesday, Shefferman said that on the night of the murder, Lucas, who has a drug and alcohol abuse problem, had been drinking heavily at a bar located near the Mother Seton Church rectory. Shefferman told the jury Lucas wandered by the rectory in a drunken stupor and tried to force his way inside to use a bathroom. According to Shefferman, Lucas mistook the rectory for an office. Shefferman said Wells heard the noise Lucas was making and invited him inside. Wells was wearing underwear at the time, Shefferman said.

Once inside, Wells engaged Lucas in conversation and gave him a beer, the attorney said. A short time later, Wells asked Lucas if he was interested in sexual relations with a man, and Lucas said "no," Shefferman said. Shefferman said that when Lucas knelt to pray, Wells exposed himself and made sexual advances. This triggered expressions of shock, anger, and fear, the attorney said. It also prompted Lucas to pull out a folding knife he routinely carried for his tree trimming work. "He’s not thinking, he’s just reacting," Shefferman said, adding that "He has no idea how many times he stabbed him. … It’s a nightmare."

Police found Wells’s body on the floor beside his bed. He was nude from the waist down, a witness testified at the trial. The area around his body was covered in blood, and his blood-soaked underwear had been tossed across the room, said prosecutor Katherine Winfree.

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This article appeared in the issue of:
May 25, 2001