Around 12:30AM on this date in 2006 in the trailer home of a white woman, Patricia Wells, 45, in New Port Richey, Florida, a man wearing a gas mask slashed her in the face, arms, and hand with a knife after she opened her door, and then fatally stabbed Kristofer King, 17. Mr. King—who was spending the night at the home of Ms. Wells and her openly gay son, Brandon Wininger, 18, who was not home at the time of the attack—was taken off life support at the Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, on March 24, 2006, after he was declared brain dead. Several people—including Patricia Wells; Charlene Bricken (Mr. King’s mother); a criminal defense witness for the accused killer (Samantha Troupe); the accused killer himself (self-proclaimed neo-Nazi John Allen Ditullio, Jr.); and, a former member of the neo-Nazi group that Ditullio belonged to at the time of Mr. King’s murder (David Dirolf)—have said that the attack was a hate crime based on race and perceived sexual orientation. Dirolf, for example, said in an interview with the New York Times that he believed Mr. King was stabbed because he had been mistaken for Ms. Wells’ openly gay son (the two teens were friends). Ms. King was believed to have been targeted because she had an African-American boyfriend and black friends who visited her home. A group of neo-Nazis who lived and hung out in a trailer near the Teak Street home of Patricia Wells repeatedly harassed her for having a black boyfriend and her son for being gay. As one example, on March 7, 2006, Brian “Zero” Buckley, the leader of the Teak Street American Nazis, broke into Wells’ home after chasing her and banging down her door. Also, David Dirolf, 21, told the press that he had heard members of the neo-Nazi group he once belonged to—a group he quit three months before Mr. King’s murder—threaten Ms. Wells and her son on several occasions. Immediately after the attacks on Mr. King and Ms. Wells, John Allen Ditullio, Jr., 20, was arrested on unrelated charges of aggravated domestic battery, assault and witness tampering for allegedly beating his girlfriend and forcing her to say to his friends, “I am a race-traitor slut.” One Christmas after the killing of Kristofer King, John A. Ditullio, Jr., sent a letter to Mr. King’s parents that read: “I hope your Christmas is full of memories of your dead gay son. Merry fucking Christmas.” On December 9, 2009, at Ditullio’s trial, Cory Patnode, 30—who was the treasurer of the Teak Street American Nazi group in New Port Richey at the time of Mr. King’s slaying and who was a roommate of John Ditullio, Jr. at the time—testified that Ditullio told him “word for word, ‘I killed them. I killed them both. I stabbed them in the face.’” Patnode also testified that he and the other neo-Nazis at the Teak Street compound were upset about Ms. Wells and her gay son living close to them, that he, Ditullio, other neo-Nazi members had hurled insults at Ms. Wells and Mr. Wininger, and that Ditullio slashed Mr. King’s car tires just before midnight on March 22, 2006. Jurors also heard a DNA analyst testify that Ms. Wells’ blood was found on a boot Ditullio was wearing when he was taken into custody shortly after the stabbings. Charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and wearing make-up to cover tattoos on his face and neck of barbed wire, a swastika and the words “Fuck You,” Ditullio, 23, testified at his trial on December 10, 2009, that he attempted to join the Teak Street American Nazi group in 2006, at the age of 20, which was headquartered in a New Port Richey trailer located at 9321 Teak Street in the Griffin Park trailer park, just two homes away from Ms. Wells’ home (in reality, Ditullio was a actually low-ranking member of the neo-Nazi group at the time of the attacks on Ms. Wells and Mr. King). Ditullio claimed another neo-Nazi member, Shawn Plott, committed the crimes against Mr. King and Ms. Wells; and, Ditullio told the jury at his trial in December, 2009, that at the time of the attacks he was passed out in the neo-Nazi headquarters trailer after drinking whiskey spiked with the tranquilizer Xanax. (Shawn Plott who was 33 years old at the time of Mr. King’s murder and who was the head of the Teak Street neo-Nazi group is currently a fugitive). On December 11, 2009, Samantha Troupe testified that Shawn Plott had told her that he committed the crimes against Mr. King and Ms. Wells. Hours later a mistrial was declared in the case against John Allen Ditullio, Jr., who faced the death penalty had he been convicted of murder; ten of the twelve jurors voted to acquit Ditullio. No hate crime charges were ever filed. Patricia Wells and her son Brandon Wininger moved from their trailer immediately after the attack and did not return. A retrial for Ditullio is scheduled to take place in March, 2010.

Parishioners at Our Lady of the Snow in Westwood, California (Lassen County) got a shocking taste of hate on this date in 2007 as they arrived for Friday morning mass. They found a four-foot burnt cross in front of the carport of the Catholic church's rectory. The church's priest, Father Bernardin, who is from Rawanda and unaware that cross-burning has been used by the Ku Klux Klan for decades in this country to intimidate Blacks, apparently did not grasp the cross's significance. Parishioners, however, did and the police were contacted. Arrested a short time later were Kevin William Ridenour, 21, and Nicholas Edward Craig, 18, both of Westwood. At the Saturday evening mass, just one day after the incident, Father Bernardin asked everyone to pray for the two men who had been accused of burning the cross. Ridenour and Craig were both convicted and sentenced to time in federal prison for their hate crime.

In Elmira, New York, on this date in 2007 Joseph Loudenslager, III, 20, and Justin Edwards, 21, both of Elmira, were found guilty of third-degree assault in a Chemung County courtroom in a case that involved the attack of Jaimie Briggs, a gay man, on October 18, 2006, on Water Street in Elmira. Edwards was also found guilty of attempted assault in the case, but both defendants were cleared of attempted second-degree assault as a hate crime and third-degree assault as a hate crime. Judge James Hayden presided over the trial.

In San Francisco, California, on this date in 2007, Joseph Melcher, 25, had hate crime allegations added to his previous charges of three counts of murder. Melcher, who is white, wounded two Asians and murdered three Asians in the city's Japantown area—one victim was shot to death near Peace Plaza on August 27, 2006, while walking home after playing Monopoly with friends, and two other victims were killed on October 21, 2006, inside and near The Flow, a bar at 1704 Post Street. Melcher is alleged to have committed the murders and attempted murders because of the victims' race. Robert Stanford, 21, of San Francisco, Song Sun Lee, 34, of San Bruno, California, and Kam Yan Li, 22, of San Francisco, were all shot to death, and Melcher apparently knew none of the victims. On May 6, 2009, Joseph Melcher, 27, testified during his trial in the San Francisco Superior Court that he was not in San Francisco in August, 2006, and that he only went to The Flow bar in October, 2006, after the shooting had taken place. Although he was acquitted of hate crime charges, Joseph Melcher, 27, was found guilty on May 13, 2009, of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

On this date in 2008, in Newton, New Jersey, Rebecca Kinney, 41, was charged with fourth-degree bias intimidation. She stands accused of displaying a Confederate flag and a sign stating, "KKK Have a Nice Day" after she argued with John Evans, who is black and who lives in the same boarding house. If convicted, Kinney could receive eighteen months in prison.

In North Seattle, Washington on this date in 2008, Jason Roan, 28, and Richard Miles, 46, both white men from Seattle, were arrested and charged with malicious harassment (Washington's hate crime law), second-degree assault, and first-degree robbery for allegedly attacking a black man in his twenties with a beer bottle and kicking him after being knocked to the ground at a bus stop at the busy corner of North 85th Street and Aurora Avenue North, and for allegedly stealing the victim's mobile phone. Along with several eye-witnesses, the victim, who was taken to Harborview Medical Center for his injuries after passing out, reported to police that Roan used racial slurs during the alleged robbery and assault.