FORT CAMPBELL, Ky., Dec. 8 — The graphic story of the harassment and bludgeon slaying of an Army private who feared expulsion from the service for being homosexual emerged here today at a court-martial that gay rights proponents say lays bare the grave flaws in the military's ''don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue'' policy.
The 21-year-old victim, Pfc. Barry Winchell of Kansas City, Mo., was beaten to death with a baseball bat as he slept in his barracks bed early last July 5 after what fellow soldiers testified was months of vile name calling, rumor mongering and an inquiry into his private life that was supposed to be forbidden under military policy.
The court heard one of the accused, Pvt. Calvin Glover, 18, of Sulphur, Okla., enter a plea of guilty to a lesser charge of unpremeditated murder. But his trial went forward on the separate charge of premeditated murder with details unfolding on the final months of Private Winchell's life as a soldier subjected to derision.
The court of five officers and enlisted men tonight pronounced him guilty of premeditated murder, solely measuring how calculating Private Glover had been in the assault. He will be sentenced on Thursday and could face life in prison.
Witnesses testified that the victim, fearful that protesting the harassment to superiors meant risking expulsion from the service as a homosexual, had been taunted by Private Glover into a fist fight. Private Winchell won the fight handily at the end of a night of barracks drinking. But the humiliated loser, Private Glover, retaliated with a baseball bat two days later as Private Winchell slept.
In pleading guilty to the lesser charge and hoping for leniency, Private Glover accused a second defendant, Specialist Justin Fisher, 25, of Lincoln, Neb., of supplying the baseball bat and goading him into the assault.
''I was just so drunk,'' Private Glover tearfully told the court on Monday. ''I had no intent for him to die.''
The court-martial, replete with testimony about widespread drunkenness and barracks harassment and routine denunciations of Private Winchell by fellow soldiers as ''a faggot,'' ''a queer,'' and ''a homo,'' was treated by the prosecution as purely a murder trial.
The Army has made no comment on the case's possible implications for its controversial policy toward gays.
