In the early-morning hours of June 7, 2005, all was quiet at the tidy orange house of William Fenzau.
Courtesy of Lori Grande
William Fenzau and his younger sister, Lori Grande, were inseparable until his death in 2005.
C. Stiles
Tom Edwards met Fenzau in an online chat room for men seeking men.
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Usually tan, Fenzau had a sculpted physique that could have landed him modeling work, or at least a place in a David Barton Gym ad. He was almost 40, but with his dyed blond hair, smooth skin, and chiseled cheekbones, he looked much younger. The fact was he had no trouble attracting men.
Most friends described him as a gentle soul. He doted on his 5-year-old niece, taking her on trips to the pet store to buy tropical fish for the ponds he had dug in front of his house, and when he wasn't with her, it seemed like he was at Home Depot or a plant nursery, buying orchids. He had turned his home on NE 62nd Street into a tranquil oasis: There were palm trees, pink flowers, and cacti throughout the garden. A wood deck, painted white and forest green, cut through the back yard.
Fenzau hardly seemed the sort who would attract trouble, or the type who would regularly deal meth to gay men from South Beach to Fort Lauderdale.
Around 4 that June morning, a cab stopped in front of Fenzau's home. A man named Anthony Valeri stepped out. A friend of Fenzau's, he opened the front gate of the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the yard and walked to the front door.
He peered through the square stained glass on the door and then went around the side of the house to the back yard.
He crossed the wood deck, past the Jacuzzi, and turned the knob to the back door. It was unlocked. As he neared the entrance to Fenzau's bedroom, he noticed papers and shattered glass all over the floor. He took a few more steps and saw Fenzau on the ground. His head and body were soaked with blood.
Fenzau had been stabbed multiple times in the right side of his neck, chest, back, left forearm, and right hand. The attack was so brutal the medical examiner had to remove two kitchen knives embedded in Fenzau's body. One had been lodged four and a half inches into his neck. The other blade had been stuck six and a half inches into his abdomen.
For most of his life, William Fenzau had been the picture of responsibility and personal discipline. But in the past few years, he had been on a downward spiral, a chaotic jumble of reckless sex fueled by crystal meth binges that sometimes lasted for days.
His friends had changed too. Though he once socialized with college-educated types who worked white-collar jobs such as advertising, his inner circle now included a Brazilian stripper and a drug supplier who went by the street name of Mexican Ben.
But as much as his family worried about him, his murder still came as a shock.
It was a killing scripted for prime-time spectacle, which is why the Miami Police Department featured it as a case on The First 48, the popular cable television series that follows homicide investigators as they race against the clock to arrest a suspect within two days of the crime. At the end of the Fenzau episode, Miami homicide detectives zeroed in on ex-boyfriend Kevin Goode, who was formally charged with first-degree murder July 29, 2005.
The First 48 made it appear the cops had gotten their man. But even reality television can blur the fine line. One month after Goode's arrest, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, citing lack of evidence, declined to prosecute him. Four years later, Fenzau's murder remains unsolved.
Fenzau's sister, Lori Grande, blames the Miami Police Department for rushing through its investigation to look good on television. To her, the open case is a prime example of how the Miami Police's appearances on The First 48 can hamper criminal cases.
"I have a hard time dealing with the fact that the police don't tell me anything," she says. "They keep telling me it is confidential because the investigation is still open. Well, if it is confidential, then why did they let A&E film my brother's murder investigation?"
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Lori Grande sits on a patio lounge chair near the front steps to her brother's house in Miami's Upper Eastside. It is a balmy afternoon, but she finds shade next to the bushes and trees her brother nurtured. At the top step, she has set up a small shrine that includes candles, flowers, and computer printouts of photographs of him playing with her daughter, Sophie. In one image, Fenzau cradles his newborn niece. In another, they play in the sand. "Will absolutely loved his niece," Grande recalls. "She could track mud inside his house and that was OK. Anyone else, he would throw a fit. He called her his 'little blondie.' "
Ever since she was a little girl, Grande idolized her older brother.
"William stood strong in who he was," she says. "If the world didn't like that he was queer, fuck the world."
The two grew up in suburban New Jersey but relocated to Biloxi, Mississippi when Fenzau was 10. Shortly after moving to Biloxi, Fenzau's mother, Susan Lake, divorced her husband, who she says was often cruel to her son.
