Daniel Dano Fetty

Daniel Fetty (1966 - October 2, 2004) was a hearing-impaired, homeless gay man in Waverly, Ohio. On
October 2, 2004, he was attacked by Martin Baxter, Matthew Ferman, and James Trent Jr. Fetty was
beaten with bricks, bottles, boards, stripped naked and thrown into a dumpster. Fetty died in a
hospital 12 hours after being found by police. His murder was prosecuted as a hate crime.
Daniel Fetty, 38, became homeless when his apartment was destroyed by fire. At the time he was
attacked, Fetty was living in his car.
He had begun working at Emmitt House, a local bar and restaurant, to save money for a new
apartment.
On Friday, October 2, 2004 Fetty went to the Canal Pub in Waverly, Ohio. Baxter, 28, and Ferman, 22,
were there as well. Ferman got into an argument with Fetty, accusing Fetty of stealing a pack of
cigarettes that he'd left on a table, with money stuck under the cellophane. Outside the bar, Ferman
was nicer to Fetty, even offering to sell him some marijuana.
Once outside, Ferman led Fetty across the street, to a parking lot behind a building, where he hit
Fetty over the head with a beer bottle.

Ferman later said that Trent hit Fetty with a stick after he fell to the ground. Trent, 19, later
told police that he was walking by when he heard Baxter call to him. Baxter then showed him Fetty,
nude and unconscious in the garbage bin, and jumped up and down on Fetty while Ferman poked him with
a piece of wood.
Plea agreements for Ferman, Baxter, and Trent would ultimately prevent the details of the attack
from being fully revealed in court. However, Fetty's mother – Juanita Meek – would speak at
Baxter's plea hearing, and catalog her son's injuries
“You put out both his eyes, broke his nose, knocked out his teeth, broke his Adam’s apple, broke
his neck, broke all but one of his ribs and punctured his heart and lungs.”