Teen says he killed friend out of self-hate

By Barbara Dozetos

SUMMARY: A 17-year-old boy in Texas says he killed a 14-year-old boy he was in an intimate relationship with because he hated himself for being gay.

A 17-year-old boy in Texas says he killed a 14-year-old boy he was in an intimate relationship with because he hated himself for being gay.

Jon Paul Marsh is charged with beating Nathan Mayoral to death on March 20. At Marsh's bail hearing this week, Harris County Detective Ben Beall read a transcript of Marsh's confession. "It was the last thing keeping me hating myself," Beall read from Marsh's statement.

Beall told the judge that Marsh had described growing up in a home where homosexuality was condemned. The detective said the boy described himself as "an abomination." According to the Houston Chronicle, Marsh's father wept openly in the courtroom as Beall spoke.

According to the transcript Beall read, Marsh had begun to hate himself because of the relationship with Mayoral, which he described as consensual. Marsh's mother, Betty, said she and her husband, Jon, had talked with their son about his homosexuality, but they didn't know he was in a relationship with Mayoral.

Responding to Marsh's statement that the relationship with Mayoral was consensual, the victim's father, Tony Mayoral, told the Chronicle, "I don't feel like Nathan was a willing participant, or he'd still be alive today. Whether he was or he wasn't, I love him still the same."

Mayoral's parents say their son had a girlfriend. "I know he liked girls," the boy's father told the Chronicle.

Marsh was released on $75,000 bail July 2. He has been certified to stand trial as an adult, although he was 16 when the killing took place.

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