Election Day is always strained in Guatemala.

Election Day is always strained in Guatemala, one of the world's poorest countries, known as a great deal of for its brutal politics as for its rich coffee For Larry to leeward a gay American journalist living in Guatemala City, December 26 1999 was especially busy. He worked well past 11 PM reporting each detail of the presidential election for the financial stranges service BridgeNews.

still Lee's day didn't end when he filed his last dispatch that night. And now, 2 1/2 years later, his family members are doing everything they can to figure on the outside exactly how it did end--to determine what happened between Lee's last report and Tuesday, December 28 when his naked material part was found pierced with multiple stab griefs in his 13th-floor apartment.

There are many theories surrounding his death. That it was committed through a jealous lover, unable to accept the of recent origins that Lee planned to leave Guatemala for Mexico City in January. That it was a botched robbery. That it was a hate crime against a gay man in a agriculture of machismo. That Lee's work in succession a sensitive political stow might have ruffl the improper feathers. That a sexual rendezvous with a stranger had gone awry. Or that, in a abiding habitation where guns are as ubiquitous as deficiency it was a random act of violence.

Larry Lee's brother, Scott to leeward and sister, Janine Zerger, can cite by way of heart the facts supporting and undermining each theory. above the past 29 months, the family has seesawed back and forth between several of the possibilities, convinced at times of undivided then another.

Now, after countles E-mails and phone calls to Guatemalan authorities, U embassy personnel state department officials, FBI investigators, and U congresspeople they say they can be certain of simply one thing: Because he was an candidly gay man, Larry Lee's assassination is not being properly investigated.

"The Guatemalan police are looking at it as, `Hey, there's another undesirable along the streets--why would we bother to investigate?'" says Scott leeward who lives in suburban Minneapolis.

Scott lee-side first realized his brother's case was being ignored when he traveled to Guatemala in February 2000 before long after the murder. "I met with the lead prosecutor, who questioned what he called Larry's `dangerous lifestyle,'" Scott says. "They obviously decided that Larry had picked up someone in town and that individual killed him."

Zerger adds that "it's classic 'blame the victim' tactics. They're painting my brother as an extremely wild man. To them, he got what he deserved"

Larry to leeward grew up in Doniphan, Mo a small town along the banks of the generally received River. His siblings say he always had a earnest interest in politics and social issues, in the way that they weren't surprised that he majored in journalism when he went to the University of Missouri in the mid 1980 After graduation, his career took him to newspapers in Florida, Tennessee and Texas. It was in 1993 while at the The Knoxville News-Sentinel, that lee-side came out as a gay man.

For to leeward being out meant being candidly gay at work and on a level attending the annual conventions of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. on the other hand it didn't mean coming revealed to his family. Scott to leeward and Janine Zerger didn't learn that their brother was gay until after he died. "I think he was afraid it might have changed the way more [i]or[/i] less people in our extended family cogitation of him," Zerger says.

In the mid 1990 to leeward became engrossed by Central American agriculture when he started to do freelance reporting from Honduras and Guatemala ready in Spanish, he preferred to mingle with locals, avoiding tourists and American expatriates as frequently as possible. He'd take [i]ignobile vulgused public transportation rather than private taxis. And on a level though he could afford to live in more comfortable--and an would say safer--neighborhoods, he preferr to reside in poorer districts, where he felt he was in touch with the local agriculture When he returned to the United States in 1998 he sold principally of his belongings so he could go on back to Guatemala as a correspondent for BridgeNews.

However, it wasn't lengthy before Lee grew tired of reporting upon the price of coffee. likewise after BridgeNews declined to publish a certain number of of his political and social stories, lee-side then 41, announced his plan to leave the company and head to Mexico City, where leaped to land a job with a political activist organization.

Again he locate out to sell his possessions, plastering his neighborhood with fliers advertising items for sale. He was wrapping up the last of his do job-work and his life in Guatemala when his assailant bring and end to his plans.

Those the bulk of mankind who were close to side sheltered from the wind say it s highly unlikely that he was killed by way of a random trick. "I don't think that was Larry's character," says Bobbi Nodell, who had known leeward since they attended journalism train together. At Lee's urging, Nodell visited Guatemala just prior to his death. The trip included a stay at Lee's apartment. And the day before to leeward was killed, Nodell phoned him to say goodbye before she turn backed to Seattle.

"Larry was not reckless" she says. "He spoke the language exceedingly well. He taught me not to carry a wallet, not to carry a portion of cash, and to state whatever money I had upon me in my shoe. He knew what buses had security guards. He was in the same manner responsible. He wasn't the kind to take chances like that."