Donald Fishel Murder Site

Abstract
Date of Death – October 2, 1980 (afternoon). Donald Fishel, age 49 and an Employment Development Department Employee, was found nude and beaten to death in the bedroom of his apartment on North Taft Avenue in Hollywood.
Content

About an hour before his death, Donald Fishel was seen at a gay bar on Santa Monica Boulevard. His neighbors told the police that Fishel would often go out late at night dressed only in his shorts and return home with a man after driving around for some time. During the investigation, police found sexual paraphernalia and a movie projector with a gay film in the victim’s living room. At the time of the newspaper report (November 28, 1980), the case was unsolved. Fishel’s murder was one of 13 “homosexually related homicides” that were investigated during 1980 in the Hollywood and West Hollywood area. 


“People have been hysterical. It’s been bizarre. A lot of gay people think they live in a place safe for gays. Now people are running around killing each other. It’s really scary to think the night isn’t safe anymore” said Stephen Schulte (executive director, Hollywood Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center).


Information presented here is from a print newspaper article issue of the Los Angeles Times on November 28, 1980.

screen shot 2018-11-29 at 11.12.48 am.png

screen shot 2018-11-29 at 11.12.48 am.png

donald fishel2.png

donald fishel2.png

screen shot 2018-11-29 at 11.12.48 am.png
donald fishel2.png
Citations

Murders – GLBT Related --1980 – 1989, ONE Subject File collection, Coll2012-001, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California

Places

Donald Fishel Murder Site

Mon, 05/23/2022
Read more

Related Content

Sal Mineo Murder Site

Sal Mineo was an actor, director, and singer who was murdered near his home in West Hollywood in 1976 at the young age of 37. Mineo was born in 1939 into a family of Italian immigrants living in the Bronx.  His breakthrough role, which also garnered him an Academy Award nomination, came in 1955 when he played Plato Crawford in Rebel Without a Cause, opposite to James Dean. On February 12, 1976, Mineo was found with fatally stabbed in an alleyway by neighbors who had heard his cries for help. Detectives found money still left in Mineo’s jacket, hypothesizing that the evidence pointed to a personal motive rather than a random robbery. For years his murder remained a mystery, with some speculating that his homosexuality being the motive behind the crime. 

Vinicio Burgos Murder Site

Date of Death – January 29, 1980

Vinicio Burgos, age 45, a bartender at the Bonaventure Hotel, was found nude and strangled at his apartment in Hollywood on his bed.

Victor Clarke Murder Site

Date of Death – October 16, 1980 (just before midnight) Victor Clarke, age 30, a clerk in a Wilshire Boulevard office building, was found stabbed to death and lying on the ground next to his white Volkswagen station wagon. His car was found crashed into a curb at the address listed above.

Ned Doheny Murder Site

Ned Doheny, son of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, was found dead on February 16, 1929 in a guest bedroom of Greystone Mansion alongside the body of his longtime friend and assistant, Hugh Plunkett. 

Ned Doheny Murder Site

Abstract
Ned Doheny, son of oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, was found dead on February 16, 1929 in a guest bedroom of Greystone Mansion alongside the body of his longtime friend and assistant, Hugh Plunkett. 

Victor Clarke Murder Site

Abstract
Date of Death – October 16, 1980 (just before midnight) Victor Clarke, age 30, a clerk in a Wilshire Boulevard office building, was found stabbed to death and lying on the ground next to his white Volkswagen station wagon. His car was found crashed into a curb at the address listed above.

Vinicio Burgos Murder Site

Abstract
Date of Death – January 29, 1980Vinicio Burgos, age 45, a bartender at the Bonaventure Hotel, was found nude and strangled at his apartment in Hollywood on his bed.

Sal Mineo Murder Site

Abstract
Sal Mineo was an actor, director, and singer who was murdered near his home in West Hollywood in 1976 at the young age of 37. Mineo was born in 1939 into a family of Italian immigrants living in the Bronx.  His breakthrough role, which also garnered him an Academy Award nomination, came in 1955 when he played Plato Crawford in Rebel Without a Cause, opposite to James Dean. On February 12, 1976, Mineo was found with fatally stabbed in an alleyway by neighbors who had heard his cries for help. Detectives found money still left in Mineo’s jacket, hypothesizing that the evidence pointed to a personal motive rather than a random robbery. For years his murder remained a mystery, with some speculating that his homosexuality being the motive behind the crime.