Railroaded: The Homophobic Prosecution of Brandon Woodruff for His Parents' Murders

In October 2005 19-year-old Brandon Woodruff was charged with murdering his parents in a rural northeast Texas town in the heart of the Bible belt. There was no direct evidence tying him to the gruesome crime -- no eyewitnesses, no murder weapons, no bloody prints -- but investigators were convinced the teen boy was living a double life who killed when his two worlds supposedly collided. Brandon was a horse wrangler and attending Abilene Christian University, and he also was a porn actor and dancing at Dallas gay clubs. There was no double life; just a boy coming out. At trial in March 2009 the prosecution took a coming out story, and turned Brandon into The Talented Mr. Ripley. Eight of the jurors believed "that being homosexual or gay is morally wrong," and the jury convicted him after deliberating only five hours. Brandon Woodruff was railroaded with a homophobic narrative, and is serving a life sentence without parole.