fox13news.com
TAMPA — Social worker William "Bill" Denham Jr. was a small-framed, openly gay, 53-year-old pacifist, his friends and family say.
That's why they call it absurd that a woman accused in Denham's slaying told police he had walked into a back yard and masturbated in front of her.
Jadian Sinead Zeiders, 26, was arrested late Friday and charged with second-degree murder in Denham's beating death Jan. 14.
Zeiders told police she pointed Denham out to two other men after the incident in her yard and they struck him in self defense, according to a police report obtained Tuesday by the Tampa Bay Times.
"He never would have attacked anyone," said Maureen Tourigian, one of Denham's three sisters. "Anyone who knows him knows that, and that he never would expose himself to a woman. He wasn't interested."
The police report shows investigators turned their attention to Zeiders on Jan. 17, three days after police found Denham lying unconscious around 10 p.m. on a sidewalk near the corner of North 15th and East Elm streets.
Denham, who lived on East Crenshaw Street, died at St. Joseph's Hospital. An autopsy found he died of blunt trauma to the face and body.