U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Appeal In Bucks Co. Anti-Gay Bias Murder Case

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — A Bristol Township man will remain on death row after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal in an anti-gay bias murder case on Monday, authorities said.

For nearly a decade, 61-year-old Richard Roland Laird appealed his conviction, first seeking three retrials in Bucks County in the 1987 killing of 26-year-old Anthony Milano, and then asking the U.S. Supreme Court to remove him from death row and place him with the general prison population.

Laird and his accomplice, Frank Chester, were at the Edgley Inn in Bristol Township when they began taunting Milano, an aspiring artist, calling him a homosexual, authorities said.

The three had left the bar together in a car before Laird and Chester pulled the car over, beat Milano, and slashed and killed him with a box cutter, authorities said. His body was found in a wooded area near Venice Ashby, and the car was set on fire, authorities said.

Laird and Chester were sentenced in 1989. While Chester is serving life in prison, Laird appealed his death sentence and was given a second trial, where he was again sentenced to death, authorities said.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Laird's petition and upheld his first-degree murder conviction.

The denial concludes the final federal appeal in the matter, authorities said. It was an appeal by Laird of a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the Bucks County District Attorney's Office said.

A federal appeals court overturned the initial convictions and sentences due to errors in the proceedings, authorities said.