Willacoochee Burning
Gay men document in film a 16-year-old hate crime
Jul 31, 2009 | By: MATT SCHAFER SOUTHERN VOICE ATLANTA
A wooden cross wrapped in gasoline-soaked rags set ablaze in Roy Kirkland’s front yard served as graphic notice
that he was no longer welcome in his hometown.
On July 21, 1993, Kirkland and his partner, Doug Sebastian, woke to find the remnants of a seven-foot cross
burning in the front yard of Kirkland’s family home in Willacoochee, Ga., located 200 miles south of Atlanta.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a hate crime, but it does something to you, it really does,” Kirkland said.
Kirkland and Sebastian were the targets of an escalating series of threats that started with mail box smashings,
death threats and the burning cross before their home eventually burned completely down.
“The feelings actually never left; it’s something that you try to put out of your mind, but it’s always there,” Sebastian
said. “It’s something that you pretend like it’s not there, but it’s always with you.”
Sebastian and Kirkland are addressing the feelings of fear and dread they’ve lived with for 16 years as they put a
the final touches on “A Cross Burning in Willacoochee,” a documentary that details their experience in the rural
Georgia town located in Atkinson County. The film is largely based on documents Kirkland hoarded away and later
rediscovered during a move.
“To be honest with you, I’ve kept all these things, the death threat, for 15 years actually,” he said. “To be honest
any time I thought about doing a documentary I would fold up the note and put it way. I guess I had cold feet.”
Kirkland grew up in Willacoochee, located in Atkinson County and with a 2006 population estimated at roughly 1,600
people. After graduating high school he joined his family’s boat building business and dated a few girls. But while on
a mission trip for the Mormon Church in Washington state his true self began to show. “I became involved with
another young missionary, and that ended that,” Kirkland said of dating women.
He left Willacoochee again in 1984 and didn’t come back until 1993. Kirkland’s father was dying with cancer, and he
wanted to be close to his family. He returned with Sebastian, his partner at the time, and after his father’s death in
February of that year the couple stayed in Willacoochee.
The couple was quiet about being a gay couple, but joined the underground gay scene in rural Georgia. “People
would have parties at their house, and eventually other people would start to notice that it was all men, and word
would spread,” Kirkland said.
Their mailbox was smashed, someone left a death threat on their answering machine and then someone burned the
cross in their front yard. “After this cross burning we were afraid to walk outside our house,” Kirkland said. “I don’t
know — it was creepy, really creepy.”
Despite the intensive media coverage and Georgia Bureau of Investigations inquest that followed, most of the
residents did little to voice any support. “The whole town where this happened didn’t support us, didn’t even
acknowledge it for the most part,” Sebastian said.
That fall the house Kirkland had grown up in burned to the ground, the cause of the fire is still unknown. Three
different investigators came to three different conclusions, but all agreed it wasn’t arson. Because there was no
single cause their insurance provider didn’t want to pay out a settlement.
“That totally took our mind off of Willacoochee because we had another battle to fight,” Kirkland said.
“We spent six months fighting with the insurance company to cover us. We were planning on going back, we thought
that the GBI was continuing to investigate while we fought [the insurance company] but when I got the paperwork I
found out they stopped investigating in November, just a few months after it happened.”
So Kirkland and Sebastian left Willacoochee with a string of unanswered questions and emotional wounds that
never closed. The two men broke up, but remained good friends and business partners, working together on
several films.
“It’s something that you don’t want to bring up or live through. It’s more embarrassing than anything else. It’s hard to
understand how a victim can be embarrassed, but I understand that now,” Sebastian said. “We didn’t think of doing
anything about it until Roy was going through some old boxes and it literally hit him on the head.”
While moving in Valdosta Kirkland knocked over a box, and a slew of newspaper articles and a picture of the burned
cross slid out. He called Sebastian, and the two decided to collaborate again. “We’re older and wiser, and ... we
have a little larger platform, we can use the film industry to get our side out,” Sebastian said.
They began picking through the news clippings to see where then Willacoochee City Councilmember Kenneth
Hunkapillar was quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying he was, “Not surprised by the cross burning, as
Willacoochee is largely anti-gay.” Or where the chief of police was quoted saying he felt, “Probably a bunch of
niggers down the road that did it.”
They began to put together interviews, news clips and interviews with investigators and journalists. “I did not want to
go to Willacoochee and do this, and interview these people, I didn’t want to hear what they had to say,” Kirkland
said. Even though Kirkland and Sebastian didn’t find interview people from the town, they feel it’s a fair and
balanced documentary.
“Its not like we made anything up, everything we’ve done in this documentary is stories in the newspaper and police
reports,” Kirkland said. “If they have something to say let them respond, they always have before.” Sebastian is
spending 15-hour days in the editing room cutting the film together. It is tentatively set to be shown at the Out on
Film Fall Festival Oct. 2-8.
The filmmakers are hoping that their project will help grow support for legislation that would require all elected
municipal figures to “refrain from condoning hate crimes in their jurisdiction“.
“We’re actually trying to get some legislation in effect, to where a government official or a town official cannot openly
support a hate crime, because the town of Willacoochee said they were basically anti-gay and that would open up
that they supported what happened to us,” Sebastian said.
Gay men document in film a 16-year-old hate crime
Jul 31, 2009 | By: MATT SCHAFER SOUTHERN VOICE ATLANTA
A wooden cross wrapped in gasoline-soaked rags set ablaze in Roy Kirkland’s front yard served as graphic notice
that he was no longer welcome in his hometown.
On July 21, 1993, Kirkland and his partner, Doug Sebastian, woke to find the remnants of a seven-foot cross
burning in the front yard of Kirkland’s family home in Willacoochee, Ga., located 200 miles south of Atlanta.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a hate crime, but it does something to you, it really does,” Kirkland said.
Kirkland and Sebastian were the targets of an escalating series of threats that started with mail box smashings,
death threats and the burning cross before their home eventually burned completely down.
“The feelings actually never left; it’s something that you try to put out of your mind, but it’s always there,” Sebastian
said. “It’s something that you pretend like it’s not there, but it’s always with you.”
Sebastian and Kirkland are addressing the feelings of fear and dread they’ve lived with for 16 years as they put a
the final touches on “A Cross Burning in Willacoochee,” a documentary that details their experience in the rural
Georgia town located in Atkinson County. The film is largely based on documents Kirkland hoarded away and later
rediscovered during a move.
“To be honest with you, I’ve kept all these things, the death threat, for 15 years actually,” he said. “To be honest
any time I thought about doing a documentary I would fold up the note and put it way. I guess I had cold feet.”
Kirkland grew up in Willacoochee, located in Atkinson County and with a 2006 population estimated at roughly 1,600
people. After graduating high school he joined his family’s boat building business and dated a few girls. But while on
a mission trip for the Mormon Church in Washington state his true self began to show. “I became involved with
another young missionary, and that ended that,” Kirkland said of dating women.
He left Willacoochee again in 1984 and didn’t come back until 1993. Kirkland’s father was dying with cancer, and he
wanted to be close to his family. He returned with Sebastian, his partner at the time, and after his father’s death in
February of that year the couple stayed in Willacoochee.
The couple was quiet about being a gay couple, but joined the underground gay scene in rural Georgia. “People
would have parties at their house, and eventually other people would start to notice that it was all men, and word
would spread,” Kirkland said.
Their mailbox was smashed, someone left a death threat on their answering machine and then someone burned the
cross in their front yard. “After this cross burning we were afraid to walk outside our house,” Kirkland said. “I don’t
know — it was creepy, really creepy.”
Despite the intensive media coverage and Georgia Bureau of Investigations inquest that followed, most of the
residents did little to voice any support. “The whole town where this happened didn’t support us, didn’t even
acknowledge it for the most part,” Sebastian said.
That fall the house Kirkland had grown up in burned to the ground, the cause of the fire is still unknown. Three
different investigators came to three different conclusions, but all agreed it wasn’t arson. Because there was no
single cause their insurance provider didn’t want to pay out a settlement.
“That totally took our mind off of Willacoochee because we had another battle to fight,” Kirkland said.
“We spent six months fighting with the insurance company to cover us. We were planning on going back, we thought
that the GBI was continuing to investigate while we fought [the insurance company] but when I got the paperwork I
found out they stopped investigating in November, just a few months after it happened.”
So Kirkland and Sebastian left Willacoochee with a string of unanswered questions and emotional wounds that
never closed. The two men broke up, but remained good friends and business partners, working together on
several films.
“It’s something that you don’t want to bring up or live through. It’s more embarrassing than anything else. It’s hard to
understand how a victim can be embarrassed, but I understand that now,” Sebastian said. “We didn’t think of doing
anything about it until Roy was going through some old boxes and it literally hit him on the head.”
While moving in Valdosta Kirkland knocked over a box, and a slew of newspaper articles and a picture of the burned
cross slid out. He called Sebastian, and the two decided to collaborate again. “We’re older and wiser, and ... we
have a little larger platform, we can use the film industry to get our side out,” Sebastian said.
They began picking through the news clippings to see where then Willacoochee City Councilmember Kenneth
Hunkapillar was quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying he was, “Not surprised by the cross burning, as
Willacoochee is largely anti-gay.” Or where the chief of police was quoted saying he felt, “Probably a bunch of
niggers down the road that did it.”
They began to put together interviews, news clips and interviews with investigators and journalists. “I did not want to
go to Willacoochee and do this, and interview these people, I didn’t want to hear what they had to say,” Kirkland
said. Even though Kirkland and Sebastian didn’t find interview people from the town, they feel it’s a fair and
balanced documentary.
“Its not like we made anything up, everything we’ve done in this documentary is stories in the newspaper and police
reports,” Kirkland said. “If they have something to say let them respond, they always have before.” Sebastian is
spending 15-hour days in the editing room cutting the film together. It is tentatively set to be shown at the Out on
Film Fall Festival Oct. 2-8.
The filmmakers are hoping that their project will help grow support for legislation that would require all elected
municipal figures to “refrain from condoning hate crimes in their jurisdiction“.
“We’re actually trying to get some legislation in effect, to where a government official or a town official cannot openly
support a hate crime, because the town of Willacoochee said they were basically anti-gay and that would open up
that they supported what happened to us,” Sebastian said.
