Kerry Arbon, a closeted 40-year-old Mormon church organist and music teacher, was found shot to death execution style in Salt Lake Citys Memory Grove Park a popular gay cruising area one Sunday morning in September 1991. A recent investigative report found that police did very little to track down his murderer, though police have said that the then-limited technology and a lack of written police notes may give the impression of shoddy police work.Researchers from the Utah Investigative Journalism Project and the University of Utahs Cold Case class found that police at the time didnt interview local white supremacists who were known to harass gay men at the park, nor did police contact the numerous people of interest in the park nor the contacts found in Arbons journal, which was located in his car. Related A new push for DNA samples could identify more victims of a notorious closeted Republican killer Herbert Baumeister lured at least two dozen men and boys from gay bars to his rural Indiana estate. Arbon grew up on his family farm, began playing the organ at age 12, lovingly played with his three-year-younger sister as a child, taught ballroom dance to local kids as a preteen, had a wide circle of friends, and graduated as valedictorian. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Despite this, he remained closeted because the Mormon church regularly excommunicated and ostracized gay members. The church still disciplines its gay members and opposes same-sex marriage.[As a gay Mormon who comes out,] youre talking about, not only losing, you know, Mom and Dad and your family but your entire life, Michael Aaron, the publisher of the citys LGBTQ+ publication Q Magazine, told The Salt Lake Tribune. You were basically threatened with, Youre going to lose all of it, everything you have ever believed about yourself and your future and your salvation.Arbon, who lived in the nearby town of Orem, would regularly spend his weekends in Salt Lake City, often disappearing in the middle of the night but always returning to church on Sunday mornings. One Sunday, his mother didnt see him at church a cyclist found him that morning, dead in some brush to the side of a park path. Arbons red, four-door 1984 Toyota Camry was missing at the time of his murder, but police found it near the local West High School a month later. The mud on its floorboards led police to suspect that Arbons murderer drove and abandoned the car. Police found Arbons clothes, books, and a water jug in the vehicle, leading them to believe that he spent a lot of time in it. Police also found numerous receipts signed by Doug Sorensen, the pseudonym Arbon used when staying at local hotels, as well as a journal that contained over 100 license plate numbers, car details, and short descriptions of local men like florist guy, accountant guy, and nice guy.Police reports show no evidence that officers ever contacted the car owners or the other men in Arbons journal. Jerry Mendez, a retired city detective who briefly worked on the case, said he believes police either didnt investigate the huge number of license plates because that would have been difficult to do with the available technology at the time. A typical homicide report should have shown documentation of the owners of all the license plates, he told the aforementioned publication. Cordon Parks, a semiretired detective who still oversees cold cases for local police, noted that police spent about nine months investigating the case before closing it. He added that police at the time didnt write much in reports about leads that didnt aid the investigation, and that Arbons secretive life couldve hindered a more expansive investigation. Mendez and Aaron also noted that police harassment of gay people and the then-regular violent gay bashings by local white supremacists made gay men scared to report any incidents to police.Though police and local skinheads regularly harassed gay men in the park, with the latter holding inflammatory public demonstrations against gay rights, Parks doubted whether either group killed Arbon, saying instead that he suspected Arbon may have been killed by a robbery gone wrong.I think [the killer] just panicked, probably because [Arbon] was too big to handle and he just started shooting, Parks said. I think its just as simple as that. Nevertheless, he holds out hope that the case might be solved due to the murderers careless admission or a witness who could still remember key information.New grant funding has allowed Salt Lake City police to purchase a billboard with Arbons picture and a caption that reads Who murdered me? KUTV reported.This was to the extreme. I mean, this is a situation where this gentleman lost his life for just being in that area, Detective Greg Wilking told the aforementioned news station. He didnt deserve to have what happened to him.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.