A sense of doubt

Was anti-gay bias a factor in the death of Bryan Nisenfeld?

by Ian Donnis

Bryan Nisenfeld

For almost three years, Steven Nisenfeld searched for a reasonable explanation of why his 18-year-old son, Bryan, left a midday literature class at Roger Williams University on February 6, 1997, and was never heard from again. In January, things began to make more sense after the elder Nisenfeld traveled from his New Jersey home to the Scituate headquarters of the Rhode Island State Police.

Bryan Nisenfeld's death remained shrouded in mystery even after a few of his bones washed up on Hog Island in Narragansett Bay, near Roger Williams' Bristol campus, in August 1997. But the small amount of physical evidence precluded an autopsy, and, says Maj. Steven Pare, state police didn't find any indication of suspicious activity in connection with Nisenfeld's disappearance or death. The conclusion is that the college freshman, who showed signs of being emotionally upset in the week before he vanished, either committed suicide or died after accidentally falling into the bay.

But paging through the state police report, Steven Nisenfeld found what he considers the smoking gun responsible for his son's death: a security officer at Roger Williams perceived a disagreement between Bryan Nisenfeld and a male former RWU student as possibly being a romantic tiff. Because of this, Steven Nisenfeld believes, a threat to his son wasn't taken seriously and college officials botched the chance for an intervention that might have spared Bryan's life.

It's difficult to know whether this is true. It's also hard to tell whether Steven Nisenfeld is getting at a hidden truth or playing to the fears of the gay community in an attempt to assuage the lingering pain from his son's mysterious death. But it seems clear that officials at Roger Williams -- who waited six days in February 1997 before informing Bryan's parents that he was missing (see "Sea of indifference," News, January 8, 1998) -- have been less than forthcoming from the start. And the revelation from the state police investigation has provided fresh ammunition for Nisenfeld, a social worker in a small blue-collar suburb of Philadelphia, who has proven himself capable of gaining attention and influencing public officials.

When Nisenfeld became disenchanted with the probe by Bristol police into Bryan's death, former Attorney General Jeff Pine directed state police to investigate the case after Nisenfeld contacted Governor Lincoln Almond and US Senators Jack Reed and the late John Chafee.

Bewildered by the response at Roger Williams University when his son vanished, Nisenfeld convinced US Representative Robert E. Andrews (D-NJ) to introduce legislation in Congress, known as "Bryan's Law," to require colleges and universities to notify parents if their children are missing 24 hours.

Armed now with an argument that resonates in the gay community because of the prevalence of hate crimes (and the lack of priority that investigators sometimes attach to solving them), Nisenfeld and Bryan's mother, Marianne C. Brown, in early February filed a civil suit against RWU and a number of university officials in US District Court in Providence, seeking legal validation for their version of events.

According to his parents, Bryan had a heated telephone argument January 31, 1997 -- six days before he vanished -- with Josh Cohen, a former classmate who had dropped out of Roger Williams University the previous semester. To this day, Steven Nisenfeld remains unsure whether Cohen and his son were friends or lovers. But he maintains that Cohen threatened Bryan and left him in a state of fear.

"He was very upset," Steven Nisenfeld says. According to Nisenfeld, his son told him that Cohen indicated "he'd get on campus any time he wanted and he could beat me up."

Cohen, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit in federal court, couldn't be reached for comment. Speaking from his parent's home in Marietta, Georgia, he told the Phoenix in 1998 that he did leave a threatening telephone message for Nisenfeld, but that it was in jest. Cohen said he and Nisenfeld "used to mess around a lot," and say silly things and make false threats on each other's voice mail. "I think the parents are desperate and they're just so upset," Cohen said at the time. "There was never a dispute, nothing that would make him [Nisenfeld] disappear."

Pare said state police didn't substantiate any threats against Bryan Nisenfeld. But Steven Nisenfeld, who received a 12:30 a.m. call from Bryan on January 31, 1997, says his son was so agitated that he asked his father to immediately come to Bristol and take him away from Roger Williams. Instead, Nisenfeld says, he called campus security and, after the call was answered by Officer Carinha, reported his son's concerns. Nisenfeld says Carinha responded by saying that someone would go to check on Bryan.

Anthony Santoro, president of Roger Williams, and Carinha (whose first name isn't known by Nisenfeld), didn't return telephone calls from the Phoenix. According to Pare, Carinha described the phone call between Cohen and Bryan Nisenfeld "as a dispute between two male friends that, in his opinion, had some homosexual overtones." Pare says the scope of the state police investigation did not include the question of whether Carinha's interpretation of the dispute influenced the university's subsequent response.

But Steven Nisenfeld assumes that Carinha, and by extension RWU, dismissed the seriousness of the matter since it was viewed through the prism of a gay relationship. "I'm drawing the conclusion based on his [Carinha's] inference," Nisenfeld says. "How does he come to that decision? Should he even be making that type of decision? It's not up to a guard who receives a call about threatening or harassing calls to make that decision."

Because of the pending suit, Santoro, other university officials, and the university's lawyer in the case, Russell Bengston of Carroll, Kelly & Murphy in Providence, aren't speaking with reporters. Some people, though, believe Nisenfeld is grasping at straws. Although he initially declined when asked for comment, Roger Williams' general counsel, Fred Bruno of Providence, could barely restrain himself when asked about the allegation that anti-gay bias played a role in Bryan Nisenfeld's death. "I think that's made of whole cloth," Bruno said.

It remains unclear whether Bryan was gay or straight. His mother, Marianne Brown, told the Phoenix in 1997 that it sounded as if he was questioning his sexuality. Given the challenges and bias that gay people face in an overwhelmingly heterosexual culture, the prospect of coming out is bound to be difficult for any young person. Steven Nisenfeld, though, downplays the possibility that questions by Bryan about his sexual orientation may have contributed to his emotional state in the time before he vanished.

Jeffrey Montgomery

But Nisenfeld's belief that anti-gay sentiment was a factor in his son's death has purchase with Jeffrey Montgomery, executive director of the Triangle Foundation, a Detroit-based gay civil rights organization, and a founder of a national coalition of anti-violence programs. Nisenfeld's explanation of Bryan's death hits home for Montgomery, who says Detroit police dismissed the slaying of his boyfriend in the mid-'80s as "just another gay killing."

According to the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-violence Project, 80 percent of gays and lesbians have experienced some form of bias-related violence. Montgomery says police routinely make lax investigations in these cases because of prejudice against gays and lesbians.

Montgomery was invited months ago by a student group to speak Tuesday, March 14, during what was billed as the first annual Matthew Shepard memorial lecture at Brown University. After being contacted by Steven Nisenfeld, Montgomery chose to highlight Bryan's disappearance and death during his discussion since the case fits into "the way that gay people are regarded as so disposable by the non-gay community."

The belief that Bryan Nisenfeld's concerns were dismissed because Officer Carinha thought he might have been gay "at least gives some context as to why, with this investigation, there seemed to be a such a stonewall operation on the part of the university and their security," Montgomery says, "and I think it's a perfectly plausible explanation."

Bryan Nisenfeld grew up in Audubon, a small town in southern New Jersey, and was encouraged by his father to attend Roger Williams University since the college had a good reputation and offered him a solid financial aid package. After being accepted to RWU's architecture program, Bryan arrived on the university's Bristol campus in 1996 and experienced something of a rough transition. He found his major to be overly demanding and, back home in New Jersey over winter break, he told a friend that he found many of his peers to be "snotty and upper class." Described as easygoing and intelligent, Bryan also sent poems to his parents in the days before he vanished that suggest he might have been depressed.

During the winter break, his divorced parents convinced him to remain at Roger Williams for one more semester and he switched his major to English. On the surface at least, things seemed to be going all right until he placed the agitated phone call to his father on January 31, 1997. But after speaking with Carinha, Steven Nisenfeld says, "I was just under the impression that the university was following up with the complaints."

Instead, according to Nisenfeld, Roger Williams University failed to follow its own procedures for responding to harassing phone calls. According to a copy of a 1996 university policy provided by Nisenfeld, the security department should have documented the complaint; dispatched an officer; provided a log for indicating other harassing calls; reviewed the case; and provided an opportunity for the student receiving the calls to meet with the security director or his assistant. But Nisenfeld says the university's response essentially consisted of sending a student who suggested that Bryan change his phone number.

University officials aren't talking, so their side of the story may not be revealed unless the lawsuit filed by Bryan's parents goes to trial. In the past, RWU officials have cited the right of adult students to leave campus without notice in explaining the delay in informing Bryan's parents about his disappearance.

That's little solace to Steven Nisenfeld, who says Bryan was somewhat evasive when they spoke later in the day on January 31, 1997. After things seemed like they were headed toward resolution during a February 3 phone conversation, the father and son never spoke again.

Stay tuned.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.