Murder Victim.  He was killed after appearing on the “Jenny Jones” television talk show, where he admitted he had a crush on another man, Jonathan Schmitz, who turned out to be homophobic. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his father, Frank Amedure was a local tractor-trailer driver, and his mother, Patricia Graves Amedure, was a housewife.  In 1968, the family moved to Waterford, Michigan, and two years later, Frank and Patricia were divorced.  After his parents divorced, he lived principally with his father, as did his three brothers and one sister.  At age 17, he quit high school to join the Army, where he finished his GED high school equivalency, and was trained in satellite communications.  While assigned to Germany, he learned to ski, and broke his leg while skiing in Switzerland.  After three years, he received an Honorable Discharge, with the rank of Specialist.  After working several years in technical communications and telephone type jobs, he became a bartender, because he enjoyed working at night.  Generous to a fault, he took in several homosexual friends with AIDS, caring for them when others had shunned them.  On March 6, 1995, he was taped for an episode of the Jenny Jones Talk Show, in which he admitted to being a secret admirer of Jonathan Schmitz, who lived near him in Orion, Michigan. Until the taping, Schmitz had no idea who his secret admirer was, male or female, and he went out of curiosity, later claiming that the producers implied that his admirer was a woman.   Schmitz would also later claim that Amedure’s homosexual overtures frightened him, and that the taping of the show, to be aired two weeks later, humiliated and angered him.  When Scott Amedure left a suggestive note in Schmitz’s front door, Schmitz purchased a shotgun, went to Amedure’s mobile home, and killed him, just three days after the taping.  As a result of the killing, the show was never aired.  Schmitz was convicted of second degree murder, and sentenced to 25 to 50 years, which means he will serve at least 20 years before he is eligible for parole.  In 1999, the Amedure family sued the Jenny Jones Show for the ambush tactics that led to Scott’s death, and in May 1999, the jury awarded the Amedures $25 million dollars, finding that the ‘Jenny Jones Show’ was both responsible and negligent, contending that the show intentionally created an explosive situation without due concern for the possible consequences. In 2009, in a 2 to 1 decision, the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned the award of $25 million to the Amedure family; to date, the Michigan Supreme Court has declined to hear the family’s appeal of the overturn ruling. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)