NYC Bar Fight Turns Deadly

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Rory's heartbroken family finds support in talking with other families who have undergone the same tragedy in their lives.

Every day, former Spin magazine publisher Jake Hill deals with the agony of not knowing who killed his sister, Helen, a popular New Orleans filmmaker whose story first appeared on America's Most Wanted in September 2007.

But while attending a support group for the families of murder victims in Harlem, N.Y., he realized that countless others feel the same unique pain.

When he met Yvette and Anthony Forehand, whose 23-year-old-son Rory had passed the New York Fire Department entry exam shortly before he was murdered, Jake knew that he had to take their tragedy to AMW.

Rory died on a crowded New York sidewalk, and the Forehands desperately need witnesses to reject the Stop Snitchin' anthem of the inner cities and come forward.

Rory Forehand Deserves Justice

The crime should have been solved quickly.

There had been a wild brawl in Clemente’s, a bar in Spanish Harlem, where a crowd had gathered to see a performer known as Ghost.

There were two notable factions in the audience: local guys from Spanish Harlem, and a group of the rapper’s associates from Jamaica, Queens.

In the early morning hours of February 24, 2007, the fracas spilled onto the street. People were swinging weapons; there are police photos of a broken crutch on the sidewalk. At some point, a large-caliber weapon was fired.

Rory Forehand, 23, was struck under the left armpit. He stumbled up Second Avenue and died near the corner of 106th Street.

There were dozens of witnesses, but nobody’s talking.

Murder Victim Rory Forehand Described As "A Godly Child"

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As a child, Rory dreamed of becoming a rapper. Later in life those dreams would change. Just before his death, Rory passed the exam to become a New York firefighter.

Family members say Rory had harbored fantasies of becoming a rap performer himself. But his father, Anthony, a concierge, offered little encouragement. “I hate the violent rap,” he told AMW. “It’s poison. It just makes these kids evil. It makes them mean.”

Anthony had been a concierge in the same building for more than two decades, and boasted about having held a job since he was 12 years old.

He and his wife, Yvette, were childhood sweethearts, and raised their children to value family and an honest paycheck.

Rory had been a good student, and an exceptional basketball player. Recently, he had passed the entrance exam to enter the New York Fire Department. His fiancée was expecting their first child.

“He was very clever, so I knew he’d go far in life,” Anthony said.

Today, his fiancée, Jessica Owens, lives across the hallway from the Forehand family with Rory, Jr., the son Rory never met.

“There’s just so much Rory and I anticipated,” she said. “We even mapped out who would take RJ to the babysitter, who would pick him up. We mapped out his first birthday party, everything.”

Jessica was looking forward to being the wife of one of New York’s Bravest. Rory’s hip-hop fantasies were exciting, but fading. As he embarked on adulthood, his terminology was beginning to resemble his father’s.

“He told me, ‘Never be content. Always work harder,’” said Rory’s younger brother Antoine, a student at St. Joseph’s College. “’Because there’s always someone out there working just as hard, or maybe even harder than you.’”

Rory’s grandmother, Yvonne Burke, remembered Rory, whose parents have since created a scholarship in his name at his alma mater, Manhattan Center for Science and Math High School, as a “godly child.”

“I’ve never been the same since this happened,” she said. “I just think the killer’s out there. He’s out there somewhere. He may do it to someone else. That’s terrible.”

"Extend A Piece Of Bread To A Friend"

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Rory died in front of a dozen witnesses and no one is speaking out on his behalf.

The Forehands and Jessica are regulars at the Safe Horizon support group, located on the site of the old Theresa Hotel in Harlem.

Once, Muhammad Ali, Louie Armstrong, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Lena Horne, even Fidel Castro walked the hallways.

But the Safe Horizon gatherings are threadbare. Family members of murder victims sit in a circle, talking and eating chicken and fish dishes from local take out shops.

“There is a sense of people coming together and breaking bread,” said Vilma Torres, the organization’s clinical director. “Sometimes, a lot of trauma survivors say, ‘I can’t eat. I don’t know how I can sit down and take pleasure in eating when my loved one has no pleasure.’ Yet, the value of this group is saying, ‘It’s okay to do this. Extend a piece of bread to a friend.’”

Jake Hill -- whose sister, Helen, was murdered in New Orleans on January 4, 2007 -- initially planned to attend the support group for ten sessions, like most participants.

“Then, something happened,” he said. “The members of this particular group realized we liked coming here. And we liked each other. So we all decided to just keep coming.”

Hill, the former publisher of Spin magazine, is the only Caucasian in the group. At a typical session, one member teases Jake, and calls him a “crazy white boy.” Jake laughs, and teases right back.

“Nothing is under the surface,” he said. “Whether we’re joking or crying, everything is out in the open.”

The Forehands and Jake share a similar experience. Helen Hill’s murderer -– who’d apparently come into her home for a burglary -– has neither been identified nor captured.

But because Helen was a filmmaker who’d chosen to return to New Orleans after Katrina, her murder generated a great deal of press. America’s Most Wanted first ran her story in September 2007.

By contrast, Rory Forehand’s death garnered little fanfare. This saddened the Forehands and angered Jake: “Rory Forehand is not another statistic … He was a human being who was loved by many people, the father of a child he never met, and the son of these wonderful people I’ve grown to love.”

After listening to their story week after week, Jake phoned Sedg Tourison, the producer of the Helen Hill segment and told him about the Forehands.

Sedg then contacted Keith Greenberg, AMW’s New York-based producer. Det. Bill Dunn of the NYPD’s 23rd Precinct hopes that the national exposure –- along with the guarantee that tipsters can remain anonymous –- will counteract the destructive “Stop Snitchin” mentality that has deadlocked the case.

An Appeal To Reason

“I truly believe that something like this could not have happened without somebody seeing something, hearing something,” said Yvonne Burke. “My grandson was shot. I didn’t hear someone say there was a silencer on the gun. It had to make a noise. I would just love for someone to come forward.”

Jake remembers going to a memorial for Rory, and becoming upset by the young men he saw who’d attended the hip-hop event -– and referred to the victim as a “friend” -- but apparently had little to offer to law enforcement.

“If there are people in the community who know about the case and have not come forward, in my opinion, not only are they cowards, but they might as well have put the bullet in Rory themselves.”