An Alabama teen whose burned body was found July 22 may have been attacked over his sexual orientation, prosecutors said this week.

“It’s obvious that either before death, there was great pain and torture, or else there was abuse of the corpse,” said Baldwin County District Attorney David Whetstone. “It is suggestive of overkill, which is not something you see in a regular robbery and murder.”

Scotty Joe Weaver, 18, of Bay Minette was last seen alive July 18 when he stopped by his mother’s home to repay a loan after his shift at Waffle House.

Weaver’s burned and decomposed body was found four days later in a wooded area not far from the trailer home he shared with Christopher Ryan Gaines, 20; Gaine’s girlfriend, Nichole Kelsay, 18; and Kelsay’s infant son.

Gaines, Kelsay and Robert Holly Lofton Porter, 18, were arrested July 24, according to Baldwin County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Murphy. All are being held without bond facing charges of capital murder. No court dates have been set.

A coroner’s report revealed Weaver was “beaten, strangled, stabbed, cut and burned,” sustaining injuries to his neck, torso, and “some other parts of the body that I won’t describe, but I will say they were curious,” Whetstone said.

It remains unclear whether some of the injuries were sustained after death, Whetstone said.

Authorities believe the suspects, all unemployed, planned to rob Weaver of his earnings from Waffle House. But because Weaver stopped to repay his mother, the alleged robbery netted only about $80, Whetstone said.

The district attorney said he did not publicly discuss Weaver’s sexual orientation until the victim’s mother spoke out.

“He had participated in some drag queen contests, and he was sexually confused, his mother said,” Whetstone said. “We think the manner and degree of assault may be related to his lifestyle more than the need to rob him.”

Martha Weaver told local television station NBC-15 that her son faced harassment in the past.

“Even when he worked at Waffle House. He’s had a few come in and call him a faggot,” she said.

Alabama’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation. Whetstone declined to say whether he would seek the death penalty for all defendants, but noted that the case fits Alabama laws governing capital punishment.

Gay rights activists in the state said they were saddened but not surprised by the crime.

“The abundance of ignorance and hateful rhetoric we all heard during debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment encourages violence against gay persons,” said Ken Baker, a board member for Equality Alabama, a statewide gay group.

“As I listened to Sen. Jeff Sessions [R-Ala.] ranting about the threat to families during the Senate debate, I knew we would be hearing more about these horrible acts,” Baker said.

Bay Area Inclusion, Alabama’s only gay community center, is located in Mobile, about 25 miles from Bay Minette.

Mobile is more open-minded than smaller towns in the area, but BAI board member Margaret Lambert said the center still struggles over whether to seek local publicity for its efforts.

“Homophobia is rampant around here, but we are trying to combat that with some social activism,” she said.

The state’s public policy remains firmly against gay residents.

Alabama was one of only 13 states with a sodomy statute on the books when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated such laws in 2003.

A year earlier, then-Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore denounced homosexuality as “an inherent evil and an act so heinous that it defies one’s ability to describe it” in a legal opinion denying a lesbian mother custody of her three teenage children.

Attempts to add sexual orientation to Alabama’s hate crimes law have failed repeatedly.

Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center has criticized the state for failing to report apparent hate crimes to the FBI, including the 1999 murder of gay Sylacauga resident Billy Jack Gaither.

Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21, and Steven Eric Mullins, 25, were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the Feb. 19, 1999, death of Gaither, 39. Gaither’s attackers beat him to death with an ax handle, then burned his body atop a pyre of kerosene-soaked tires on a rural creek bank.

Laura Douglas-Brown can be reached at lbrown@sovo.com.