Powerful gay men. Vulnerable teen-age boys. Murder. For years, some prominent local men who led secret lives were rumored to be protected. Whispers surrounding another important man's death prompt the question: Is there really a conspiracy?

The paper became part of the story

By ROBERT PRICE, Californian staff writer
e-mail: rprice@bakersfield.com

Monday January 20, 2003, 03:40:00 PM

Californian file photo Alfred Theodore "Ted" Fritts, was editor and publisher of The Californian through most of the 1970s and early 1980s. He was named in testimony during the Ed Buck trial as one of a number of adult men who had sex with accused killer Robert Mistriel. Fritts' name was mentioned in the paper's coverage, but not prominently.

When the name of The Californian's top newsroom executive surfaced during a murder investigation involving a 17-year-old male prostitute and a slain, gay government official, editors at the newspaper knew they had a unique dilemma on their hands.

Their options: Protect the boss as best they could and risk accusations of a double standard, or lay it out there for readers in all its unsavory glory.

They went somewhere down the middle.

Alfred Theodore "Ted" Fritts, publisher of the paper through most of the 1970s and early 1980s, was ultimately named in three stories about the murder. His name was not prominently featured in the articles and didn't appear until the suspect testified about his relationship with Fritts and other men in open court, two years after the murder.

By all accounts, Fritts, now dead, did not try to dissuade the use of his name. In fact, he appears to have specifically removed himself from the discussion of whether to print his name.

But the editor below him instructed reporters to keep a lid on Fritts' name until they had no other choice.

Reporters who worked at The Californian during that time say they respected Fritts for his hands-off approach and felt he did the right thing in a situation where others may have been tempted to protect themselves at the cost of the public's right to know.

The dilemma came about during one of the most sensational murders in Bakersfield's history.

On July 17, 1981, Kern County Personnel Director Edwin A. Buck was brutally beaten and stabbed. Bakersfield police arrested a gay hustler named Robert Glen Mistriel and his friend Roy Matthew Camenisch four days later.