Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 4, Ed. 1 Friday, May 24, 1996 Page: 9 of 68
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Authorities seek leads in murder of African American businessman
Blair’s body discovered last Friday in his Oak Lawn
apartment; friends contrast his public, private lives
By Tammye Nash
STAFF REPORTER OF DALLAS VOICE
While Dallas police this week contin-
ued to search for leads in the murder a
prominent Dallas businessman, friends
and colleagues expressed shock over
allegations linking the victim with
drugs and male prostitutes.
Arnold Blair, 48, was found dead in
his Holland Street apartment at approx-
imately 6 p.m. on May 17, according to
Sgt. Roger Martin of the Dallas police
department's homicide division. Mar-
tin said Blair, who had been bound and
stabbed repeatedly, had been dead at
least six hours when his body was dis-
covered.
Police were awaiting autopsy reports
to determine a more precise time and
cause of death. In addition to the stab
wounds, Martin said, investigators
found marks on Blair's neck indicating
he may have been strangled.
Martin said Blair was last seen
around 1 a.m. last Friday fueling his car,
a 1985 black Lincoln. When Blair's body
was found the auto was missing, but
police recovered it on Monday morning
in an apartment complex parking lot
near Polk and Kiest in Oak Cliff.
Police have questioned Blair's for-
mer lover, Ricky Lenard Anthony, who
lived with Blair for about a year until
the men broke up and Anthony moved
out several months ago. Anthony is not
a suspect, police said.
"Right now we don't have any sus-
pects," said Martin. "We're still trying
to establish where [Blair] went, what he
did and who he was with on Thursday.
If anyone saw him that night, it would
be very helpful if they would call and
let us know."
Blair was the owner of William
White Real Estate, one of the largest
African American-owned businesses in
the city, and was appointed to the
Dallas Plan Commission last fall by
Mayor Ron Kirk. Prior to that appoint-
ment, Blair had served on the Dallas
Association of Realtors board of
trustees. He was also a member of
Concord Missionary Baptist Church.
Blair's professional and civic col-
leagues knew him as an intelligent,
friendly man who kept his private life
very private. Even those who were
openly gay said they did not know that
Blair was gay.
Hector Garcia, openly gay chair of
the Plan Commission, described Blair
as "a very private, very gentlemanly
person. He was very witty and very
funny, a real coalition builder. He was
very knowledgeable in the area of land
use."
But, Garcia said, "I knew very little
about him at all on a personal level."
Mike Grossman, the president of
Uptown Realtors who worked with
Blair on the Realtors association board,
said this week that he "knew Arnold
Blair quite well." But Grossman, too,
said his relationship with the murdered
man did not reach the personal level.
"He was just a real fine guy.
Everything I knew about him was
great. I never knew that he was gay, but
I did know he was gay friendly because
of some of the things he said to me."
But according to reports that have
surfaced in the week since his murder,
there was another side to Blair's life
that he kept carefully under wraps. It
was a life of gay nightclubs, a male
lover and, some say, drugs and hustlers.
But even those who knew Blair
through the bars spoke highly of him as
friendly, thoughtful man.
Refugio Hernandez said he met
Blair, who he knew as "A.W.," about
two years ago when Blair began patron-
izing the nightclub where Hernandez
worked. The two often talked and, over
time, developed a friendship, Hernan-
dez said.
"He was really a very nice man,"
Hernandez said. "He was very kind
and gentle, and he cared so much about
his family and friends. Last year he
missed my birthday, and he was so
upset about that. As soon as-he got back
into town he came over and brought me
a present."
"He was a good person, a really nice
guy," said the man who did yard main-
tenance at the complex where Blair
lived, and who also did some work for
Blair himself at properties on which the
Realtor's company had foreclosed.
"But," added the man, who asked
that his name not be disclosed, "he had
Arnold Blair, president of William White
Real Estate and a member of the city’s
Plan Commission, was found murdered
last Friday. Authorities are investigating
Blair’s whereabouts and contacts in the
hours before the crime.
a wild side, too. The gay side. His fam-
ily didn't know he was gay, or at least
they chose not to see it. A relative of his
lives in the apartment complex I man-
age, and she told me his family just did-
n't want to acknowledge that he was
gay"
The man said that Anthony worked
on the foreclosures with him, and that
the two often rode to the jobs together.
"We talked a lot then," he recalled. "He
told me that they [Anthony and Blair]
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
Torch-bearer —
Dr. Tim Seelig, artistic director of the Turtle Creek Chorale, speaks with his life-
mate, Louis Kelly, before beginning his leg of the run bearing the Olympic Torch
through Dallas on Monday.
Parkland CEO discusses costs of
AIDS care, recent innovations
Anderson discusses budgetary problems raised by
protease inhibitors and other scientific advances
Dr. Ron Anderson has presided over
Parkland hospital for nearly the entire
history of the AIDS epidemic. During
his tenure, the hospital founded its first
AIDS clinic, got sued by the Dallas Gay
Alliance for rationing AZT, and, more
recently, expanded its AIDS operations
into a stand-alone facility on Amelia
Court.
Passionate, involved, and well-
versed on the facts, Anderson is widely
regarded as a ferociously hard worker
for public health care patients in Dallas
county.
He sat down with staff reporter John
McCoy to discuss recent developments
in AIDS care and prevention. The fol-
lowing are edited excerpts.
1 wanted to start with the subject every-
one's talking about: protease inhibitors. I've
heard estimates ranging from $6-8 million
in terms of what they're going to cost
Parkland. How do you see the situation
right now?
Several years ago we had a hospital
pharmacy budget out of control.
Parkland was spending about $35 mil-
lion a year on pharmaceuticals, two-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
DALLAS VOICE
MAY 24, 1996
9
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Vercher, Dennis. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 4, Ed. 1 Friday, May 24, 1996, newspaper, May 24, 1996; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth616349/m1/9/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.