Prosecutors will take a fresh look at the 1992 death of gay icon and “mayor of Christopher Street” Marsha P. Johnson, the Daily News has learned.
Johnson, an unmistakable Greenwich Village fixture who posed for an Andy Warhol series on drag queens, was pulled from the Hudson River, fully clothed, near Christopher St. on July 6, 1992. She had been missing for days.
Her death was ruled a suicide by the city’s medical examiner, but Johnson’s friends and family believe she was attacked by bullies who regularly harassed and assaulted her at the pier.
The ruling was changed from “suicide” to “undetermined” in December 2002, as a result of a police investigation that determined there was not enough information to call it a suicide.
Now, two decades after her death, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has agreed to reconsider the case, law enforcement sources confirmed.
“We think it’s important that this case is closed with the accuracy of science and modern technology,” said transgender activist Mariah Lopez, 27, who lobbied for a new review of Johnson’s death.
Lopez hailed Johnson, who died at 46, for her role in resisting police who raided the Stonewall Inn, an event that launched the gay rights movement in 1969.
Johnson’s contribution was “globally significant,” added Lopez.
Born Malcolm Michaels Jr. in Elizabeth, N.J., Johnson struggled with her male identity, finding her way to the streets of the city, where she became a regular in costume drag comprised of thrift store dresses, flower crowns and tinsel-laced wigs. She later acted as a mother of sorts to a new generation of wayward gay youths in the age of AIDS.
“She was like the mayor of Christopher Street,” one friend said in “Pay It No Mind,” a documentary about Johnson’s life released last year. Another friend revered her as “a saint of gay life.”
In the film, Johnson smiles recalling her early days.
“When I became a drag queen I started to live my life. As a woman,” she said in an interview shot about a week before her body was discovered.
The film celebrated her life, but those close to her have been searching for answers about her death for years.
“People emphatically believe Marsha was murdered,” said Michael Kasino, who co-directed the film.
Randy Wicker, a close friend and longtime roommate of Johnson’s in Hoboken, N.J., believes Johnson was either thrown into the water or accidentally fell, but “was in no way suicidal.”
Wicker said he spoke to a witness who saw a known neighborhood rabble-rouser named Michael fighting with Johnson on the pier on July 4, 1992.
The witness told Wicker he saw the bully calling Johnson a “faggot,” and later heard him brag about killing a drag queen named Marsha at bar.
“There’s no doubt in my mind this is the person harassing Marsha,” the witness told Wicker in the taped interview.
The witness said he tried to tell police what he knew but was brushed off.
The DA’s office declined to comment on or confirm a new investigation.sjacobs@nydailynews.com
