New Doc Gives NY Mom Hope in Missing Gay Son Case

A mother in New York State has clung for years to the hope that she might eventually find out what happened to her gay son, a young man who vanished after fleeing a sauna in Vienna four years ago.

An Oct. 13 article posted at Syracuse.com reports that her hope has been given a fresh lift with the release of a new documentary that explores what is known about the case, and asks hard questions about why the police department in the historic Austrian city have proven so uncooperative and unhelpful.

The documentary, "Gone: The Disappearance of Aeryn Gillern," meticulously lays out the story. On Oct. 31, 2007, Aeryn Gillern, an American man living in Vienna and working for the U.N., bolted from a gay sauna into the city streets. According to police and two purported witnesses, Gillern's flight was so sudden and desperate that he did not stop to retrieve his clothing.

But the police account sharply diverges from there, quickly contradicting official records and the city's own layout.

According to police, Gillern ran down the street and leapt into the Danube River. Initial police accounts said that a fisherman later saw a man floating facedown in the river and that the department responded with divers and a K9 unit, but did not recover a body.

Gillern's mother, Kathy Gilleran (who retained the family name's original spelling, unlike her son), is a retired Ithaca, NY, police officer. When she received notice of her son's disappearance four years ago, she immediately flew to Vienna, where she was shocked and dismayed at the hostile reception the local police gave her.

The documentary recounts how Gilleran was told by police that her son had snapped and committed "spontaneous suicide," which the Viennese police claimed was commonplace for gays. The police also told Gilleran that Aeryn had been diagnosed as HIV positive.

But Gilleran's own investigations led to troubling inconsistencies. No divers, K9 units, or other police response had, in fact, been mounted on the night of Aeryn's disappearance. Furthermore, the route that Aeryn supposedly took as he ran through the streets and then plunged into the river included obstacles that the young man could not have easily and "spontaneously" surmounted if his intention was to hurl himself into the water. And a medical report sent to Aeryn just before his disappearance showed him to be HIV-negative.

None of that seemed to matter to the Viennese police, who continually stonewalled and changed their story on a frequent basis, according to the documentary.

Piece by piece and step by step, Gilleran has uncovered tantalizing clues, such as a man who last saw her son at the sauna and told her only that he was "gone"--and that she should simply accept it and not try to find out why or what happened to him.

Gilleran told the media that she still hopes to discover what fate befell her son, and who was behind his disappearance. The documentary may help crucial new facts come to light.

"Everyone who sees it, even if they just tell one other person--that might just be the person that could knock the chip out of that wall and pressure someone else to come forward with the truth," Gilleran said. "I have to think that way, I have to. Otherwise, I would be just curled up in a ball."

Gilleran has not stopped her own efforts to pressure authorities in Vienna into cooperating with her and sharing anything that they might know. She returns every year to the city to renew her efforts. Now she has the film to lend more weight to her cause, reported the article posted at Syracuse.com.

"Gilleran said she has come to believe the Vienna police botched their preliminary investigation into her son's disappearance, then covered up their mistakes," the article noted. "She blames homophobia among the investigators. She holds bitter memories of being mocked and derided by the very officials who were supposed to be finding her son--the people who at the time were her only hope."

"I do believe the police know what happened to him, and I do believe they are somehow involved," Gilleran told the press. "I hope at some point to be able to fill in all the missing pieces of this puzzle. I'm hoping that this film, at some point, reaches people in Vienna who have a conscience."

Until that day comes, Gilleran won't have the closure she and her remaining son need.

"It's hard for me to say this, but I don't believe my son is alive," Gilleran told the local press. "I want to say he is, but I can't say that I believe it. I can't say the d-word either. I just can't say it. It's just too final."

As previously reported at EDGE, the only hard and fast traces of Aeryn Gillern that have come to light since he went missing are the belongings he left behind in a dressing room at the Viennese gay sauna where some sort of fight evidently took place. Among the recovered possessions were Aeryn's passport and cell phone, his clothing, and the medical report showing him to be HIV negative.

Aeryn had had an unfortunate encounter with the Viennese police before his disappearance. He had come to aid of a purse-snatching victim in the Vienna subway by collaring the thief; when police approached, they demanded to see Aeryn's subway ticket. When Aeryn was unable to produce the ticket, the article said, the police officers attacked and assaulted Aeryn.

Aeryn lodged a complaint about the incident. Gilleran believes that this, plus anti-gay bias among Viennese police, accounts for what looks to her like stonewalling in the case of her missing son.

It took intervention by U.S. officials even to prod authorities in Vienna to file a missing persons report in the case.