Flames of suspicion: after being burned out of their Montana home in an apparent hate crime, a lesbian couple say they're being victimized again--this time by police who they say suspect them in the arson. (Crime).

Publication: The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)

Publication Date: 15-OCT-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Liberation Publications, Inc.

When Carla Grayson and Adrianne Neff filed a lawsuit last winter demanding that the Montana University System provide them domestic-partner benefits, the women hoped to improve their lives--and that of their 2-year-old son. But only a week later it seemed that life as they knew it was all but ruined.

Shortly after 3 A.M. on February 8, fire swept through the family's ranch-style home in Missoula, Mont. The trio escaped through a bedroom window with only a few bruises, scrapes, and sprains. The home, however, was completely lost to what police quickly determined was a case of arson. "Inside it was a nightmare," says Neff, who suspects the fire is linked to the lawsuit.

As Neff and Grayson started sifting through their charred and soot-stained possessions, Missoula investigators started sifting through evidence, speculation, and suspicion. Was the arson a hate crime, they asked, an attempted triple homicide, or a hoax committed by Neff and Grayson?

"The period where we thought we were being treated like the victims was very short," says Neff, who has temporarily relocated with Grayson and their son to Ann Arbor, Mich., where they lived prior to moving to Missoula and where Grayson is working on research with the University of Michigan. "It...

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