Daily Mail – by RICHARD ALLEYNE IN HONOLULU, HAWAII
President Obama’s high school pot dealer who he thanked in his yearbook for the ‘good times’ was beaten to death by his lover after a series of fights over flatulence and drugs, MailOnline can reveal today.
Raymond Boyer, known as ‘Gay Ray’ to Obama and his marijuana smoking ‘Choom Gang’, was bludgeoned to death with a hammer seven years after he sold the future president and his friends drugs.
His lover Andrew Devere, a male prostitute, gave police a laundry list of reasons for the killing, including that Boyer, a surfer and unemployed chef, constantly put him down, made him beg for drugs and had a habit of breaking wind in his face.
Good times: Obama thanked Ray in his high school yearbook alongside his family and his Choom Gang buddies
Pot head: Obama and his ‘Choom Gang’ of privately-educated friends used to score drugs off Ray. Ray was murdered seven years after the gang left school by his lover for a myriad of bizarre and frankly petty reasons
The sordid end to the life of Boyer at 37 was in direct contrast to the young men he supplied drugs to who all went on to lead successful and productive lives.
Since getting high with Obama and his private school educated friends he lost his job as the manager of a local pizzeria and ended up on welfare living above a car repair shop.
The full extent of Ray’s grisly end and the bizarre reasons for it were set out in mitigation by Devere, who was jailed for life for the murder.
Appeal court documents from 1991, uncovered for the first time by MailOnline, reveal Devere killed Boyer on New Year’s Day 1986 because: Boyer was killing a friend of his by supplying that friend with drugs; Boyer embarrassed Devere and put him down in front of other people; Boyer had developed a habit of farting in Devere’s face; Boyer once attacked Devere with a knife, slicing Devere’s finger; Boyer made Devere beg for drugs.
Finally, the documents say the last straw came on the morning that Devere killed Boyer when the victim had refused to give Devere money to buy medication to soothe the murderer’s sore throat.
Obama has never hidden his drug taking youth and recently put on record that he felt that marijuana was no worse than alcohol.
Killer: Andrew Devere, pictured in a variety of mugshots over the years, was sentenced to life for the grisly crime. He said he killed Boyer because he broke wind in his face, was killing a friend by selling him drugs, didn’t pick up his medicine for a sore throat and insulted him in public. Devere is now free and living on the mainland
Party bus: Obama and the Choom Gang used to go to parties in the hills in Ray’s surf van (file photo) and get high. Weed was rife in Hawaii during the counter-culture years of the 1970s and often smoked openly
He mentioned in his own autobiography that he took drugs. And David Maraniss’s book ‘Barack Obama: The Story’ revealed the existence of the Choom Gang (Choom is slang for smoking pot) and their dealer ‘Ray’.
It was even known that ‘Ray’ had been murdered but only now can the MailOnline can reveal the full tragic story of his life.
Raymond Boyer, originally from California, was an athletic surfer who earned a living as the day manager of a pizza restaurant near the private school where Obama and his teenage friends were taught in Hawaii.
Mama Mia Pizza restaurant, which also had a bar, was at the centre of a thriving university scene in Honolulu during the counter culture days of 1979.
At the time, marijuana – or pakalolo as it was known locally – was flourishing on the island. It was grown in the hills and sold and smoked openly on the streets and beaches.
Boyer, 30 at the time, lived the archetypal hippy existence, sleeping in an old bus with two pet monkeys, and enjoying in full the promiscuous and hedonistic lifestyle of the gay community on the Pacific island.
He also dealt drugs to friends – and it was through supplying marijuana that he came into contact with the young Obama, known as Barry, who was attending Punahou school nearby.
Obama, 18, who was only just beginning to explore his black roots – having been brought up by his white grandparents – was a leading member of a group called the Choom Gang.
Choom is island slang for pot smoking and the group went on excursions to the countryside where they would get high and party, sometimes in Ray’s surf van.
Experiments: Obama, 18, who was only just beginning to explore his black roots – having been brought up by his white grandparents – was a leading member of a group called the Choom Gang
Choom: The gang, whose other passions were beer and basketball, even made up rules about the smoking of ‘bud’. Obama was particularly fond of the ‘interception’ and ‘roof hits’, according to a biography
The gang, whose other passions were beer and basketball, even made up rules about the smoking of ‘bud’.
One of them was that you skipped a turn if you did not inhale properly and the other, a favorite of Obama, was that you could grab an extra drag of a joint if you elbowed in and shouted ‘intercepted’.
The young Obama popularized the concept of ‘roof hits’, when all the windows of a car were rolled up so you could suck up the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.
‘Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,’ Tom Topolinski, one member of the Choom Gang, told Maraniss.
‘Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted “Intercepted!”, and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.’
Ray, although older, was an integral part of the gang, known for his ability to ‘score good bud’ and drive them up nearby Mount Tantalus to party.
He even got a mention in Obama’s school yearbook as the teenager wrote his thanks to: ‘Tut [his grandmother], Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.’
While the other members of the gang went onto university and careers as lawyers, writers and businessmen, Ray’s wild life was just beginning to unravel.
He lost his job at Mama Mia’s and lived above a car repair shop in a rundown area of downtown Honolulu.
His relationships became ever more sordid and he ended up sleeping with a gay prostitute drug addict called Andrew Devere, 17 years his junior.
This was to be his undoing.
As he slept on New Year’s Day 1986, Devere, upset with Ray’s treatment of him, took a claw hammer and literally beat his brains out. His body was not found until eight days later.
Devere said that he had meant to shoot Boyer but could not get a gun and was planning to kill him at night but he fell asleep. He finally bludgeoned him to death the next morning.
Formative: It emerged last week that Obama believes that marijuana is no more dangerous than booze
Privileged: Devere’s current wife Elizabeth suggested that rich people have ‘the right tools’ to deal with taking drugs, but those like Devere, a former male prostitute, didn’t and they ‘subtract from the good’
He said: ‘I wasn’t mad at him at the time that I did it…. But I knew I had to do it because…. later on … I knew that I would, you know, I would forget about how he treated me’.
Devere, who jailed for life for the murder but released in 2007, has since moved to the mainland.
He now has a wife and although has since been convicted of minor drug offenses holds down a job.
He is too traumatized to talk about his old life but his wife, Elizabeth, told MailOnline that the gruesome episode was a warning to anyone.
‘He is embarrassed about it but I told him that you cannot run from it,’ she said. ‘Drugs always alter your mind. I have a past myself. Because of the drugs and his lifestyle it was a really tough environment to survive in.
‘He survived by being a prostitute. I think drugs affect people in different ways. It depends how you are brought up.
‘If you have the right tools to deal with them then it’s okay. But if not they definitely subtract from the good.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547667/EXCLUSIVE-Obamas-high-school-pot-dealer-future-president-thanked-good-times-yearbook-beaten-death-gay-lover-fights-flatulence-drugs.html#ixzz2rt0TVQkJ
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Ah yes, the warm, loving relationships between gays is SO obvious at times.