By Gary Barlow

Staff writer

Police in West Palm Beach, Florida said they found the bodies of a popular gay bar owner and his ex-boyfriend March 22 in the bar owner’s apartment.

They said the ex-boyfriend, Brant Hines, 27, apparently hanged himself sometime after killing bar owner Michael Brown, 50, who died of blunt trauma to the head and multiple stab wounds.

Brown owned H.G. Roosters, a longtime gay watering hole. He’d bartended at the bar for a number of years before inheriting it in 1984 from the previous owner. Brown was known for his AIDS charity work and support for other local GLBT community causes.

The Palm Beach Post reported that Brown and Hines had a volatile, on-off relationship that stretched back several years. Hines moved from New Jersey to West Palm Beach in 2003 and had a number of misdemeanor arrests in his record.

Police told the Post that they believe Hines killed Brown late March 19 or early March 20. On March 20 Hines was seen walking Brown’s dogs. A neighbor also saw him March 20 and said he had a black eye.

Police believe Hines committed suicide late March 20 or early March 21.

Brown was on the South Florida board of directors for the NAMES Project, which sponsors the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Fellow board member Jerry Suarez, on joe.my.god.blogspot.com, said, “Michael felt a tremendous responsibility as a gay man, somebody who saw many friends die, to dedicate his life to AIDS awareness and to work for the betterment of gay people everywhere.”

Brown used his bar to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the NAMES Project, Toys for Tots, the South Florida GLBT group Compass and other causes.

“He was an icon in this community,” Compass Executive Director Scott Fox told the Post.

Friends of Brown held a candlelight vigil and memorial service for him at H.G. Roosters March 22.