Milton Residents Rally To Support Gay Couple Harassed By Neighbor

MILTON, MA — After putting up with years of harassment, a gay couple from Milton learn who was sending hate-filled messages to them, and turned the negative issue into a positive one.

For five years, LeeMichael McLean and his husband Byron Furze say they have received numerous magazine subscriptions in the mail that they say they had to pay for, all addressed to fake homophobic names.

The couple says they received subscriptions to Vogue, Cosmopolitan and unwanted mailings including a pitch for life insurance that had stopped right before the pandemic but had just started picking back up again.

McLean joked about it on Facebook, making light of the situation by saying, "joke is on them. What gay guy doesn’t want free issues of Vogue and Cosmopolitan?"

First reported by The Boston Globe, the couple was about to give up on trying to figure out who was sending them such hurtful things, when they received a subscription card for the Boston Globe in the mail back to them under the name, "Michelle Fruitzey," a homophobic play on the couples first and last names.

After sending a copy of the handwriting over to the police, McLean took to social media and posted a picture of the handwritten card in hopes of reaching someone online who would be able to help.

A good Samaritan was able to trace the handwriting back to a neighbor of the couple by doing a handwriting analysis of the signatures from members of a Milton town meeting.

The couple says the neighbor then confessed to the harassment.

“He says hi to me. We’ve had casual conversations,” McLean said in . “I spoke with him about a week before that last card came about work that was being done on his house. I was running by his house and stopped to have a chat. Never would have suspected it.”

But after all this, the couple was not finished. McLean and Furze decided to turn all of the negativity into positivity by raising money for the Gay Straight Alliance at Milton High School and Pierce Middle School.

McLean decided to make T-shirts after the public reveal, all donning "#iammichellefruitzey."

They have raised over $15,000 for the GSA so far.

The suspect has not been charged at this point and has not been identified by police, but could face criminal harassment charges.

You can buy shirts at this link if you would like to donate.