Teen charged with killing transgender woman over relationship fears and will be tried as an adult
A Chicago high school senior is charged with murder after police say he shot a transgender woman in the head last August after ending a relationship with her.
Tremon Hill, 17, has been charged with first-degree murder for allegedly killing 24-year-old Dejanay Stanton, The Daily Mail reports.
Hill was a student-athlete at Phillips High School and was reportedly involved in a relationship with Stanton that began in July of last year. Assistant State’s Attorney Britt Steinberg said Hill told Stanton he was 18 and that he wanted to have sex with her. Reports have labeled Stanton was a sex worker.
Police report that Stanton and Hill exchanged hundreds of text messages. In the last ones sent to the victim, investigators found that Hill expressed remorse for having sex with Stanton and that he was having suicidal thoughts.
Hill asked Stanton to delete the messages and photos from her phone that he had sent.
Hill reportedly persuaded Stanton to meet him at a parking lot, where she was found shot dead outside of her car, according to reports. Stanton had been shot in the head.
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Reportedly there is also surveillance footage placing Stanton and Hill in the location of the shooting but Hill’s public defender say no murder video exists.
Hill has been denied bail by Judge Mary C Marubio and faces a life sentence if convicted. He will reportedly will be charged as an adult.
A Murder in Alabama
Less than two weeks ago the first transgender murder of 2019 was reported.
Dana Martin, an Alabama transgender woman, was found dead on Jan. 6. The 31-year-old was found in the driver’s seat of a car with a gunshot wound. Local police are investigating her death as a homicide.
“Our local LGBTQ community is heart-broken and outraged that the first transgender murder has occurred here in Montgomery,” Meta Ellis and Harvey McDaniel of LGBTQ advocacy group Montgomery Pride United said in a statement shared with NBC News. “Dana Martin was a well-loved person in the community and she will be greatly missed.”
The Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking since 2013 the deaths of trans people in the U.S. due to fatal violence, has reported more than 20 such deaths every year since 2015.
According to statistics provided by Planet Transgender, the average life expectancy of a trans woman of color is only 35 years.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Dejanay Stanton’s death, along with several others, brought out activists who called for police to implement new safety plans to stop the violence against the transgender community.
Transgender women of color comprised more than 60 percent of the victims in hate-related homicides against members of the LGBTQ community in 2016, according to a study from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.
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