25 Years Later, A Trans Murder Victim's Assailant Is Arrested

Back in 1989  Santa Ana, CA resident Carla Leigh Salazar was stabbed to death in her apartment.  

While the murdered trans woman's case was investigated by Santa Ana police, they didn't identify a suspect at the time, and the case eventually went  to the cold case file like many of the unsolved murders that involve trans women. 

With the advances in DNA for criminal case detective work, it has allowed police investigators to take a fresh look at cases that couldn't be solved under the methods of the day and gives them another tool in their crime fighting toolbox to close those cold cases.

An arrest has been made in the Salazar case in the person of 63 year old Douglas Gutridge.   

He was an acquaintance of Salazar, may have been the last person to see Salazar alive and was suspected by the police of committing the crime.   In 2007 police investigators received lab evidence that indicated an unidentified male had been in the apartment at the time of Salazar's death.

That led police investigators in 2009 to contact Gutridge, who volunteered to submit a DNA sample.   That evidence wasn't enough to detain him at the time.   Continued advances in forensics technology and the formation in Orange County of a Cold Case Homicide Task Force to address a backlog of over 1000 area cold cases led to the renewed interest in the Salazar one.

The advancements in forensic technology combined with Gutridge's DNA place him not only in Salazar's apartment at the time of the murder, but also showed the placement of his hands on her body.

Based on that new evidence, Gutridge was arrested on December 9 and charged with Salazar's murder.  It was also the first arrest for the newly minted Orange County Cold Case Homicide Task force.    He is facing 25 years to life if convicted, and is being held on a $1 million bond with arraignment scheduled for January 2.

And it gives ne another trans murder case to track in the New Year to see if our fallen sister receives justice.

Will April Be A Deadly Month For African-American Transwomen This Year?

With the calendar page flipping from March to April, the weather gets warmer (at least in some parts of the country), the shorts come out and people emerge to enjoy the wonderful spring weather. 

And over the last two years, what has emerged is a distressing pattern of the month of April being a particularly deadly one for African-American trans women.  

There were three slayings of African-American transwomen in April 2012, and that pattern continued in 2013.   Kelly Young and Ashley Sinclair were killed 48 hours apart in Baltimore and Orlando, and Cemia Dove Acoff's lifeless body was discovered on April 17.

So will we see a threepeat of that pattern in 2014?   I hope and pray we don't, but with the increased attention transpeople and trans issues are getting in the media, it has also fueled backlash.  Some of that backlash will be manifested in people who are mean spirited, hateful and angry enough to take their transphobia to murderous levels. 

And let this post serve as your wake up call.   Remember you are walking around in Black feminine bodies, which like our cisgender Black feminine counterparts, draw their share of murderous attention, too.

So my transsisters, be vigilant and most importantly be safe so I don't have to type out stories of a transwoman being killed somewhere in this country during the month of April.   

Composite Sketch Of Suspect In Houston SGL Couple Murder

As many of you here in the Houston area and beyond are aware of, two African-American SGL women were found dead near a Port Bolivar convenience store dumpster Friday.  

This is a composite sketch of the suspect in the murder of Houston couple Britney Cosby and Crystal Jackson, who were both 24 years old.  Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset wouldn’t elaborate on how the man and the victims were connected, but is quoted in a KHOU-TV report as saying it’s likely the women were killed somewhere in Houston before their bodies were brought to the Port Bolivar location where they were found.

Galveston County detectives are asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspect in the composite drawing. He would have been last seen with the victims and in their vehicle, a 2006 silver Kia SUV.

Those with information are asked to contact the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office at 866-248-8477 or Galveston County Crime Stoppers 409-763-8477.

British Trans Woman Gets Justice For Sexual Assault After Her Death

(TRIGGER WARNING:  This post discusses a sexual assault) 

Anna Vincent finally got justice for what happened to her on a horrible January 23, 2001 night.  Too bad she wasn't alive to see this day happen.

She was 36 at the time and on her way home inebriated from attending a birthday party.  Just outside the Camden Town tube station she was snatched by Mohammed Salim at approximately 10 PM and dragged by him to a nearby alley.   He tried to force her to perform a oral sex act on him before forcing himself on her, anally raping the post operative trans woman, vomiting and running away from the scene.

At first Vincent wasn't going to report the sexual assault because she felt the police wouldn't care, take it seriously or do anything about it because of her transfeminine status.  She was persuaded to report it anyway and did so the next day.

Good thing she did.  Semen was found in that alleyway, but the case remained unsolved until a cold case review took place in 2011.  
   
With the ability to now do DNA testing on the semen sample, it came up as a billion to one match for the 43 year old Mohammed Salim, who was arrested and charged with her rape and two counts of indecent assault.  

The initial trial for Salim at Old Bailey in June resulted in a hung jury, but in the retrial that started July 8 Salem was convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail for the assault on Vincent. 

Unfortunately Anna Vincent didn't see her attacker get brought to justice because she died in 2006. 

The London Metropolitan Police suspect that Salim was involved in other sexual assault cases and are asking for people to call their Serious and Complex Case Team on 0208 217 6526. To remain anonymous call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Baltimore Police Looking For Perp Who Sexually Assaulted A Transteen

The Baltimore Police are looking for a waste of DNA who sexually assaulted a 16 year old trans teen.   If you can identify this perp and get him off the streets please  

May be triggering for some people

Suspect Arrested In Brutal Attack On PR Transwoman

I've written about the spike in anti trans murders and assaults in Puerto Rico and speculated that one of the causes of it is the anti trans attitudes and trans hate doctrine coming out of the Catholic Church. since 2003.


Ironically on the same April 18 day that Chrissy Polis was getting attacked in the Baltimore 'burbs, Francheska Gonzalez was minding her own business pumping gas in her car at a Rio Piedras, PR gas station when she was viciously assaulted.

According to an April 20 Radio Isla interview with Francheska's mother Olga Vazquez, she was kicked in the head and all over her body by her assailants.  Gonzalez suffered a fractured vertebrae and bruises all over her body as a result..

22 year old Jose Ortiz, one of the assailants in Gonzalez's attack was recently arrested after police responded to reports that a group of men were robbing and assaulting trans women in San Juan's Santurce neighborhood.

Gonzalez picked him out of a police lineup, and he will be charged on Wednesday April 27..

"We are satisfied that the suspect has been identified. Now we call upon the authorities to investigate the hate angle on this case, but foremost to do justice," Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force told EDGE.. "Anti-LGBT violence cannot be condoned and the government has to send a message that it will not tolerate any bias attack against the LGBT community or any other community."

Pray for Francheska's speedy recovery from her injuries and hope that justice is done in this case as well.
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Tampa Mom Takes Teen Kids Out Of This World

Kids, when your mother tells you the classic line "I brought you into this world and I can take you out", believe it. 

I'd also advise you to cease and desist with whatever behavior of yours is pissing her off.

16 year old Calyx Schenecker and her 13 year old brother Beau were shot and killed by their mother Julie Powers Schenecker in Tampa, FL  for 'mouthing off' to her.

Police reportedly stated that Schenecker said her son Beau had been talking back to her while on the way to his soccer practice when she shot him twice with a .38 in the family SUV.   She then returned home and shot Calyx twice while she sat in front of her computer doing homework. 

The Army wife had written a note in which Schenecker said she was going to kill her "disrespectful children," then kill herself, writing," "they talked back and were mouthy and that she was going to take care of it."

She's facing two counts of first degree murder. 

Tired Of Y'all Scapegoating Black People To Cover Up Your Criminal BS

I was not surprised when I read the news report that Bethany Storro confessed her claim that an 'athletic Black woman in a ponytail' threw acid in her face outside a Portland, OR Starbucks was false.

Something didn't add up in that case from the start. Besides, Portland doesn't have a large African-American population base to begin with.

It's an over a century old pattern of behavior from whites we are tired of that in some cases has deadly consequences for us.

How many Black men were hung from trees in the late 19th and 20th centuries or Black neighborhoods and towns burned from riots triggered because some white woman falsely accused a Black man of raping her to cover up for the fact that some white kid was the one who did the deed?

If you think I'm kidding, let's just roll through recent history shall we?

Let's go back to the 2008 presidential election, in which McCain campaign worker Ashley Todd claimed a Black mugger robbed her at a Pittsburgh ATM and carved a backwards 'B' on her face.

Then there was Susan Smith in Union, South Carolina, who claimed in 1994 she was carjacked by a Black man at a traffic light with her two kids strapped in the backseat. That lie led to ramped up racial tension in the city of Union and Union County before Smith confessed to her crime.

And let's ride the wayback machine still further to 1931 and discuss two women named Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. Their false rape accusations jumped off the notorious Scottsboro Boys case in Alabama.

White males have played that game as well. Earlier this year 30-year-old Conrad Zdzierak robbed four banks and a CVS in just three hours in the Springdale, Ohio area by wearing a high quality $700 dollar silicone mask to make himself look like a Black man.

He'd commit the robbery, and take the mask off while driving his next target, confounding police on the lookout for a Black man. He was caught at a hotel because he failed to disguised his car.

At the same time Philadelphia Police Sgt. Robert Ralston claimed he was shot by an unidentified Black man in the city's Overbrook section. The lie triggered a manhunt in West Philadelphia for the alleged MUBM (mysterious unidentified Black man) perpetrators, led to an arrest and inflamed racial tensions in the city. He admitted a month later he fabricated the entire story and had shot himself.

On October 23, 1989 Charles Stuart drove into a predominately Black Boston neighborhood with his wife Carol, shot and killed her with a gunshot to the head, shot himself in the abdomen, and claimed a MUBM did it. That lie, like Sgt. Ralston's did, inflamed racial tensions in Boston and triggered a citywide police dragnet that pissed off the Black community. William Bennett was arrested on unrelated charges and fingered by Stuart as the perpetrator before Stuart's story fell apart. After confessing his crime to his attorney, Stuart committed suicide on January 3, 1990.

The depressing regularity of these stories not only speaks to the racism that still infects our society, but the misguided belief that African-Americans are 'more criminal' and 'unethical' than other ethnic groups.

The prisons and jail cells of this nation aren't just occupied by African descended people alone. But it's just us who are saddled with the air of criminality and frankly, we are beyond sick and tired of it.

So next time white peeps, when y'all want to commit crimes, take responsibility for your own criminal behavior and leave us out of it.

We Don't Need No Scam Artists

As Bernie Madoff and other scam artists have repeatedly shown, never underestimate a human being's capacity to unscrupulously fleece his fellow humans for their own personal financial gain.

I'm bringing this issue up because the African American trans community is at a point in which I and other transpeople of color are making serious headway in educating people about how our trans issues are different from our white counterparts. That is also beginning to become evident in our own African descended community as well.

There is a hunger for knowledge on those issues, and people who have the long term interests of the African descended trans community in mind are diligently working to present our case in as professional, informative and morally upright a manner as possible.

But unfortunately there are transpeople who only care about themselves. Combine that selfishness with the fact that many of the procedures we need to transform our bodies require a steady cash flow. Transmen needing top surgeries and transwomen needing electrolysis, laser or SRS may become desperate enough to try to scam or steal their way into getting the money they need for their transformations.

Some of them won't care about the collateral damage they leave behind in their wake as they strive to 'look out for number one'.

It doesn't happen often, but this has already occurred within a few organizations in the white trans community. A person entrusted with handling the money skimmed off some for personal use without legal retribution, only opening the door to more thefts because they didn't send the message the first time it happened it wasn't going to be tolerated.

I know of one organization that went the other way and prosecuted the person that embezzled funds from their treasury the first time it happened. Needless to say it hasn't happened again.

We don't need that kind of drama when we as African descended trans people are already fighting to overcome negative race based perceptions about us. When we interact with the cis and trans world, we need to bear that in mind.

Any activities or business transactions we engage in should be conducted with scrupulous honesty and as professionally competent as possible. Nothing leaves a negative impression or a bitter taste in someone's mouth longer than losing their hard earned money through scam or theft If we discover such people in our midst, they need to be prosecuted

We need to bear in mind you may be the first trans person of African descent many people have had a chance to interact with.

Your actions, for good or ill will have an effect on us either way and form the basis of their attitudes and impressions about the rest of us.

And we don't need any scam artists messing that up.

Mike Huckabee's Potential 'Willie Horton'

If former Arkansas governor and Faux News show host Mike Huckabee runs for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, get ready to see the picture of this gentleman in a lot of political attack ads directed at him.

This is Maurice Clemmons, who has a long criminal record. At age 17 he was convicted of aggravated robbery in 1989 and sentenced in Little Rock, AR to 95 years in prison.

During his term as governor of Arkansas Huckabee commuted his sentence, which resulted in Clemmons 2000 parole. Clemmons subsequently violated his parole, was sent back to prison and released in 2004.

Huck caught a lot of flak during the 2008 GOP nomination race because in GOP eyes he issued too many clemencies and commutations. He cited Clemmons' age at the time as a reason for doing so.

Why this is blowing up is because of the ambush deaths of four police officers in a suburban Seattle coffee shop Saturday.

If it turns out Clemmons is the person responsible for the deaths of Lakewood police Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42, Huckabee's gonna have some problems with the 'law and order lock 'em up and throw away the key' side of the GOP base.

Huck's already trying to do damage control on the developing story now by playing the blame game.

"Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state."

Yep, and one of those failures is one you are responsible for.

Stay tuned to this developing story that many of us will be watching, especially Mike Huckabee.

Suspect Arrested in Slaying Of Transman

We frequently hear about transwomen being murdered, but there's a case going on in Hattiesburg, MS in which a transman was killed.

28 year old Devin Fortune is charged with one count of murder in the stabbing death of 47 year old Archie Avis Brooks. He is being held at the Forrest County Jail on a $1 million bail.

Forrest County Deputy Coroner Jonathan Nobles said Brooks had been dead since July 26.

After his court appearance in Forrest County Justice Court he told reporters,"I feel bad.” "I regret what I done. I made a mistake.”

Relatives of Brooks who attended Fortune's bond hearing would not comment.

Forrest stated that he stabbed Brooks, who was originally born in New Orleans, after an argument.

Police recovered Brooks' body from a second-floor apartment after a first-floor neighbor reported blood dripping from the ceiling.

Burr Oak Hits Home

When the news about the horrific happenings at Chicago's historic Burr Oak Cemetery broke a few weeks ago I had this unsettling deja vu moment.

As some of you long time TransGriot readers may know, my roomie Dawn and I both have relatives in the Chicago area. I used to early in my airline days frequently visit them during the early 90's, sometimes with my then best friend and co-worker Eric Shepherd along for the ride to hit some of the house music venues.

I knew that Burr Oak was one of the cemeteries where many prominent Black Chicagoans have been laid to rest. It is also the resting place of Emmitt Till, whose 1954 lynching was the emotional spark that jump started the African American civil rights movement.

When I watched the news coverage of the unfolding events I had a 'where have I heard that name before' alert going off in my head. The reason I was having the bad moment became clear when I called home last Friday and talked to my mother.

My first trip to Chicago was back in August 1986. It was my first airplane ride as we took an Eastern Airlines Moonlight Special flight from Houston Intercontinental to Chicago O'Hare to attend the funeral of my Uncle Leon.

My uncle had passed away on August 2, and the date sticks in my mind because it was the same day as the fatal Delta air crash at DFW.

My mom has a summa cum laude degree in history and is basically our family historian.

She keeps the records of all family events such as our reunions, weddings and funerals and was having the same unsettling feeling I had upon hearing the name Burr Oak earlier this month. Mom decided to pull out and reread my Uncle Leon's program.

When I talked to her, Mom dropped the bomb for me that Uncle Leon was buried in Burr Oak.

I was already concerned, pissed and mortified about the horrific crap that had happened there and greed being the motivating factor for it. It was initially reported that First Lady Michelle Obama's father Fraser Robinson III was buried there as well, but the White House later released a statement that he wasn't.

Unfortunately, there are families like mine all over the country and the Chicago area who do have loved ones buried there. I'm still awaiting word from my Chicago relatives to find out if my Uncle Leon's grave or headstone was disturbed.

Emmitt Till's grave was one of the 300 graves disturbed. After all the pain that the Till family has suffered, to have those painful wounds reopened again in such a disgusting way makes me sick to my stomach.

As Jesse Senior said, there's a special place in Hades for the people who perpetrated this evil. When these wastes of DNA are brought to justice for it, may the Cook County court system and the state Of Illinois throw the book at them so they can spend the rest of their miserable lives rotting in jail.