Brayla Stone
As police in Dallas continue their investigation into the June 30 murder of Merci Mack in the parking lot of an apartment complex in South Dallas, police in Sherwood, Ark, a suburb of Little Rock, are investigating the murder of Brayla Stone, a 17-year-old Black trans woman who was found dead in a car near a walking path there on June 25.
According to various sources, a man has posted on social media sites claiming that he was hired to kill Stone and was paid $5,000 for the hit. Instagraqm user “@tapnseason” posted a video showing $100 bills spread out over a gray surface, with “$5K” superimposed in red over the a video and a “jazz hands smiley face” emoticon in the lower right corner.
In the comments, user @its_kaykay567 asked, “What happen?” to which @tapnseason repliedm “I zipped em for 5K … Money Well Spent.”
The video has since been deleted from Instagram.
Sherwood police have said they don’t know if Stone was killed at the location where she was found, or if she was killed elsewhere and her body then taken to that location. Beyond that, however, police have remained tight-lipped.
Trans advocates have also criticized local news outlet Fox s16 for continuing to deadname Stone. A spokesperson for the station said that they were following the family’s wishes to use Stone’s birth name.
— Tammye Nash
