Just this week, the Dallas Police Department posted on its blog, DPDBeat.com, asking for help in solving the 2017 murder of transgender woman Armani Dante Morgan.

Morgan’s family reported her missing on June 22, 2017; one month and two days later, her body was found near the 2900 block of Wilhurt Ave., an area west of I-45 and just south of Illinois Avenue that, police said, she was known to frequent.

Anyone with information related to her murder is asked to call Dallas police Det. Michael Yeric, Special Investigations Unit, at 214-671-3677.

Armani Morgan is one of at least three transgender women known to have been killed in Dallas in the last four years whose murders remain unsolved: Shade Schuler, whose decomposing body was found July 29, 2015, in a field off Regal Row, and Brittany White, who was found shot to death in her car in a parking lot in far southeast Dallas on Oct. 21, 2018.

Publicity surrounding the murders of Muhlaysia Booker in May and Chynal Lindsey in June, along with a non-fatal attack on a third Dallas trans woman earlier in the spring, refocused attention on the murders of Morgan, White and Schuler. And as DFW’s LGBT community and its allies gather tomorrow (Wednesday, Nov. 20), for the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (see details in info box), more attention will come to bear on the growing epidemic of anti-transgender violence.

At least 22 transgender and gender non-conforming individuals have been murdered in the United States this year, including four Texas women: Booker and Lindsey here in Dallas and, in Houston, Tracy Single and Itali Marlowe. Worldwide, at least 331 transgender and gender diverse people have been murdered, according to a Monday, Nov. 18, article posted by Forbes.com.

In a report released Monday called “A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in the United States in 2019,” by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, of the 22 who have been murdered, 91 percent were black women, 81 percent were under the age of 30, and 68 percent lived in the South.

HRCF’s report also noted that in the seven years the organization has been tracking anti-trans violence, “an average of at least 22 transgender and gender non-conforming people have been victims of fatal violence every years.” The report also explains that the term “at least” is used in discussing the number of deaths because “data collection is often incomplete or unreliable because some deaths go unreported and victims are often misgendered and dead-named by police, the media and even family.

The May 18 death of Muhlaysia Booker generated a great deal of attention, both locally and around the country because video of Booker being viciously beaten by a group of men in the parking lot of her apartment as a crowd of onlookers laughed and jeered had gone viral just a month before. When Chynal Lindsey’s body was found in White Rock Lake less than a month after Booker’s murder, police acknowledged that a third trans woman had survived being stabbed repeatedly in an attack the month before Booker was killed. The unidentified survivor had met her attacker in the same area where Booker was last seen alive, and not far from where her body was found.

Dallas police focused significant resources and attention on the spate of attacks, including a renewed attention to the three previous unsolved murders, and on June 12, they announced the arrest of Kendrell Lavar Lyles, 33, who had been arrested the previous day in connection with two murders there. Lyles remains in the Collin County jail.

Although Lyles was initially considered a person of interest in Chynal Lindsey’s death, police on June 20 announced that they had arrested Ruben Alvarado, 22, and charged him with murdering Lindsey. Alvarado remains in the Dallas County jail with bond set at $500,000.

SAY THEIR NAMES
Trans and gender non-confirming
murder victims in 2019
  • Dana Martin, 31, murdered Jan. 6 in Montgomery, Ala. No arrest made.
  • Jazzaline Ware, 34, murdered in March in Memphis, Tenn. No arrest made.
  • Ashanti Carmon, 27, murdered March 30 in Prince George’s County, Md. No arrest made.
  • Claire Legato, 23, shot April 15 in Cleveland, Ohio, and died of her injuries May 14. A suspect (her mother’s boyfriend) has been arrested.
  • Muhlaysia Booker, 23, murdered May 18 in Dallas, one month after being beaten in her apartment parking lot as a crowd of onlookers jeered and laughed. Kendrell Lavar Lyles has been arrested and charged.
  • Michelle “Tamika” Washington, 40, murdered May 19 in Philadelphia. Troy Bailey has been arrested and charged.
  • Paris Cameron, 20, murdered May 25 along with two gay men in an anti-LGBT shooting in Detroit. Devon Robinson has been arrested and charged.
  • Chynal Lindsey, 26, murdered June 1 in Dallas. Ruben Alvarado has been arrested and charged.
  • Chanel Scurlock, 23, murdered June 6 in Lumberton, N.C. Javaras Hammonds has been arrested and charged.
  • Zoe Spears, 23, murdered June 13 in Prince George’s County, Md. Gerardo Thomas has been arrested and charged.
  • Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, murdered June 25 in Kansas City, Mo. Marcus Lewis has been arrested and charged.
  • Denali Berries Stuckey, 29, murdered July 20 in North Charleston, S.C. Dominick Archield has been arrested and charged.
  • Tracy Single, 22, murdered July 30 in Houston. Joshua Dominic Bourgeois, her boyfriend, has been arrested and charged.
  • Kiki Fantroy, 21, murdered July 31 in Miami. A juvenile male has been arrested and charged.
  • Bubba Walker, 55, reported missing on July 26 and found murdered the next day in Charlotte, N.C. No arrest made.
  • Pebbles LaDime “Dime” Doe, 24, murdered Aug. 24 in Allendale County, S.C. No arrest made.
  • Jordan Cofer, 22, among the nine victims murdered Aug. 4 in Dayton, Ohio, in a mass shooting committed by his brother, Connor Betts. Betts was killed by police responding to the shooting.
  • Bailey Reeves, 17, murdered Sept. 2 in Baltimore. No arrest made.
  • Bee Love Slater, 23, murdered Sept. 4 in Clewiston, Fla. Jamson Richemond has been arrested.
  • Jamagio Jamar Berryman (Ja’leyah-Jamar), 30, murdered Sept. 13 in Kansas City, Kan. No known arrests.
  • Itali Marlowe, 29, murdered Sept. 20 in Houston. Her roommate, Raymond Donald Williams, has been charged.
  • Brianna “BB” Hill (Breonna Be’Be Hill), 30, murdered Oct. 14 in Kansas City, Mo. A suspect is in custody.
  • — Tammye Nash