Black trans woman beaten to death in Chicago, body in trash days after reported missing
The body of a Black transgender woman was found stuffed in a garbage can in Chicago five days after she was reported missing, authorities said.
Chicago police say that Tatiana Labelle, a 33-year-old Chicago native, was found just before 1 p.m. Friday in an alley in the Chatham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
She had been reported as missing by her family earlier in the week.
On Saturday, an autopsy conducted by the Cook County medical examiner’s office determined that she had been beaten to death, Fox Chicago reported.
“I loved my sister whether she was transgender or not, and I would like for me and my family to have justice,” Labelle’s sister, Shameika Thomas, told ABC Chicago.
Labelle is likely the eighth transgender person to be killed in the U.S. in 2022. Seven of them were transgender women of color, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Her death comes just days after another Black trans woman was found dead in Illinois.
Elise Malary, a 31-year-old trans rights activist, was reported missing on March 11. Three days later the Evanston Fire Department announced that it had recovered the body of a woman found in Lake Michigan. She was later identified as Malary.
Last year marked the deadliest year on record for trans people in the United States, with at least 56 deaths — nearly all of them were Black and Latina trans women.
The previous record was registered in 2020, when at least 44 trans people were murdered in the country.
