Police are
finally investigating the death of Aidelen Evans, a 24-year-old Black trans
woman, as a homicide after she was found dead in March.
Evans, described
by family as a fun-loving woman, was found dead in a canal running adjacent to
Motiva, the nation’s largest oil refinery, in the coastal industrial city
of Port Arthur by police on 18 March.
Evidence has
since surfaced that Evans may have been killed in Beaumont and her body
dumped in Port Arthur.
Beaumont
police have now taken over the case from Port Arthur, who initially listed Evans’ death as suspicious, and said
that detectives are investigating her passing as a possible homicide.
The force did
not provide any details on how she was killed, 12News reported.
Family members
have been left frustrated by the police investigation, one they have described
as sluggish with countless questions remaining.
They pushed
the police to launch a second autopsy report after the first was inconclusive,
their anger compounded by press reports that constantly misgendered and
deadnamed Evans.
“This is
heartbreaking, I don’t care what nobody has to say,” Evans’ grandmother Lois
Balka told 12News in March.
“Nobody should
have this. Nobody — no parent should have to go through this.
“It’s hard you
go to sleep at night,” she added, “and you think about: ‘Lord please give us an
answer, please give us an answer’.”
Evans has been
described by the local press as a transient, meaning she often stayed and
worked in places for a short amount of time.
She had ties
to Houston, police added, and often frequented area of College Street
and 4th Street in Port Arthur.
Anyone with
information that may aid in the investigation is asked to call Beaumont police
at (409) 832-1234 or submit an anonymous tip to Southeast Texas Crime Stoppers
at (409) 833-TIPS (8477).
Death of
Aidelen Evans is ‘heartbreaking and infuriating’
Evans’ name
joins an ever-increasing list of trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming
Americans to die by violence in the US this year alone in what the American
Medical Association has dubbed an “epidemic of violence.”
At least 30
trans people have been killed in 2021, Human Rights Campaign says.
SOURCE: PINK NEWS
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