Trevone Hayse
Miller, 20, of Sherwood, Ark., agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder in
exchange for the 50-year sentence, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The sentence
was announced Thursday. He had initially been charged with capital murder,
which carries a sentence of either the death penalty or life in prison.
Prosecutors
said Miller has been in a relationship with Stone, and he killed her in order
to cover it up. She had said she was going to make their relationship public,
and he was worried he would be perceived as gay because of his involvement with
a trans girl.
Stone, who
lived in North Little Rock, was found dead in a car in Sherwood June 25, 2020, three
weeks after her 17th birthday. She had been shot in the head.
Miller was arrested a week after Stone’s death and has been
jailed ever since. He will not be eligible for parole until he’s served 35 years
of his sentence, which includes the time he has already spent in custody.
He had been
implicated in another killing, that of Bryan Allen Thompson, 17, who was
fatally shot during a robbery in Sherwood in October 2016. Miller and two other
teens with charged in Thompson’s death. Miller agreed to testify against the
others in exchange for having a capital murder charge dropped, and he pleaded
guilty to aggravated robbery. He never had to testify, as one other defendant
pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and the other to aggravated robbery and
first-degree murder.
Stone was one
of 44 trans Americans known to have died by violence in 2020, the most in a
single year since activists and media have been keeping track. The count this
year, however, is likely to exceed that, as 34 such deaths have been reported
already. There are likely many more victims, given that some are deadnamed or
misgendered by police or media, or their deaths not reported at all.
SOURCE: ADVOCATE
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