A member of the US navy has been charged in connection with the death of a 25-year-old black transgender woman who was found dead in a hotel room in St Martin, Mississippi, on Saturday.
Dee Whigham, a recently graduated registered nurse, is believed to have been stabbed to death at a Best Western hotel, but investigators were waiting for full autopsy results before ruling an official cause of death.
Dwanya Hickerson, 20, has been charged with capital murder in connection with Whigham’s death.
Hickerson was apprehended on the Keesler air force base on Monday morning after the sheriff’s department received a tip from personnel at the base who saw surveillance footage released by local police of Hickerson leaving the hotel.
Officials are currently investigating whether the incident was perpetrated as a hate crime.
“We’re not ruling out anything at this point in time,” the Jackson County sheriff, Mike Ezell, said on Sunday.
Whigham worked as a registered nurse at Forrest general hospital in Hattiesburg. Her death marks the 15th homicide of a transgender person this year, a number the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP) warns will probably increase and eclipse previous years.
Mississippi currently does not include gender identity within hate crime statutes. But if hate towards her identity as a transgender woman is found as a motivating factor, then federal hate crime charges could be applied.
Whigham’s death comes almost three weeks after another black transgender woman, Deeniquia “Dee Dee” Dodds, was shot and killed in Washington DC, just blocks from her home.
“The violence that transgender women of color face is rooted in racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia,” Emily Waters, senior manager of National Research and Policy at NCAVP, told the Guardian. “We need to notice how these biases and violence are present in all of our everyday environments, and then work to change them.”
As officials continue to investigate Whigham’s death, her community, family and friends are mourning and searching for answers.
“We just don’t understand how something so bad can happen to such a sweet person,” her aunt Shamela Walker told the Guardian hours after Hickerson’s arrest.
“She loved everyone,” she continued. A candlelight vigil will be held on Tuesday night by a local LGBT center in Ocean Springs.
