A jury Friday convicted a West Covina man of the murder of a 26-year-old transgender woman who was ound beaten to death in a Baldwin Park motel in 2013. A Pomona Superior Court Jury found Stephen Gonzales, 30, guilty of the first-degree murder of the victim known to loved ones as Melony Smith. She was listed by coroner’s officials under birth name (snip). Smith’s body was found about 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2013, inside her room at a motel in the 13900 block of Francisquito Avenue in Baldwin Park, according to Los Angeles County sheriff’s and coroner officials. The jury found Gonzales not guilty of robbing Smith, though they did convict Gonzales of the lesser offense of petty theft, Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said. The jury also did not find true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of robbery, which would have made Gonzales eligible for capital punishment...
Expansion of an article originally from this website's parent newspaper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. An earlier article from Patch can be read here. The articles do mention her deadname, from which I deduced that she was probably of Laotian extraction and therefore a TWOC. Please also note that the perp is Hispanic; the majority of people either convicted of or charged with a trans woman over the past year or so are NON-WHITE CIS MEN.
h/t Planet Transgender
