Previously (link here) I wrote about the court date having been set for the preliminary hearing of the trial of Allen Ray Andrade.
He is charged with first-degree murder after deliberation, bias-motivated crime, felony motor vehicle theft and felony identity theft in the death of Angie Zapata.
That hearing took place on 18 September and, according to 9news:
A Weld County district judge ruled Thursday that there is enough evidence against a man charged with killing a transgender woman to proceed with a trial.
There is coverage of the hearing in a couple of places, but the most chilling quote is in the Greeley Tribune:
A man accused of beating a transgendered woman to death told his girlfriend in a phone call that he “snapped” and that “gay things need to die.”
The phone calls made by Allen Andrade, charged in the murder of the transgender woman Angie Zapata, while in jail to his girlfriend detailed that something bad had happened and that Andrade had made a mistake.
Andrade, 31, of Thornton expressed that he was out of control, outside himself and not a coherent person the day of the murder.
The phone calls were also laden with derogatory remarks towards homosexuals, and he stated that people in jail are scared of him because of his reputation for wielding a fire extinguisher, which is the suspected murder weapon.
“Gay things need to die”.
Things.
And this… this man – has the bare-faced cheek to say he had “made a mistake”? Damn right you made a mistake, Mr Andrade. And, no, you may not use the trans panic defence.
…*breathes*…
From the Denver Channel:
An autopsy found Zapata died from blunt-force trauma.
Prosecutors said he then took off in Zapata’s 2003 PT Cruiser and was arrested on July 30 at his home in Thornton.
Andrade is being held at Weld County Jail without bond. He’s due back in court Nov. 16. The motor vehicle theft and felony identity theft charges allege that he stole Zapata’s car and debit card.
A bias-motivated crime is a crime committed based on a person’s race, religion or sexual orientation.
Andrade faces life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder.
So now we wait, again – this time for two months, until the case goes back to court on 16 November.
My thoughts are with Angie’s family and friends. Nobody deserves to die in the way that Angie did.
Nobody.
Mr Andrade, in my view, life in prison without parole doesn’t even come close to what you deserve. Fortunately for you, I don’t get to make the rules.
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ETA, Saturday morning: Over at Pam’s House Blend, Autumn Sandeen points out a truly breathtaking nuance in the Defense Attorney’s clumsy and cynical attempt to engineer a trans panic defence as justification for Andrade’s actions, as reported in the Denver Post:
Only when Andrade grabbed at Zapata’s crotch did he discover the truth. But when she smiled at him and said, “I’m all woman,” it drove an enraged Andrade to commit murder, attorney Annette Kundelius said.
“At best, this is a case about passion,” Kundelius said. “When (Zapata) smiled at him, this was a highly provoking act, and it would cause someone to have an aggressive reaction.”
(Emphasis added for clarity)
Bear in mind that we only have Mr Andrade’s word that this is actually what happened, but even if he is telling the truth, the subtext is pure hatred. The only inference I can draw is that trans women who smile are “asking for it”.
“It” apparently being shorthand for “being sentenced, by a transphobic knuckle-dragger, to being beaten to death with a fire extinguisher”.
This is victim-blaming, and the related refusal to accept responsibility for one’s actions, taken to new depths, and it turns my stomach.
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I have previously written about events in connection with this hate crime here:
bird of paradox 