Anti-transgender sentiment is suspected to have played a role in the separate deaths of two people, an Oregon man and an Indiana woman, over the past two weeks.
The first incident played out at an apartment complex in Richmond, Indiana, on the afternoon of June 30. Police say that Tommy Wayne Earl, 67, told them he looked out the window of his fourth-floor apartment and spotted Michelle Dionne Peacock, a neighbor he disliked, sitting at a gazebo with another person.
Earl told investigators he’d “had enough” and went out to confront Peacock with a straight razor, allegedly slicing her throat in such a way that she bled out before she could be moved from the scene, according to a detective’s sworn affidavit that was obtained by HuffPost.
In talks with investigators, Earl referred to the victim as “a male acting like a woman,” the affidavit said.
But Peacock was a 59-year-old cisgender woman.
According to the detective’s sworn statement, Earl was unrepentant and stated multiple times that he would attack the neighbor again if he could. Bystanders had attempted to subdue him at the scene, and responding officers used a stun gun on Earl after he allegedly threatened to kill them too.
Just two days later, in Portland, Oregon, Colin Michael Smith was stabbed to death after a man allegedly came up to his group of friends at a bar and began spewing homophobic slurs.
An LGBTQ+ news blog, Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, was the first to notice similarities in the two incidents.
Rahnique U. Jackson, 24, is accused of killing Smith after the 32-year-old defended a transgender friend in the group, according to Smith’s sister.
“It was a hate crime,” Danielle Smith told KOIN 6 News, a CBS affiliate. “She was trans, he [Jackson] ... didn’t like it, and Colin — defending his friend — was in the way. And that’s what happened. It’s just tragic.”
A former girlfriend, Paulina Solis, told the outlet that she believed Colin Smith was “probably trying to just deescalate and get this person to move on and that’s when he was killed.” Greg Denton, Smith’s former boss, described him to The Oregonian as a “caretaker” of his fellow employees at Ox Restaurant in Portland.
Earl has been charged with first-degree murder and resisting law enforcement; Jackson was booked on second-degree murder.