Police have charged a 31-year-old man over the violent death of a young transgender woman in Seattle last weekend.
Warning: This report may be upsetting to some readers. Discretion is advised.
Juniper Blessing was a 19-year-old student at the University of Washington. Her body was found late on Sunday night in the laundry room of her off-campus student accommodation. She had been stabbed more than 40 times. Police released an image of a man they wanted to speak to, who was captured on CCTV cameras in the vicinity.
On Wednesday, 31-year-old Christopher Leahy handed himself in to police and was charged with Blessing’s murder. His brother had called police after recognising him from the video footage.
Blessing was a recent graduate of the New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe and had moved to Seattle to undertake further studies.
“Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known – highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others,” the family wrote via the Santa Fe Human Rights Alliance. “Juniper’s loss not only devastates us but diminishes the world.”
Leahy appeared in court on Thursday, where Senior Deputy Prosecutor Don Raz said that the 40 stab wounds demonstrated an explicit intent to kill. Leahy’s defence attorney, Todd Maybrown, disputed premeditation and pushed for a second-degree murder charge instead. The case will return to court on Monday.
Prosecutors will allege that Leahy was under the belief that he had disconnected the security cameras in the laundry area, but police technical experts were able to obtain footage from the cameras that showed the violent attack taking place.
A November 2024 report by the Human Rights Campaign found that between 2013 and 2024, 372 trans and gender-expansive people lost their lives to fatal violence, including 36 people in the previous 12 months. The report found that 83% of the victims were transgender women, and 61% were Black transgender women.
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If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, support and counselling are available from:
QLife: 1800 184 527 / qlife.org.au
QLife are a counselling and referral service for LGBTQIA+ people.
DISCHARGED: info@discharged.asn.au / discharged.asn.au
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Beyondblue: 1300 22 4636 / www.beyondblue.org.au
Lifeline: 13 11 14 / lifeline.org.au
