FORT MYERS – A transgender woman was burned to death then left behind a garbage bin when Fort Meyer’s Police found her on June 20.
The woman was identified as 31-year-old Yaz’min Shancez. Police said that she was discovered behind a garbage bin at a rental facility in Fort Meyers.
Officers identified the victim as Eddie James Owen, which is Shancez’ legal name. After talking to her family, they were informed Owen now identified as a woman and had been going by a different alias since 2004, according to police reports.
Police have not yet ruled this homicide as a hate crime. Ross Murray, a spokesman from GLAAD, told Naples News that he didn’t know if this was a hate crime but said “no one deserves to be violently murdered and set on fire and put behind a Dumpster.”
When the victim’s father, Harvey Loggins, arrived to the crime scene the ground was still charred and bloody, he told the Naples News. Loggins said he didn’t hate his child for living as a woman.
“Still to this day I love him. I wish he was here right now,” said Loggins, who still refers to the victim as a male.
On June 22, about 200 people came out to Centennial Park in Fort Meyers to hold a vigil for Shancez. Family and friends told the Naples News that it meant a lot to celebrate her this way.
“It means so much to me because I never knew so many people could love a person like that,” said Tasha Furlow, Shancez’s aunt who also refers to the victim as a male. She went on to tell the Naples News that “Sometimes you feel like nobody’s there for him because of the way he was, but his family was there for him. I’m happy to see other people here for him.”
According to a report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs in 2013, 89 percent of the victims of anti-LGBTQ homicides were women of color, like Sanchez.
Police are still looking for suspects in this case. Anyone with information should call Crimeline at 407-423-8477.
