Trans Woman Murdered In Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican police report that transwoman Ashley Santiago was founded stabbed to death in her home yesterday. This is the second high-profile murder of an LGBT person in Puerto Rico in recent months. Michael Lavers at EDGE reports:

Primera Hora reported authorities discovered Ashley Santiago’s naked body in the kitchen of her house in Corozal, which is roughly 25 miles southwest of the Puerto Rican capital. Santiago, 31, was a popular hair stylist at a local salon. El Nuevo Día reported Santiago’s mother went to a local police station to report she had not heard from her daughter since Sunday, April 18. Police said Santiago had been stabbed 14 times. And El Nuevo Día further reported the victim’s 2009 Toyota Corolla was not parked in front of her home. Santiago’s death comes a little more than five months after Jorge Steven López Mercado’s brutal murder stunned Puerto Rico.

The NGLTF's Pedro Julio Serrano has asked police to investigate the murder as a possible hate crime. Puerto Rican authorities had to be pressured into charging the murderer of Jorge Mercado under the island's rarely used hate crimes law.