Dallas police have arrested a suspect in the slaying of Muhlaysia Booker, a 22-year-old transgender woman found shot to death last month in Far East Dallas.

Kendrell Lavar Lyles, 33, was being held Wednesday in the Collin County Jail on three counts of murder.

Kendrell Lavar Lyles, 33, faces charges in two unrelated slayings and was already in custody when police linked him to Booker's death, Maj. Max Geron said at a news conference Wednesday at Dallas police headquarters.

Lyles also is a person of interest in the death of 26-year-old Chynal Lindsey, another transgender woman whose body was pulled from White Rock Lake on June 1.

Peirre Booker, Muhlaysia's father, said in a brief phone call that he was excited to hear the news of the arrest and that it gave him some closure.

Police arrested Lyles on June 5 in connection with the May 22 fatal shooting of a woman in the 7800 block of McCallum Boulevard, in a portion of Dallas that is in Collin County.

A witness said Lyles committed the slaying, Geron said, and police corroborated the information through phone communication between Lyles and the victim.

A witness also said Lyles was behind a homicide the next day that took place just around the corner. The victim met Lyles in the 17500 block of Coit Road for a drug sale when Lyles shot him, Geron said.

Police connected Lyles to Muhlaysia Booker because he drove a Lincoln LS similar to the one believed to have picked up Booker on May 18, the same day she was found dead.

Booker was last seen near Spring Avenue and Lagow Street in South Dallas, and cellphone analysis showed Lyles frequented that area, police said.

Quan Booker, Booker's aunt, said she was overwhelmed with emotion when her niece called with news of Lyles' arrest. However, she said she's skeptical he's the shooter because people from Booker's circle don't know him. Booker was always surrounded by people she knew well, she said.

"If this is the one who killed my niece, I want to talk to him myself," she said. "I want to be in the courtroom; I want to ask him why."

1 / 2Maj. Max Geron announces the arrest of Kendrell Lavar Lyles in the slayings of Muhlaysia Booker and two other victims. Police say the other two victims were not transgender.(Lynda M. Gonzalez / Staff Photographer) 2 / 2Maj. Max Geron said Kendrell Lyles (pictured) was already in jail when investigators linked him to Muhlaysia Booker's slaying.(Lynda M. Gonzalez / Staff Photographer)

Lyles has no apparent criminal history, a search of public records showed.

Police said in May that Booker's slaying shared similarities with two other attacks on transgender women: an Oct. 21 slaying and an April stabbing in which the victim survived.

In the October case, 29-year-old Brittany White was found fatally shot in a vehicle parked in southeast Dallas. In the April attack, a 26-year-old transgender woman was repeatedly stabbed and left for dead in South Dallas. The woman survived and provided information about her attacker.

The slayings drew attention to Dallas' violent crime spike this year, which has led to increased scrutiny of Police Chief U. Renee Hall. Officials on Monday said the city is on pace to end the year with 228 homicides — which would be the highest total in the last decade. Aggravated assaults and robberies are also up this year.

Hall has said this summer that her officers will target guns, drugs and gangs. Commanders added homicide detectives to help solve the cases, and said they'd accept help from state troopers sent by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Muhlaysia Booker, 22, was found shot to death May 18 in Dallas.

Lyles is only a person of interest in Lindsey's slaying, police said, and has not been connected to the attacks on other transgender women, which are still under investigation.

Lindsey's body was found less than a mile from where Booker was found on a road bordering Tenison Park Golf Course.

Kenneth Cichocki and Leticia Grant, the other two people Lyles is accused of killing, are not transgender, Geron said.

Maj. Vincent Weddington said in May that authorities had not found a definite link among the attacks on transgender women. Federal authorities were helping to determine whether the cases met the standards to be prosecuted as hate crimes.

Booker's death happened a month after she was beaten by a large group in the parking lot of an east Oak Cliff apartment complex. Bystanders filmed that attack, and video of it circulated on social media.

Leslie McMurray, transgender education and advocacy coordinator for The Resource Center in Dallas, said she hopes Lyles is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if he is responsible for Booker's death.

"I'm just hoping that he's the right guy," McMurray said. "Now we need to focus on the other three" deaths of transgender women.

Lyles, who faces three murder charges, remained in the Collin County jail Wednesday without bail.