The Dallas police department asks FBI for help in multiple open investigations into attacks on transgender women

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Police in Dallas have asked the FBI for help after the latest murder of a transgender woman in the city raised questions about the possibility of a serial attacker.

A game warden pulled the body of Chynal Lindsey from a lake last Saturday evening, two weeks after Muhlaysia Booker was fatally shot and found lying in a street.

The Dallas police chief, Reneé Hall, said that Lindsey’s body showed “obvious signs of homicidal violence” but did not reveal a cause of death during a press conference on Monday in which she urged the local transgender community to be vigilant.

“We are concerned, we are actively and aggressively investigating this case and we have reached out to our federal partners to assist us in the efforts,” Hall said.

Candace Sweat (@CandaceNBC5) Chief Renee Hall says the Dallas Police Department is “concerned” and “actively and aggressively investigating” after the death of another Black transgender woman in Dallas. Chynal Lindsey’s death is being investigated as a homicide. @NBCDFW https://t.co/30qe130QUa pic.twitter.com/c5ousLsJzR

An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was “prepared to assist” if evidence emerges of a potential civil rights violation.

At least eight transgender people have been reported killed in the US this year – all of them black women.

The Dallas police department has multiple open investigations into attacks on transgender women in addition to the deaths of Lindsey, 26, and Booker, 23, whose body was discovered on the morning of 18 May.

In April a woman was repeatedly stabbed and left for dead, police said, but survived; a 29-year woman, Brittany White, was fatally shot in a vehicle in October last year; and a victim’s remains were discovered in a field in July 2017, in an incident police classified as an unexplained death. The decomposed body of Shade Schuler was found in a field in July 2015. The case remains unsolved.

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Asked if the string of deaths could be the work of a serial killer, Hall said: “Right now we don’t have the evidence to substantiate that.”

White Rock Lake in north-east Dallas, where Lindsey was found after being spotted by a passerby, is a short drive from the address where Booker was discovered.

Police said in a statement last month that although they have not established a direct link between the cases, there are similarities between some of them: “Two of the victims were in the area of Spring Avenue and Lagow Street prior to the offences occurring. In addition, it has also been determined that two of the victims got into a vehicle with someone. In another case, the victim allowed someone into their vehicle.”

Booker was beaten in a sustained attack in front of a mocking crowd about five weeks before her death. Cellphone footage of the assault, which happened after she was involved in a minor car accident at an apartment complex, went viral, and Mike Rawlings, the Dallas mayor, decried “what appears to be mob violence against this woman”.

A 29-year-old man, Edward Thomas, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault but police said there was no evidence connecting him with Booker’s death.

Lindsey’s cousin, Tamaya Seaphus, told WFAA local news that Lindsey had a gentle personality and grew up in the Chicago area before moving to Texas about six years ago. “This was a person that I had never seen mad,” she said. “Not aggressive, not violent.”