Baltimore’s LGBT community is calling on the city’s police force to step up its investigation into the murders of two transgender women in as many months amid fears that the incidents may be connected.

The body of Mia Henderson, 26, was found in an alleyway in northwest Baltimore early on Wednesday morning just six weeks after Kandy Hall, 40, was found dead in a field in the northeast part of the city. Both women were African American, and both had experienced “severe trauma”, according to police accounts.



A third trans woman, Kelly Young, 29, was shot to death in April of last year.



The police commissioner Anthony Batts spoke in person to LGBT groups soon after the Henderson murder and, he told reporters, assured them that “we’re paying attention, we’re responding, and we take this very seriously.”



“I have high expectations to resolve these cases,” Batts said. “We want to be strong partners within our transgender community … we need to solve this case, we need to solve the cases that are open. I will not slow down, I will not allow us to not stay on top of these. We will push extremely hard.”

Despite his comforting words, tensions are running high in Baltimore, particularly as there has been no indication from the police that they have any clues as to the perpetrator or perpetrators of any of the three murders. A trans woman in Baltimore who talked to the Guardian but asked not to give her name said: “I know a lot of transgender women who are scared to death, and my family are scared to death.”

She added: “Violence against us is not a new story. This happens over and over and over. It’s very frightening not even having a description of the killer – when I walk down the street he could be walking alongside me for all I know. The unknown, that’s very scary.”



The area in which Henderson’s body was found, local residents told the Baltimore Sun, is frequented by prostitutes and drug users.

Police told the newspaper that prostitution was one line of circumstantial investigation. Henderson had been arrested twice for alleged prostitution, according to court records.

Keith Thirion, director of programs and advocacy for Equality Maryland, the largest LGBT civil rights group in the state, said that the murders had hit a nerve in the community. “Transgender women of colour in particular are subject to violence and harassment on a daily basis – that’s an experience that is just part of life.”



He added that this was “the intersection where race, gender and class come together and make members of our community even more vulnerable to this kind of violence.”



Additional media attention has been drawn to the Henderson murder after a professional basketball player, Reggie Bullock of the Los Angeles Clippers, confirmed on Twitter that he was the brother of Henderson, who was born Kevin Long. “All I can say is my brother showed me how to live your ‘OWN LIFE’ love you soo much man,” Bullock tweeted.



The trans woman who spoke to the Guardian said she was skeptical that the Baltimore police department was pulling out all stops in the investigation. “They keep telling us they are working very hard and doing everything they can, but I don’t see that. If they were so busy looking for the killer, then why do they keep targeting us on the streets and trying to chase us down? I feel more like a suspect than anything else.”



Asked whether she had changed her movements or activities as a result of fear surrounding the murders, she replied: “There’s not a lot I can do. I’m living my life – I’m not going to live in a prison.”

