A suspect has been arrested in connection with the murder of Taya Ashton, a Black, transgender woman killed in Maryland.
DeAllen Price, 27, will face charges of first- and second-degree murder after Ashton was found dead in her Suitland apartment on Saturday, according to the local news station WTOP. Ashton was reportedly shot and pronounced dead at the scene at approximately 9:55 pm.
Although some news reports claim that a motive has yet to be identified, Price was allegedly in a relationship with Ashton, according to the Washington Post.
Even prior to being linked to Ashton’s death, Price was already in police custody. He was apprehended Sunday on unrelated robbery charges and attempted to evade arrest by running onto the Metro tracks in an Arlington, Virginia train station, per the CBS news affiliate WUSA. Authorities reportedly discovered what they would later believe to be the weapon used in Ashton’s death on the tracks.
Price is set to be extradited to Prince George’s County, where he will face charges in a Maryland court. A trial date has not been set.
Ashton’s death marked the 31st killing of a transgender woman in 2021, a year that is on track to break the single-year record for trans homicides. Last year, 44 trans people lost their lives to violence, and the majority of victims, like Ashton, were Black, trans women who were shot to death. Three out of four transgender people murdered in 2020 were killed with a firearm, according to Everytown for Gun Violence.
A Washington Post report last year, meanwhile, found that half of trans women killed between the years of 2015 and 2020 were murdered by an intimate partner.
Police in Prince George’s County have alleged there is no evidence to suggest that Ashton was murdered because of her gender identity but that claim has been heavily disputed by family members, as them. previously reported. In comments cited by the Post, her grandfather, Stuart Anderson, maintained that his granddaughter was the victim of a hate crime.
“If there is evidence to indicate that wasn’t the case … show us what made you think that way,” Anderson said. “What made you think that Taya’s gender identity had nothing to do with her demise?”
Community members joined together on Wednesday to release purple balloons in a vigil celebrating Ashton’s life. Her aunt, Diamond Anderson, remembered Ashton as an ambitious go-getter, calling her “a full-circle type of person” who single-handedly “manifested any and everything.” She hoped to own her own clothing store someday and had already started saving up money to buy a Tesla.
Ashton “was speaking it into existence,” Anderson told the Post, “even if it wasn’t happening in the moment.”
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