A 36-year-old man has been arrested in California for the killing and mutilation of a transgender woman in Philadelphia this summer.
Philadelphia police said Monday that Akhenaton Jones was located and arrested in Los Angeles for the murder of Dominique Rem'mie Fells.
Fells was killed on June 7, police said. Her body was thrown into the Schuylkill River where it was found floating near Bartram's Garden in Southwest Philadelphia the next day. The woman's legs had been severed.
Police divers found the legs inside a trash bag at the bottom of the river during an unrelated search for two missing teens.
“She was a person who could light up a room even when she was being quiet," Fells' father told NBC10 in June. "The one thing that stood out about her is she did her own thing with confidence, which as a family we all embraced.”
Violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States continues to plague the community. So far in 2020, at least 34 members of that community have been killed, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign. The true number is likely higher because reporting of gender identity may be misrepresented by family, law enforcement or journalists.
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It's not clear if Jones has retained legal counsel. He is awaiting extradition back to Pennsylvania, police said.
