(OXFORD, Mich.) — A Michigan Circuit Court judge dismissed all lawsuits filed against the Oxford Community School District in connection with a 2021 school shooting at Oxford High, claiming that the district and its employees have governmental immunity and cannot be sued as the shooter is the most direct cause of the attack.
Nearly a dozen lawsuits were filed by filed by victims and families of victims of the shooting, accusing the school district and several school employees of negligence, gross negligence and violation of the Child Protection Law, among other claims.
Several lawsuits have alleged that accused school shooter Ethan Crumbley had exhibited “concerning behavior that indicated psychiatric distress, suicidal or homicidal tendencies and the possibility of child abuse and neglect,” but the school did not act appropriately. The suits argue that school officials failed to act appropriately to prevent violence when the teenage shooter exhibited several warning signs leading up to the shooting.
Crumbley, 15, a student at the school, allegedly shot and killed four of his classmates and injured seven others in November 2021. Crumbley was charged with 24 counts.
Crumbley pleaded guilty to all charges against him last October. He also admitted that his parents bought him the gun used in the shooting with his own money and that it was kept in an unlocked safe.
The school district has claimed that civil lawsuits filed against it, alleging Fourth Amendment violations, are barred because the district has governmental immunity. Governmental immunity shields government agencies from legal liability if the agency is “engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function,” according to court documents.
In her decision, Oakland County Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Brennan said the conduct of the school district and its employees who were named in the suit were not the “proximate cause” of the victims’ injuries.
The suit accuses several school employees of failing to properly respond to Ethan Crumbley’s conduct in the day and a half prior to the shooting, according to court documents.
Brennan ruled that Crumbley’s act of firing the gun was the most “immediate, efficient and direct cause of the injury or damage,” not the actions of the district and school employees, arguing that their conduct did not cause immediate harm to the plaintiffs.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, are also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after allegedly failing to recognize warning signs about their son in the months leading up to the shooting. They have pleaded not guilty.
Attorney Ven Johnson, who represents the families of students who were killed in the shooting, criticized the ruling and the law behind it, saying his clients feel victimized all over again.
“On behalf of our Oxford clients, we are deeply saddened and disappointed by Judge Brennan’s dismissal today of all the Oxford Community Schools defendants. We maintain that governmental immunity is wrong and unconstitutional, and the law should be changed immediately,” Johnson told ABC News in a statement.
He added, “Under the law, everyone should be treated the same. No one should have more rights than others just because they work for the government. If this shooting happened at a private school, this case would be sent to trial and none of these defenses would exist.”
Johnson also called on the Michigan legislature to change the governmental immunity law. He said he plans to appeal the judge’s decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals.
In a statement to district families released to ABC News, the school board said, “we recognize that the decision will affect each of our school community families differently. Oxford is still grieving. Oxford is still healing. As we continue this journey, Oxford Community Schools remains committed to providing a world-class education to our students, a workplace of choice for our staff, recovery supports for our community and a safe and healthy learning environment for all lives in which we are privileged to be a part.”
(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — A California man accused of blowing up two Pacific Gas and Electric transformers allegedly had large amounts of explosive materials and an inactive methamphetamine lab in his home, authorities said.
Peter Karasev, 36, of San Jose, was arrested on Wednesday and faces multiple charges, including two counts of exploding a destructive device, two counts of destroying an electrical line and an arson charge related to the “transformer bombings,” Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Victoria Robinson told reporters Friday.
The incidents occurred in January and December 2022 at two separate locations, San Jose police said. The explosions damaged the PG&E transformers, leaving thousands without power.
Detectives determined the incidents may have been linked, and surveillance footage and cell phone pings led investigators to Karasev, who was arrested on Wednesday, authorities said.
A large law enforcement presence descended on his home Wednesday afternoon and has remained active, according to ABC San Francisco station KGO.
“Not only is there explosive material here, there’s chemicals used to manufacture narcotics,” San Jose Police Sgt. Christian Camarillo told KGO.
“Deadly, deadly combination in a residential neighborhood with children in the home,” he added.
Due to the volume of materials, police called in federal resources to help with handling and “rendering safe” the evidence, Camarillo said.
Police said there was an inactive meth lab at the home and that Kaserev allegedly admitted to using methamphetamine as a replacement for Adderall during an Adderall shortage, KGO reported.
A motive for the blowing up of the transformers was not immediately available. ABC News was unable to reach an attorney for Karasev.
Police expect to be processing the scene for several more days, San Jose Police Officer Steven Aponte told KGO on Friday.
Karasev was charged with possessing materials with the intent to create a destructive device for items found in his home, according to Robinson.
He was ordered held without bail during an arraignment hearing on Friday. He is next scheduled to appear in court on April 26 for a plea hearing, online court records show.
While arguing for supervised release during Friday’s hearing, the public defender’s office said that Karasev is a software engineer at a company that develops self-driving cars and is married with three children between the ages of 1 and 5, KGO reported.
Karasev could face more charges as the investigation continues, prosecutors said.
(WASHINGTON) — The family of Shanquella Robinson is demanding justice more than 125 days after the 25-year-old was found dead at a luxury resort in Mexico.
Robinson’s family and their attorneys gathered at a press conference in Washington, D.C., and demanded a diplomatic intervention by President Joe Biden and the State Department to help assist in her case.
“Fifteen weeks and three days with all this visual evidence. Nobody has been arrested. Nobody has been arrested,” attorney Ben Crump said at the press conference.
The press conference took place in front of Ben Crump Law’s D.C. office on Friday.
“I plan on talking to the highest levels of our government to say Shanquella Robinson is not irrelevant and you all need to give her the same dignity and respect as any citizen in the United States with merit,” Crump said.
Robinson of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found dead in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico, in October during a group trip where she and her acquaintances traveled for vacation.
The group allegedly blamed Robinson’s death on alcohol poisoning; however, an autopsy later concluded that she had suffered trauma to her neck and spine.
In a video that went viral shortly after her death, Robinson is seen being severely beaten by another woman in a hotel room while at least two people in the room are watching and recording the incident.
Robinson’s mother Sallamondra Robinson continues to fight for justice for her daughter.
“No one has been arrested,” Sallamondra Robinson said during Friday’s press conference. “The people who knew what happened to my daughter are living their lives. They have returned to work and my family is left to wait and wait to beg for answers.”
Mexican authorities said the investigation is ongoing and an arrest warrant was issued for a suspect in November for the crime of femicide, a form of gender-based violence, according to a local prosecutor.
The warrant was issued for an unnamed alleged perpetrator, “a friend of hers who is the direct aggressor,” said Daniel de la Rosa Anaya, a local prosecutor for the state of Baja California Sur.
“I don’t wish that terrible nightmare on anyone. My daughter was brutally beaten on a video. She was undressed and there was many people that could have helped her. They laugh and joke,” Sallamondra Robinson said.
Mexican authorities have requested that the suspect be extradited from the U.S., but legal experts say it’s unusual for the U.S. to extradite its own citizens.
In a statement to ABC News, a State Department spokesperson declined to confirm or comment on an investigation into Robinson’s death, citing “privacy and law enforcement considerations” and referred questions to the FBI.
“The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” the statement said. “The Department of State supports a thorough investigation into the circumstances of this incident and is closely monitoring local authorities’ investigation.”
An FBI spokesperson told ABC News the bureau’s investigation is ongoing.
“It is now up to the United States Government to make the determination as to whether or not they will prosecute the crime here in the Us. Or whether they’ll extradite this individual back to the Mexican government for prosecution,” said Channa Lloyd, legal analyst and ABC News contributor.
The family is asking for anyone who was involved in the trip to be extradited back to Mexico and face charges.
Sallamondra Robinson wrote a letter on behalf of their family, urging authorities to take swift action.
“I write today to beg you with every ounce of energy I have left in my body — please don’t forget about my daughter Shanquella Robinson,” the letter wrote.
The letter added, “We’re coping the best we can. We are keeping our heads up, we are keeping faith, but it’s hard. We need clarity. We need action. We need intention. And most of all, we need justice for Shanquella.”
(ITALY, Texas) — Three children were fatally stabbed and two were injured Friday in an attack at a home in Italy, Texas, police said.
The sheriff’s deputies responded to a call at around 4 p.m. local time on South Harris Street in Italy, according to Ellis County Sheriff Deputy Jerry Cozby.
Upon arrival, multiple victims were found, including three children that were dead and two others who were wounded and taken to the hospital. All of the victims were children, Cozby said.
A suspect was detained, police said.
“We are shocked by this incomprehensible tragedy, and already working with law enforcement to investigate how this happened, and why,” the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said in a statement.
The Ellis County Sheriff Department is leading the investigation.
ABC News’ Izzy Alvarez contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WALTERBORO, S.C.) — Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was sentenced Friday to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his wife and their youngest son.
Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s estate in June 2021, authorities said.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, was found guilty Thursday on all charges — two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon in the commitment of a violent crime.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 03, 10:12 AM EST
’You have to see Paul and Maggie during the night,’ judge says
Before imposing the sentence of life in prison, Judge Clifton Newman said, “This has been perhaps one of the most troubling cases, not just for me as a judge, for the state, for the defense team, but for all of the citizens in this community, all citizens in this state.”
“A person from a respected family who has controlled justice in this community for over a century. A person whose grandfather’s portrait hanging at the back of the courthouse that I had to have ordered removed in order to ensure that a fair trial was held by both the state and the defense,” he said.
To the convicted attorney, Newman said, “As a member of the legal community and a well-known member of the legal community, you’ve practiced law before me, and we’ve seen each other at various occasions throughout the years. And that was especially heartbreaking for me to see you go in the media from being a grieving father who lost a wife and a son to being the person indicted and convicted of killing them.”
“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the night when you are attempting to go to sleep,” the judge said. “I’m sure they come and visit you.”
“This case qualifies under our death penalty statute,” the judge said. “I don’t question at all the decision of the state not to pursue the death penalty. But as I sit here in this courtroom and look around the many portraits of judges and other court officials, and reflect on the fact that over the past century, your family, including you, have been prosecuting people here in this courtroom, and many have received the death penalty, probably for lesser conduct. … The question is, when will it end? When will it end? And it’s ended already for the jury, because they’ve concluded that you continue to lie and lied throughout your testimony.”
Mar 03, 10:10 AM EST
Alex Murdaugh gets life in prison
Alex Murdaugh was sentenced Friday to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his wife and their youngest son.
Before the judge imposed the sentence, Murdaugh said, “I’ll tell you again. I respect this court. But I am innocent, and I would never under any circumstances hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never under any circumstances hurt my son, Paul.”
Mar 03, 10:03 AM EST
Prosecutor asks for consecutive life sentences
Before the sentence was announced, prosecutor Creighton Waters asked the judge to impose a maximum of consecutive life sentences.
Waters called Alex Murdaugh “a cunning manipulator, a man who placed himself above all others, including his family, a man who violated the trust of so many, including his friends, his family, his partners, his profession. But most of all, Maggie and Paul.”
“Both of them, like everyone else, was unaware of who he really was,” he said.
“I’ve looked at his eyes. And he liked to stare me down as he would walk by me during this trial. And I could see the real Alex Murdaugh when he looked at me,” Waters said. “The depravity, the callousness, the selfishness of these crimes are stunning. The lack of remorse and the effortless way in which he lies, including here sitting right over there, in this witness stand. Your honor, a man like that, a man like this man, should never be allowed to be among free, law-abiding citizens again.”
Mar 03, 9:56 AM EST
‘I’m innocent’
Alex Murdaugh gave a brief statement to the judge before sentencing, saying, “I’m innocent. I would never hurt my wife, Maggie, and I would never hurt my son, Paw-Paw.”
Mar 03, 9:29 AM EST
South Carolina attorney general speaks out ahead of sentencing
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he hopes no one forgets the victims at the center of Alex Murdaugh’s trial, even as the case became “sensational” and “grabbed the attention of the world.”
“At the end of the day, two people were brutally murdered, they lost their lives, a family was destroyed, a legacy was torn asunder and there’s been a wake of victims going back decades, and we want to put the attention on them and let them know that their voice can be heard,” Wilson told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday on Good Morning America.
Wilson said the disgraced lawyer has “been weaving a tangled web of lies for decades,” which the South Carolina attorney general said was evident when Murdaugh took the stand to testify in his own trial, after cellphone video had placed him at the scene minutes before the crime occurred.
“For so long, he’s been able to manipulate people and bend them to his will because he’s so good at what he does,” Wilson said. “He was a master at manipulating and communicating with juries and I believe when he took the stand, that was his last closing argument. He had done this for so long, he believed that he could get what he wanted out of this jury. And I think when he took the stand, he confirmed for many of those jurors what they had heard in that video — that he was a liar.”
Wilson said he was “pleasantly surprised” when he learned that the jury had returned a verdict in less than three hours and hoped it was a good sign.
“I didn’t know what to think,” he recalled. “I respect the process too much to be that confident, but I was guardedly optimistic when they came back as quickly as they did.”
Wilson said the guilty verdict sends a message to those “who question the criminal justice system” and who think “it doesn’t apply fairly and equally to all people.”
“We are here to say that it does, that no one is above the law in South Carolina and when you brutally murder your wife and son, you will be held accountable no matter who you are,” he added.
The South Carolina attorney general thanked the authorities, investigators and prosecutors behind the case, saying: “They made this conviction possible.”
Mar 03, 8:16 AM EST
ABC News chief legal analyst talks trial, sentencing
ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams said he expects Alex Murdaugh will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, since prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty.
“I’m not expecting there to be much debate,” Abrams said Friday on Good Morning America.
“He’s now in a tough spot, because he can’t really now accept responsibility just after testifying for all these days and talking about how he didn’t do it,” Abrams noted. “What he could say is similar to what he said on the stand, which is: I regret, I did bad things to people, I’m sorry about that, I hurt people that I cared about, with sort of these broad allusions to the financial crimes without actually admitting anything with regard to the murders.”
Abrams said he thinks it was a mistake on the defense team’s part for Murdaugh to testify.
“To some degree, you could argue he had to take the stand,” he explained. “Suddenly, there’s evidence that he’s there at the crime scene despite the fact that he’s saying he wasn’t there.”
“So now it doesn’t have to be him per se, but somebody’s got to explain what he was doing there minutes before the crime occurs,” he continued. “In retrospect, was it a mistake? Sure, because if he hadn’t taken the stand, he might’ve been better off. I said at the time I thought it was a mistake for him to take the stand. But they did have to do something to explain why his voice was clearly there at the crime scene minutes before Maggie and Paul were killed.”
Mar 03, 7:53 AM EST
Lead prosecutor discusses what made the case so ‘compelling’
Lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said he believes Alex Murdaugh’s lie about being at the scene of the crime just minutes before his wife and son were murdered was part of what made such a “compelling” case against him.
“It’s not just being a liar. In this case, it was him being a liar about being at the scene with the victims just minutes before their cellphones went silent forever,” Waters told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday on Good Morning America.
“I made the argument to the jury and the team did — this was obviously a team effort — that, you know, what kind of reasonable father or husband would lie to law enforcement about such a crucial fact in that moment, and only one who really knew what had happened?” he said. “When you lie about being at the scene with the victims just minutes before the crime happened, that’s pretty compelling evidence.”
Waters said he thinks the cellphone video placing Murdaugh at the scene minutes before the crime “absolutely” made a difference in guilty verdict.
“That was something that the defendant could never account for and I think, though, he was still hoping that that evidence wouldn’t be as strong as it was,” Waters noted. “He initially claimed — because there was one young man who thought he heard him on the phone and he said, well, he’s got to be mistaken. I think he thought he could get around that.”
“But as we continued to put up family and friends, people who were very close to him, none of whom knew who he really was, it became very compelling,” Waters said. “And I think that’s what motivated him to try to take the stand and see if he could give one last closing argument to these jurors.”
The lead prosecutor said he was not surprised when Murdaugh decided to testify.
“I thought that he would do it all along,” he added. “In this community, he’s been able to talk his way out of accountability his entire life and people like that are convinced in their own ability to do so.”
When cross-examining Murdaugh, the prosecution team’s strategy was to “establish who he was,” according to Waters.
“I thought it was very interesting that he would not even concede to these jurors that he was wealthy,” Waters said. “And that was sort of the idea, was to get him talking about himself and about his life but then to, first of all, hammer home the financial aspects of this case and the many lies that he had told to people that trusted him and then move into the specifics of his new story that he was now telling the world for the first time, at least publicly. And I think that’s very compelling and ultimately was convincing to the jury.”
When asked about the jury only taking three hours to reach a verdict, Waters said: “We presented a very compelling and strong case, and I think that it didn’t take them long to figure this out.”
“They looked him in his eyes, as much as I’ve had the chance to do, and realized who this person really was.” he added. “And I think that really was the final thing that led this jury to come to the right conclusion.”
Waters said he hopes to see a “just sentence from the judge” on Friday morning.
“I do think that, in the end, we will have a just result for Maggie and Paul, who again we cannot forget in all of this,” he said. “That’s what this is really about and, thankfully, they had a voice yesterday when the jurors spoke.”
Mar 03, 6:00 AM EST
ABC News exclusive: Juror says cellphone video sealed Murdaugh’s fate
A juror who convicted Alex Murdaugh on Thursday told ABC News in an exclusive interview that the piece of evidence which convinced him the disgraced lawyer was guilty, was the cellphone video placing him at the scene minutes before the murders of his wife and youngest son.
“I was certain it was [Murdaugh’s] voice,” Craig Moyer, a carpenter, said as he recalled the background voice he heard during his first watch of the video captured by Murdaugh’s son. The video was taken at the family’s dog kennels by Paul Murdaugh, 22, who later that night was brutally murdered along with his mother Margaret, 52.
“Everybody else could hear [Murdaugh’s voice] too,” Moyer said, referring to the other jurors.
Moyer’s comments to ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim came just hours after he voted to convict Murdaugh, concluding the small-town South Carolina saga which documented the downfall of a powerful attorney from a family which for generations exuded power over the state’s Lowcountry region.
After nearly three hours of deliberations, a jury reached a guilty verdict Thursday in the double murder trial Alex Murdaugh, a disgraced South Carolina attorney who was charged with the murders of his wife and their younger son at their rural hunting estate in June 2021.
The bodies of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s estate in June 2021, authorities said. Alex Murdaugh, 54, who called 911 to report the discovery, was charged with their murders 13 months later.
Jurors — and the packed gallery — heard testimony from dozens of witnesses since the trial started on Jan. 23 in the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.
A string of bloody killings and mysteries involving a prominent South Carolina family has been filled with a wild chase full of twists and turns — culminating in a murder conviction against the family’s patriarch.
At the center of it is Alex Murdaugh, 54, a former lawyer who comes from a legacy of prominent attorneys in South Carolina, where three generations of the family had been state prosecutors in the Hampton County area for more than a century.
The saga began when his youngest son, Paul, was involved in a fatal boat crash in 2019. A year and a half later, Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul, 22, were found fatally shot on the family’s rural hunting estate.
Since then, there have been curveballs in the investigation — including Alex Murdaugh’s alleged money misuse that led to his disbarment, an admitted opioid addiction, an assisted-suicide attempt involving an alleged $10 million insurance fraud scheme and a high-profile murder trial.
Here’s a timeline of the key events in the Murdaugh murders and scandals.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Tennessee has become the first state to restrict drag performances in public.
HB 9, signed by Gov. Bill Lee, makes “a person who engages in an adult cabaret performance on public property” — or where it can be viewed by minors — a criminal offense.
The bill includes “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers” in the definition of “adult cabaret performance.”
A first-time offender will be charged with a misdemeanor. A second or subsequent violation would be a Class E felony, the legislation reads.
Lee also signed a bill banning transgender health care for people under the age of 18.
Right-wing and conservative backlash against drag shows and the transgender community has prompted legislative restrictions on both groups.
Drag performers have told ABC News that family-friendly drag shows are being misconstrued as sexual.
“For a couple of minutes, an hour or two, whatever the case may be – I just want everybody to forget all their troubles,” Catrina Lovelace, a drag queen, previously told ABC News. “For me, what a drag show is, is just a celebration of life.”
Activists and allies say this is an attempt at banning queer spaces and culture, and a move to push LGBTQ people back into the closet, according to the Human Rights Commission.
“Neither of these laws are about protecting youth – they are about spreading dangerous misinformation against the transgender community,” said Human Rights Campaign Legal Director Sarah Warbelow.
She continued, “They are about doubling down on efforts to attack drag artists and transgender youth … drag is a longstanding, celebratory form of entertainment and a meaningful source of employment for many across the state.”
Laws against drag, cross-dressing and gender nonconformity were similarly enforced in the early to mid-1900s, which led to the criminalization of the community.
Sen. Jack Johnson, a sponsor of the bill, celebrated the bill as it headed to Lee’s desk.
“This bill gives confidence to parents that they can take their kids to a public or private show and will not be blindsided by a sexualized performance,” Lee said in a tweet.
Several similar bills have been recently introduced against drag shows in states like Florida, Arizona, Texas and others.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — Russell Jeung’s family was forcibly removed from their homes in Monterey, California, in the late 1800s.
“When the townspeople wanted the Chinese out, the landlord evicted them. When the Chinese wouldn’t leave, a fire burned down the entire village,” Jeung, co-founder of the Stop AAPI Hate group, told ABC News.
“My great grandparents … saw their entire life’s work burned down,” he said.
They found a new home in San Francisco’s Chinatown, “as the only place of safety against that racism,” Jeung said. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, that safe haven became a target of anti-Asian racism.
San Francisco officials received 60 reports of hate crimes against AAPI people in the city during 2021, a more than 500% increase compared to the nine incidents reported in 2020.
Between March 2020 and March 31, 2022, Jeung’s group Stop AAPI Hate recorded nearly 11,500 reports of hate incidents against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) persons across the U.S.
This is markedly higher than the number of reported hate crimes during the same period of time, which advocates say are undercounted.
“We have high numbers of elders reporting, even though elders tend to under report,” Jeung said. “Our Asian elders, they often don’t speak English. They don’t have online technology. So the high rate of elders reporting just shows that it is a problem facing them.”
Currently, Anti-Asian hate incidents are reportedly down across the country, but the trauma and reality of this hate remains, especially for Susanna Yee, whose 88-year-old grandmother was brutally attacked while exercising one morning in a local park in January 2019.
“Although I have come to a place of forgiveness, there’s still pain and feelings of grief that wells up occasionally,” Yee, the granddaughter of Yik Oi Huang, said in an interview with ABC News. Her grandmother died a year after the attack.
“I saw this incident with my grandmother as an opportunity to reach out and to connect with people who don’t look like me or us and to understand each other so that this incident and other incidents don’t happen again,” Yee said.
The man charged with attacking Huang, 21-year-old Keonte Gathron, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Yee says she is still grieving and has leaned on others in the Asian American community throughout this healing process.
She has embraced Tai Chi, as her grandmother did: “To be in community with a group of Chinese elders is just so nourishing and full of love.”
“What happened to my grandmother has impacted the way I move in the world,” Yee said.
(MILWAUKEE) — Cashay Henderson, a Black transgender woman fatally shot in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is remembered by her family as “a jokester,” “independent,” “unapologetic,” and someone who “walks to the beat of her own drum.”
And though she’s remembered as a strong, bright presence in the lives of many, her family told ABC News that the discrimination Henderson felt she and other transgender people faced took a toll on Henderson.
“She’s like, ‘I don’t wish this life on anyone,'” said Veronica Beck, her cousin, recalling a conversation they had about the LGBTQ community.
“I knew things weren’t easy. But that wasn’t the first time that I just knew that, man, she was really struggling. It was a shocking comment, because, you know, she’s always so strong, confident and smiling,” Beck said.
Henderson, 31, was found dead on Sunday when the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to a fire at the building. Her death is being investigated as a homicide, officials say, after she was found with a fatal gunshot injury.
She is at least the fourth known transgender woman in Milwaukee to be killed in the past year. Brazil Johnson was killed in June 2022, Toi Davis was killed in July 2022 and Regina Allen was killed in August 2022. These killings have not yet been deemed hate crimes by officials.
Still, transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime nationwide, according to a study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
Beck said that it seemed like every week, Henderson would post on social media about transgender and queer friends who had lost their lives.
“She even said that she was happy she didn’t have [Rest in Peace] in front of her name, like a week or two” before her death, said Beck.
Diverse & Resilient, a local LGBTQ advocacy group Henderson was involved with, said they’re in mourning.
“While we are filled with grief, we are also filled with anger,” the group said in a statement posted on Facebook. The group hosted a vigil Wednesday in honor of Henderson’s memory.
The group criticized conservative legislators for recent inflammatory rhetoric against transgender people and the LGBTQ community.
“The continued attacks by right-wing elected officials to remove safety and rights for trans people are causing an increase in vitriol and hatred toward people of Trans experience. We call for an immediate halt to the hateful rhetoric and the dangerous bills that are written as a result of transphobia and lies,” the statement read.
Roughly 350 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced or advanced nationwide this year, according to the ACLU.
Henderson’s hometown of Chicago has also long been plagued by violence against transgender people, activists have told ABC News.
“I remember her saying all the issues she would have,” Beck said. “She was a teenager, I remember her saying about a friend getting beat up or something, or they would walk around and people would yell out at them and harass them as they’re walking around, because they were dressed like women.”
Beck said that when Henderson began openly identifying as a woman when she was a young teen in Chicago, her family accepted her for who she was.
Henderson, known for “doing her own thing” and not worrying about what others had to think of her, became a well-known figure in the LGBTQ community in Milwaukee, where she lived and Chicago, where she was born and raised. The family say they have received support from several local LGBTQ organizations that Henderson was a part of.
They say Henderson prioritized fostering a supportive community, and found that in her family and in the organizations she was active in.
“I’m proud of her. I’m proud that she made an impact on our community,” said Levette Whitlock, Henderson’s cousin. “I’m proud people are standing up for her. I love that her community is coming and helping us.”
Now, her family is demanding justice as they wait for charges to be filed in Milwaukee police’s investigation into her death. A person of interest, a 33-year-old man from Neenah, Wisconsin, was recently arrested in connection to this homicide, police said. The person of interest has not yet been charged.
Police have not released any information about a motive or whether she was targeted because she was transgender.
“As adults … we live our lives, we just get so tangled up, and we didn’t really get a chance to really, like, sit down and be with each other and hug each other, and I’ll never get to do that,” Whitlock said.
In honor of Henderson’s memory, her family urges others to embrace who they are fully and unapologetically.
“Love yourself and surround yourself with people who support you,” said Beck.
Students hold signs outside of Little Rock Central High School on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. — Ruthie Walls
(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — Storied Little Rock Central High School, cited by Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ campaign as formative in her rise to the Arkansas governor’s mansion, will be the site Friday of a student walkout to protest the cornerstone of her legislative agenda — the LEARNS Act, a massive education reform bill Sanders vows will be a “blueprint” for the nation.
During the school’s third period, at 1 p.m., several hundred students and faculty are expected to walk out of classes and onto the lawn of the historic institution, where in 1957 nine Black students were escorted by federal troops to enforce the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended the concept of “separate but equal” schools.
The walkout, organized by the school’s Young Leftists Club, in partnership with the Student Council, Black Student Union and Gay-Straight Alliance, comes after some in the group penned an open letter to Sanders voicing strong concerns with the legislation and asking she not use the school’s name to advance her agenda.
“Ambition. Personality. Opportunity. Preparation. Carved into the face of the monumental Little Rock Central High School, four statues overlook the campus grounds, each representing a different principle for which the school stands,” the letter begins. “Almost a century after these pillars were embedded into the walls of the building, Central High remains a beacon for these fundamental components of education. Today, because of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her omnibus education bill, the proposed LEARNS Act, these ideals are in danger.”
In her Republican response last month to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Sanders mentioned Central as her alma mater while announcing she would release the details of her education plan the next day. The open letter — with more than 1,300 signatures online since it was published Tuesday night — calls her approach “completely antithetical to the values that Central High stands for.”
“I will never forget watching my dad, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and President Bill Clinton hold the doors open to the Little Rock 9 — doors that 40 years earlier had been closed to them because they were Black,” Sanders said last month in the national spotlight. “Today, those children once barred from the schoolhouse are now heroes, memorialized in bronze at our state house. I’m proud of the progress our country has made and helping every child access to a quality education regardless of their race or income, is the civil rights issue of our day.”
The letter argues her bill will instead “usher in a new era of segregation in Arkansas, where middle and upper-class white families take resources from public schools to escape to private ones, leaving marginalized kids with crumbling facilities, an antiquated curriculum, and teachers who are forced to prioritize their job security over the quality of their instruction.”
The LEARNS Act, an omnibus bill intended to revamp education from early childhood classes through the 12th grade, calls for universal teacher raises, universal pre-K and a universal school voucher system phased in within three years. It also bans classroom instruction on “gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual reproduction” before fifth grade — prompting comparisons to Florida — and bans teaching that would “indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory.”
The newly installed governor’s first legislative foray has seen overwhelming support among Republican lawmakers in the state legislature, who hold a supermajority. It passed the Arkansas House 78-21 on Thursday, and Sanders said she expects to sign it into law “early next week,” as soon as the amended text passes the Senate.
It took 13 days from Sanders’ State of the Union response for Republican lawmakers to release the full text of the 144-page bill and 10 days for it to clear both chambers of the statehouse. Four Republicans in the House and one in the Senate voted no.
“There are things that we know that are not working and areas where we must do better. This bill addresses that,” said Jessica Saum of Cabot, last year’s “Teacher of the Year” in Arkansas speaking this week at the state Capitol. “Gov. Sanders has said that she will be known as Arkansas’ education governor, and I believe that she is committed to that.”
Still, Central High students are preparing to walk out of Sanders’ alma mater Friday afternoon, not even two miles from the governor’s mansion.
Two student co-chairs with the school’s Young Leftists chapter, who spoke to ABC News in a phone interview on Thursday night, said they would continue to organize against the legislation despite its swift movement and likely passage. They’re planning a protest at the state Capitol next week to symbolically deliver the letter to Sanders.
“Me and all of my peers and a lot of my teachers, I know lots of people who were pretty disappointed and honestly appalled by the fact that she had kind of invoked the significance of Central,” said Ernie Quirk, a junior from Little Rock who helped write the letter. “The history of Central that she celebrates and touts as kind of part of her image, those are the kinds of things that would potentially be in danger with a lot this attack on what she calls indoctrination.”
“The Little Rock Nine deserve to have their stories told and I think it would be a tragedy if those stories were to be lost,” Quirk continued.
“We learn history to not recreate history,” added Addison McCuien, a junior whose mother is a longtime teacher at the school. “It would be devastating to watch that change unfold and for their legacy to be lost in history.”
Quirk and McCuien also reiterated concerns from the letter they co-wrote that Sanders’ policies “similar to those of Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation will suppress the free expression of personality,” raising comparisons to that state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Sanders’ education secretary, Jacob Oliva, whom she tapped from the staff of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, told lawmakers at a single Senate committee hearing on the bill last week that it was difficult to come up with a single definition of “CRT” but that the legislation aims to ensure students are taught “how to think and not what to think.”
Sanders’ spokesperson, responding to questions from ABC News, did not say whether Sanders had seen the letter — but the students said they would welcome her acknowledgment and a chance to air their grievances.
“If she ever did feel inclined to talk to us, I would welcome that with the most open arms possible,” said Quirk. “Because I think it’s obvious this bill has not been very well thought through, and that’s because of the fact that in the in the state of Arkansas, as a Republican lawmaker, you’re not going to face opposition for any sort of deficiencies in any of the legislation you’re passing.”
“I would love for the governor to see our faces and hears our voices,” added McCuien, who is Black and identifies as queer.
“This type of rhetoric is spreading all around the country, and this type of legislation is continuing to go from state to state,” she added. “But I want to do as much as I can to try and stop it in Arkansas.”
Editor’s note: Reporter Libby Cathey is an alumna of Little Rock Central High School.
(WALTERBORO, S.C.) — Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is scheduled to be sentenced Friday morning after being convicted of murdering his wife and their youngest son.
The bodies of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s estate in June 2021, authorities said.
Alex Murdaugh, 54, was found guilty Thursday on all charges — two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon in the commitment of a violent crime.
South Carolina Circuit Judge Clifton Newman said the court would reconvene at 9:30 a.m. ET for sentencing. Alex Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison for the murder charge.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 03, 6:00 AM EST
ABC News exclusive: Juror says cellphone video sealed Murdaugh’s fate
A juror who convicted Alex Murdaugh on Thursday told ABC News in an exclusive interview that the piece of evidence which convinced him the disgraced lawyer was guilty, was the cellphone video placing him at the scene minutes before the murders of his wife and youngest son.
“I was certain it was [Murdaugh’s] voice,” Craig Moyer, a carpenter, said as he recalled the background voice he heard during his first watch of the video captured by Murdaugh’s son. The video was taken at the family’s dog kennels by Paul Murdaugh, 22, who later that night was brutally murdered along with his mother Margaret, 52.
“Everybody else could hear [Murdaugh’s voice] too,” Moyer said, referring to the other jurors.
Moyer’s comments to ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim came just hours after he voted to convict Murdaugh, concluding the small-town South Carolina saga which documented the downfall of a powerful attorney from a family which for generations exuded power over the state’s Lowcountry region.
After nearly three hours of deliberations, a jury reached a guilty verdict Thursday in the double murder trial Alex Murdaugh, a disgraced South Carolina attorney who was charged with the murders of his wife and their younger son at their rural hunting estate in June 2021.
The bodies of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s estate in June 2021, authorities said. Alex Murdaugh, 54, who called 911 to report the discovery, was charged with their murders 13 months later.
Jurors — and the packed gallery — heard testimony from dozens of witnesses since the trial started on Jan. 23 in the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.
A string of bloody killings and mysteries involving a prominent South Carolina family has been filled with a wild chase full of twists and turns — culminating in a murder conviction against the family’s patriarch.
At the center of it is Alex Murdaugh, 54, a former lawyer who comes from a legacy of prominent attorneys in South Carolina, where three generations of the family had been state prosecutors in the Hampton County area for more than a century.
The saga began when his youngest son, Paul, was involved in a fatal boat crash in 2019. A year and a half later, Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul, 22, were found fatally shot on the family’s rural hunting estate.
Since then, there have been curveballs in the investigation — including Alex Murdaugh’s alleged money misuse that led to his disbarment, an admitted opioid addiction, an assisted-suicide attempt involving an alleged $10 million insurance fraud scheme and a high-profile murder trial.
Here’s a timeline of the key events in the Murdaugh murders and scandals.
