A trans woman with a “beautiful heart” was fatally stabbed in the neck in Harlem Park, New York, early Saturday morning during a spat over a wig she allegedly stole.
In the light of the morning after, a crescent-shaped bloodstain on the pavement remained at the scene.
The woman, 33, was sitting on a park bench on the corner of East 128th Street and 3rd Avenue near Harlem River Park when, officials and witnesses say, an unidentified assailant approached her.
At around 1.30am, the pair began arguing and the suspect sliced her neck before jumping onto a red motorised scooter and fleeing the scene, the New York Post reported.
Medics rushed her to NYC Health and Hospitals/Harlem, but she was later pronounced dead.
What happened?
The victim, according to a witness who spoke to the paper, “snatched” a “child’s wig”.
“It was a blonde wig,” the witness claimed.
“[The victim] just walked past her and took the wig off her head.
“That prompted the other person to attack her.”
She continued: “Someone said: ‘Oh, s**t, she cut her throat!’
“There was a dude riding one a red scooter trying to pick up one of the girls. [The attacker] must have hopped on the back of a date’s motorcycle.”
Victim was ‘very giving’, says witness and friend.
The witness described the trans woman, whose identity is being withheld until family can be notified, police say, as someone with a “beautiful heart”.
“She’s very giving. She would give you the shoes off her feet in the wintertime if she really had to.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack “horrifying” Saturday.
“My heart breaks for this woman and for her family,” he wrote on Twitter.
