‘EXTREME CAUTION’

Two North Carolina Transgender Women Killed in Hotel Rooms, Cops Say Cases May Be Linked

Police are urging members of the LGBTQ community, particularly those who are sex workers, to report anything suspicious and use “extreme caution.”

An unidentified transgender woman was shot and killed in a Charlotte hotel room Thursday in what was the second murder of a transgender sex worker in the North Carolina city this month. According to WSOC-TV, Charlotte police said the two shooting murders are very similar—but there’s not enough evidence to confirm a link. Jaida Peterson, 29, was found dead with gunshot wounds on Easter Sunday in a hotel room in west Charlotte. The second woman was shot and killed at a different hotel in the northeast of the city. Police have urged members of the LGBTQ+ community—particularly those who are sex workers—to exercise “extreme caution” in the coming days. “This is a very critical time right now,” said Charlotte- Mecklenberg Police Department spokesperson Rob Tufano. “There is probably, arguably, never a more vulnerable time for them than tonight—until this person, these people, whomever it is that is responsible for these cases, is apprehended.”