Nor Coko Williams was a 35-year-old Black transgender woman found fatally wounded on Parkhurst Street near Woodward Avenue in Detroit’s Palmer Park area shortly after 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 3, 2012. Investigators described an early-morning shooting; later reports added that her throat had been slashed. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

Witnesses told police the attacker or attackers fled almost immediately in a gold-colored vehicle. Neighbors said the block was known for sex work, but there was no clear indication Williams had been involved that morning. In the days after the killing police reported no arrests and said the motive remained uncertain. Some reports later suggested a suspect might have been in custody, but no clearly documented public outcome or conviction followed.

Friends remembered Williams as quiet and kind and noted she sometimes worked as a hairstylist, details that community members said were flattened by demeaning media coverage. Anyone with information about what happened on Parkhurst Street that morning is asked to come forward.