In the early morning hours of a December Saturday in Phoenix, Caelee Lovelight, a 27-year-old Latina transgender woman, was found unresponsive in a parked car near 23rd Avenue and Baseline Road with fatal gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers responded to an unknown trouble call at about 3:25 a.m. A 47-year-old man, Javin Casillias, was also in the vehicle with serious stab wounds; he was taken to hospital and later died. Investigators say a violent physical altercation occurred inside the car and both victims’ injuries appear to have resulted from that fight. Authorities have not indicated they are seeking additional suspects.

Friends remember Lovelight as deeply religious and spiritual and as an advocate for nonbinary and transgender people; she was originally from Texas, had lived in Portland where she legally changed her name and gender marker, and later moved to Phoenix. Casillias’s mother has said she believes her disabled son acted in self-defense, alleging Lovelight attacked him. Lovelight’s death was counted among at least 40 violent deaths of transgender people in the United States that year.

If anyone has information about what happened that night, please come forward.