Update (July 8, 2020): A man has been arrested in connection to the murder of 17-year-old Brayla Stone, reports them. 

Trevone Miller was taken into custody on Thursday and is currently being held in Pulaski County Jail in Little Rock, Arkansas. The 18-year-old is facing charges of capital murder and tampering with evidence. 

Stone’s body was found in a vehicle in Sherwood, Arkansas. Police say they do not have evidence proving the killing was a hate crime, reports the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 

In Arkansas, capital murder is punishable by death or life in prison without parole.

Sherwood police spokesman Richard McNeil said the department could not yet release a cause of death. According to the Pulaski County Coroner’s Officer, a report on Stone will be released when the investigation is completed. 

Miller was arrested back in 2016 in connection to the killing of high school student Bryan Allen Thompson, who was also found in a car. Miller, who was 14 at the time, was going to be tried as an adult but agreed to plead guilty and to testify against the two other teens involved in the murder, Xavier Porter and Quincy Parks, reports The Advocate.

The case was then sent to juvenile court under the state's Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction Act, which gives the court the authority to reevaluate his sentence when he turns 21, according to The Advocate

Before his arrest in connection to Stone, Miller had been arrested in March on charges of robbery, identity theft and firearms possession, which were unrelated to the murder charge. He had been out on bail. 

Stone’s family members said they will remember her as a fun-loving and generous person. 

"I'm just going to remember [her] by the loving, kindhearted person [she] was," Stone’s cousin, Rikeya Holmes, said. 

Original (July 1, 2020): A Black teenager in Arkansas is the 17th known transgender person to be killed this year.

According to Out magazine, Brayla Stone was found dead in a car in the Little Rock suburb of Sherwood on Thursday. 

“Brayla Stone was seventeen years young when someone murdered her," David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said. "We live in a society where it is not yet explicit that when we say BlackLivesMatter we mean all Black lives, which includes Black trans women and girls.”

Using an Instagram account, which is now deleted, one person claimed responsibility for the death. The person posted a video of a large number of bills and wrote a comment, saying "I zipped em for 5k … Money Well Spent."

Trans activist Ashlee Marie Preston demanded justice for Stone and urged the media not to deadname her. 

"This is just…smh. Another Black trans girl was murdered," Preston wrote. "When we said protect Black trans women—we meant our youth as well. She was only 17 and media of course used her birth name instead of her REAL name. Say her name. #BraylaStone."

Johns said there's an increasing need to protect Black transgender people against hate.

“Both the continued tragic and often silent loss of Black trans, Black queer, and Black non-binary lives as well as the continued adultification of Black girls should be lost on no one—especially as we celebrate the 51st anniversary of Pride and the Stonewall resistance,” Johns said.

Advocates for Stone created a Change.org petition, calling for justice and greater attention on the case.

"Brayla Stone was a black transgender woman who was murdered in Little Rock, Arkansas by a transphobic man," the petition stated. "This is not making major news even when her killer boasted about the murder on social media saying that he was payed $5,000 dollars for the crime. ALL Black lives matter, let’s get justice for Brayla!"

According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Stone is the 17th transgender or gender-nonconforming person who has been violently killed in the U.S. in 2020. The organization said eight killings have been reported between May 3 and June 9.

The Center for Artistic Revolution hosted a vigil for Stone on June 29, saying she "was someone who always held space for others to be themselves and express their identities."

The community was asked to come to the vigil wearing the teen's favorite colors: red and purple.

"It is important that we uplift her memory and dedicate ourselves to seeking justice for her," the Center for Artistic Revolution stated. "She was 17 years old and her life was taken far too soon. We must put a stop to the violence against Black transwomen. We don’t want another Black transwoman’s death to go unnoticed.”

Tori Cooper, HRC director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, said Stone was "a young Black girl who had hopes and dreams, plans and community.”

“Brayla Stone was a child. A child, just beginning to live her life. A child of trans experience," Cooper said. “As a nation, we failed Brayla —as we have failed every transgender or gender non-conforming person killed in a country that embraces violence and upholds transphobia, racism, homophobia. Guns are not as important as people.”

According to the HRC, Arkansas is one of the few states without statewide hate-crime laws. 

Dominique Rem’mie Fells in Pennsylvania and Riah Milton in Ohio are also among the trans women who have been recently killed, as Blavity previously reported. Selena Reyes-Hernandez, a 37-year-old trans woman in Chicago, was killed on May 31. 

In 2019, at least 27 transgender or gender-nonconforming people in the U.S. were killed, and many of them were Black, the HRC reported.

"These victims, like all of us, are loving partners, parents, family members, friends and community members," the organization stated on its website. "They worked, went to school and attended church. They were real people — people who did not deserve to have their lives taken from them."  

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