A man has been found guilty of murdering transgender nurse Dee Whigham in Biloxi, Mississippi in July 2016, AP reports.
Dwanya Hickerson—a former sailor in the US Navy—stabbed Whigham 119 times after finding out she was transgender.
The two met up at a hotel after chatting online for a few months and after they had sex, Whigham revealed her gender identity to Hickerson.
“I lost. I lost it,” Hickerson said in court, saying he didn’t remember much afterward.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Leo Allen said surveillance footage showed Whigham and Hickerson entering a Best Western hotel room at 8:30pm and Hickerson leaving by himself 23 minutes later.
Hickerson pleaded guilty to the murder and avoided going to trial on a capital murder charge—which could have led to the death penalty.
“I think the plea is a slap in the face,” Whigham’s mother Vickie Blackney Whigham said.
“He gets a chance to see his family and I don’t have that chance with my child.”
“I don’t know what happened in that room because I wasn’t there and my (sibling) can’t tell me. I just wanted you to know you took away my only (sibling) and my daughter... she was devastated.”
Whigham was one of at least 27 transgender people—most of whom were trans women—killed in the United States in 2016.
According to Advocate, Whigham had just completed her nursing licensure and worked as a registered nurse at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
"She will be remembered at Forrest Health as an excellent nurse who was well-loved by her patients," said Forrest Health CEO Evan Dillary after Whigham’s death.
"I know Dee will be missed by her co-workers, supervisors, and the Forrest Health family."
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