CLEWISTON, Fla. — "There's been a lot of years when it hasn't been safe to be yourself." Said Donna Lusk with the Gender Equality Trust Network.
Members of the LGBQ community think the 23-year-old transgender woman Bee Love Slater was killed for being herself.
And the Hendry County Sheriff's Office agrees that may have been the case.
Slater's body was found earlier this month inside of her car which had been set on fire.
The Sheriff's Office conducted a raid today at a Clewiston home in connection with that case.
According to the Human Right Campaign Bee Love was the 18th transgender person to be killed this year.
Donna Lusk, Gender Equality Trust Network: All that kind of stuff is terrible.
Sheriff Steve Whidden, Hendry County Sheriff's Office: I've been doing this job for and this was one of the worst scenes I've seen. This was a bad one.
Something local LGBTQ advocates and law enforcement can agree on is that the way 23-year old Bee Love Slater, a transgender woman died was gruesome.
Donna Lusk, Gender Equality Trust Network: It seems to be getting to be a bigger and bigger trend.
And according to the Hendry County Sheriff's Office, she may have been killed because of her identity.
Sheriff Steve Whidden, Hendry County Sheriff's Office: Yeah, I mean it's leaning there like maybe that might be it for a certain reason or two.
But it appears the Hendry County Sheriff's Office may be one step closer to solving her murder.
They raided Clewiston home at the corner of WC Owen and Alverdez Friday in connection to the case.
Sheriff Steve Whidden, Hendry County Sheriff's Office: We've received information through various means, which led us to a search warrant.
At this point, no arrests have been made, but they do have some leads.
Sheriff Steve Whidden, Hendry County Sheriff's Office: We do have some persons of interest that we're looking at.
The names of those persons are not being released at this time.
