Diane Delia
Age 247 Oct 1981
New York (USA)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tdor.info/10-7-1981/Diane Delia
Diane's body was found in the Hudson River. She had been shot four times in the head by her husband, Robert Ferrera.
On October 28, 1981, the body of a woman was rescued from Hudson River, New York. The body was wrapped in a blanket and, incidentally, only wearing a lavender colored undershirt with the spaghetti strap and lavender colored panties. There were four bullet holes in the skull. At the autopsy, it was found that the woman's sheath was abnormally large and that she had neither uterus nor ovaries . Furthermore, the presence of the prostate was observed.
The Manhattan Criminal Police found that about 2 weeks earlier, a woman named Diane Delia, 24, had disappeared from her home in Yonkers. It was also found that until November 1980, Diane Delia had been a man named John Delia.
It was the start of one of the most bizarre criminal cases in New York.
Robert Ferrara was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was paroled in 2008.
Linda Wolfe covered Diana's case in detail in her book "The Professor and the Prostitute".
[Deadname] began to pursue the possibility of [transitioning], but, in December 1979, [she] met Robyn Arnold, who was a nurse in the plastic surgeon’s office where [she’d] gone for a consultation. The two began dating. [Diane] abandoned [her] plans to [transition] and instead took up weightlifting. In spring of 1980, the pair announced their engagement. [Diane] changed [her] mind, not just about the marriage, but again about [her gender] identity. Robyn not only agreed [she] should go through with the operation – she paid for it.
[Deadname] became Diane Delia in November 1980. [She] chose the name because [she’d] been impersonating Diana Ross in gay discos for years. The following summer, Diane Delia married her former flame Robert Ferrara, but she continued a number of extramarital entanglements, including with Robyn Arnold.
Allegedly, on the night of October 7, 1981, Robyn Arnold and Robert Ferrara drove John/Diane Delia to a wooded area and each shot Delia twice in the head.
The jury convicted Ferrara and acquitted Arnold. He got twenty to life; she married a dentist.
Source: Philadelphia Daily News, October 11, 1982
https://archives.law.virginia.edu/dengrove/writeup/transssexual-murder-trial-ferrara-arnold
https://marriedtomurder.libsyn.com/episode-18-throuple
http://www.transviden.dk/diane-delia/
https://zagria.blogspot.com/2008/03/diane-delia-1957-1981-performer.html
http://gayhistory.wikidot.com/diane-delia
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/97185900/diane-delia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19yohZDCZzw
http://students673.ucr.edu/docsserver/lgbt/trans_remembrance_display_posters.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10_JeZ7LEIRhvewTCoL5mVkH6MQJzf7fSXl4-P6QJ0v0/edit#gid=0
