Remembering Our Dead

Sophia Castro

Sophia was beaten with a hammer and strangled. When arrested her attacker claimed that he killed her in self-defence.

HJC, 42, was arrested on the spot and taken to the Prison System Relocation Center (Ceresp) in Contagem. According to the police, a friend of the suspect reported the murder to the Military Police. H. called him for help because he had killed someone and was thinking about killing himself.

In a statement, he said he ran a show with Sophia on Saturday (29) and after using cocaine they ended up falling out. He claimed that she had attempted to assault him and that he retaliated, using a hammer and squeezing the victim’s neck until she fainted.

The vice president of the Center for Fight for Free Sexual Orientation (Cellos-MG) and member of the Trans Network, Anyky Lima said she met Sophia when she was 19 and went to live in her house for a year. According to Anyky, Sophia had a dream of having her own home, was quiet, kept in touch with her mother, and because of the lack of opportunity in the job market, she was involved in prostitution. She points out that the police should be involved in investigations not only of Sophia’s death, but of several cases of transphobic murders, such as that of Mirella de Carlo on 19th February at Carlos Prates in BH. Anyky claims that there is always an attempt to blame the victim who was murdered and to justify the crimes of transphobia.

https://goqueer.blogspot.com/2017/07/brazil-21-year-old-sophia-castro-killed.html

https://homofobiamata.wordpress.com/2017/04/29/sophia-castro-21-anos-marteladas-mg-belo-horizonte/

https://freelance24horas.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/desaparecida-ha-5-dias-travesti-sophia.html

Report added: 1 Sep 2018. Last updated: 13 Jan 2021

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