Skylar Harrison Reeves
Age 302 Oct 2023
Washington, D.C. (USA)
Overdose
Skylar was found dead on a park bench in suspicious circumstances. Her death was ruled to have been due to an overdose.
D.C. police are investigating the unexplained death of a 30-year-old transgender woman, Skylar Harrison Reeves, whose partially naked body was found on a park bench in a secluded section of Marvin Gaye Park on Oct. 2.
A Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson told the Washington Blade detectives from the department’s natural death squad are investigating the case as detectives await a determination by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the cause and manner of death, which could take up to 60 days or more.
But [name redacted], Skylar’s aunt, told the Blade that a homicide detective came to her house in Capitol Heights, Md., where Skylar was living, to inform her that her niece was found deceased in a D.C. park with her belongings missing and the dress she was wearing pulled up over her head, with her breasts exposed.
[Her aunt] said the detective, whose last name she recalls is McWilliams, came to her home on Monday, Oct. 2, shortly after he said her niece’s body was found in a secluded section of Marvin Gaye Park.
The park, which a Blade reporter visited on Oct. 16, consists of a long, narrow wooded area with a creek running in the middle with trees and bushes, park benches, a nature trail, and fitness equipment located throughout the park.
According to [her aunt], Det. McWilliams said police think Skylar may have died from a drug overdose, but he didn’t say how police came to that possible conclusion. Hailes said the detective’s graphic description of what he saw after park employees initially found the body and called police leads her to believe her niece did not die from a drug overdose, even though she may have occasionally used drugs.
“I have a history with drugs myself,’ [she] said. “I’m not bragging about it, but I’ve ODed myself,” she told the Blade, adding that the circumstances surrounding the body of her niece made it unlikely if not impossible that the cause of death was a drug overdose.
And, according to [her], the detective also told her investigators could not find any footprints from the tennis shoes Skylar was wearing on the muddy ground along the path leading to where she was found.
As if that were not enough, [she] said Skylar, who was gainfully employed at the time of her death, never hung out at Marvin Gaye Park, which has a reputation of being a place where transgender sex workers sometimes congregate. She said she went to the park a short time after her niece’s death and showed photos of Skylar to the people who were hanging out in the park. None of them said they recognized Skylar as among those who hang out at Marvin Gaye Park.
In January 2024 the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner announced that Skylar died from an overdose.
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2024/01/11/skylar-harrison-reeves-drug-overdose/
https://gaycitynews.com/black-trans-killed-milwaukee-dc-chicago/
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2023/10/17/skylar-harrison-reeves-murder/