Onyx Cornish
Age 18 (born 12 Apr 2007)18 Aug 2025
Caldwell, Idaho (USA)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tgeu/tdor2025/18-Aug-2025/Onyx Cornish
Onyx died after being shot by their adoptive father.
Delbert Cornish was arrested on 18th August is being held without bail.
Onyx Cornish (2007–2025) was a queer & trans teenager, allegedly murdered by their adoptive father.
Last week, a trans teenager was shot to death in their bedroom in Caldwell, Idaho; their father has allegedly confessed. The case has been widely reported on, but, as is common when trans and nonbinary people are killed, journalists have attempted to render them cisgender through a mixture of ignorance and deliberate excision. Onyx has been exclusively referred to as a woman and a daughter, and their chosen name has often been treated — and stylised — as a nickname to be subordinated to their birth name, including on their obituary.
My friend, researcher Ilya Maude, noticed tells in the reported story and found Onyx’s Instagram (which is public, but which I won’t link directly in case of malicious attention). On it, their pronouns are listed as he/they/she. Their friends have been using they/them in their eulogies for Onyx, which I am following here.
Onyx lived in one of the most conservative US states — a state that broke for Trump by a 36.5% margin in 2024 — and described their family on IG as a conservative family. (Their pinned Instagram reels include PSAs about Project 2025 and information about seeking abortion pills in red states.) It’s striking, then, that even as a teenager in a conservative context, they asserted themselves firmly enough that their queerness and genderqueerness has been impossible to erase after their death. It has been widely reported that they went by Onyx, even as this has been treated in practice as an extension of their alt style. Most revealingly, and bleakly, their father is stated to have wrapped them in a pride flag after killing them. (A rainbow flag is visible on their wall in some reels.)
He has allegedly stated that he planned to kill himself and all of his three children, saying that they were being “bullied” by his brother — who owned the house in which Onyx was living — with insults like “paedophile” and “loser.” It is difficult not to suspect that Onyx was the primary target of this abuse. Onyx was shot immediately after opening their bedroom door and died about 20 minutes later. Onyx’s younger brother was also threatened with a gun after arriving home from school, but thankfully managed to talk down and disarm his father, who left the property.
Onyx loved heavy metal, alt fashion and makeup, and their friends, who they described as getting them through rough periods in their life, including a period of some time in which they were kicked out of the house. They loved their cat, Sami, who was sadly also shot and killed after their own murder. They enjoyed showing off their makeup looks online and described themselves as both pretty and handsome. They celebrated getting sober in 2024. Their last available Instagram story is from three weeks ago, where they were celebrating one of their closest friends’ birthdays at a picnic. All the attendees wore flower garlands on their heads. They looked happy.
Queer and trans youth deserve better than their state and their families. The family, said to offer protection, so often kills and starves.
We must mourn and honour our dead.
Onyx´s Instagram profile (@_.the.x.inbetween.) has subsequently been deactivated, effectively erasing their online identity.
https://www.advocate.com/crime/idaho-teen-shot-by-father
https://www.instagram.com/p/DN8J3ncjWrj/
https://www.allvalleycremation.com/obituaries/Hope-Serene-Rae-Onyx-Cornish?obId=44362530
