Man Arrested In Murder Of Trans Woman In PG County: Reports

FAIRMOUNT HEIGHTS, MD -- Police have made in arrest in the murder of a woman who was reportedly transgender in Fairmount Heights last month.

Police were called to the 600 block of 59th Avenue at around 11:55 p.m. on June 13 to a report of an "unresponsive female on a sidewalk," and they found 23-year-old Zoe Spears of D.C. suffering from a gunshot wound, according to a report from the Prince George's County Police Department. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police arrested 33-year-old Gerardo Thomas of Baltimore and charged him with killing Spears, PGPD said in a follow-up report on Thursday.

BuzzFeed News reports that Spears was a transgender woman, the second black trans woman to be murdered in Prince George's County this year. Ashanti Carmon was killed March 30 just three blocks away, according to the report, which noted that Carmon and Spears knew each other.

Police said that surveillance video proved critical in the case.

"While conducting a crime scene canvass in the hours after the murder, detectives recovered surveillance video that captured the actual murder and the suspect’s van," the report states.

Police are investigating the motive, and are asking anyone with information to contact them.