Thirty-one-year-old Tanya Moore (born Jonathan Streater) was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a transgender woman who was described as “clean cut” by her family, but had several arrests for prostitution going back thirteen years. Her friend, twenty-seven-year-old Tina Rodriguez (born Faustino Arroyo), also transgender, was originally from Puerto Rico but had grown up in Camden, New Jersey. She also had numerous prostitution arrests, and though her family always tried to help her, they admitted they hadn’t seen her for six months prior to her death.
On June 30th, 1986, on Thirteenth Street in Philadelphia, Tanya and Tina were seen getting into a light-colored, medium-sized van with two male clients, both of whom were white and aged between twenty-five and thirty-five years old. One of the individuals was blond and clean-shaven, while the other had curly dark hair and a mustache.
A few days later, at just past midnight on July 3rd, police and firefighters were called to a supposed brush fire at a baseball field in Middletown. Instead, they found the bodies of the two sex workers at the center of the blaze. The victims had been tortured, dismembered, mutilated, and then set on fire. Both of them had their legs sawed off, and one victim had their genitals maimed. They were identified by fingerprints from their severed hands.
The horrific murders went cold for fifteen years, but in 2001, authorities got a lead in the form of an unnamed suspect who took credit for the crime. He stated to investigators that he and a member of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club had picked the two victims up for sex, but brutally murdered them upon discovering they were trans. Because the supposed confession was given under a proffer agreement, however, no charges were ever filed.
As of this writing, there do not appear to have been any further updates to the case.
Crime Immemorial 