Man arrested in Texas transgender woman strangulation death

DALLAS – A 24-year-old man stopped while driving in southeastern Texas has been charged with murder in the strangulation death of a Dallas transgender woman.

Jimmy Eugene Johnson II was arrested near Huntsville, Texas. He was driving a car seen in surveillance video from the Dallas apartment complex where 26-year-old Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon was found dead on May 9.

A Dallas police statement issued Thursday says Johnson revealed that he had goods stolen from the woman’s apartment. The police statement says there is presently no evidence of a hate crime. Deputy Chief Thomas Castro tells The Dallas Morning News that Johnson and Flores-Pavon had been engaging in online chats.

Johnson is confined to the Walker County Jail in Huntsville under $500,000 bond.

The Human Rights Campaign says 28 transgender Americans died in homicides in 2017 and 10 have died so far this year.