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Michigan teen sentenced for 'execution-style' killing of Black trans woman Ashia Davis

Carlos Lamar Scotland Ashia Davis
Scotland: via Michigan State Police, Metro Detroit; Davis: via Human Rights Campaign

Ashia Davis was found dead in a Highland Park hotel in 2023.


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A judge in Michigan on Friday sentenced a 19-year-old to between 17 and 30 years in jail for murdering Ashia Davis, a Black transgender woman he shot “execution style” in the back of the head, local Fox affiliate WJBK reports.

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Carlos Lamar Scotland, 19, pleaded guilty to a felony firearm count and second-degree murder for killing Ashia Davis, 36, who was found dead in a Highland Park hotel on June 1, 2023, with a single gunshot wound to her head. Highland Park is part of the Detroit metro area.

Scotland was 17 when he was arrested on March 24, 2024, and originally charged with first-degree murder, felony firearm, carrying a concealed weapon, and resisting and obstructing a police officer for the incident and arrest.

“Most people’s memories of their loved ones are good memories,” Julisa Abad, a trans woman, told the court during her witness impact statement. “The last memory that I have is seeing my friend on the floor outside of the hotel corner room with blood streaming all over the floor.”

Related: Michigan teen charged with trans woman's murder, to be tried as adult

Abad noted the sorts of violence trans women of color face.

“The sad reality is, particularly in the Black and Brown community, men that are enamored of trans women and cannot be themselves have to resort to loving us in private and killing us in public than have anybody know their association with us,” Abad said.

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Davis’s murder shocked the Detroit trans community as it celebrated Pride. Highland Park Police said they were called to a hotel just after 11 p.m. on June 1, 2023, to investigate a report of gunshots. Once there, they found Davis dead in her room.

Prosecutors said Scotland killed Davis with a handgun and then fled the scene.

Timestamps on the hotel’s security video from the night of the murder show a teen or young man believed to be Scotland walking across the hotel’s interior courtyard parking lot at 10:57 p.m. and then entering Davis’s room a minute later. The same person can be seen running from the room at 11:16 p.m., according to the video’s timestamp.

While police and prosecutors were able to tie Davis to the killing, they still were not able to pinpoint an exact motive for the crime.

“Only two people were in that room that night and will ever know the true events of what happened,” Abad said. “What we will know is that Ashia Davis was shot execution-style in the back of the head and left for dead.”

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