Baltimore Police Investigate After 25 Year Old Transgender Found Asphyxiated In Basement Of Abandoned Home

A terribly sad story from the Baltimore Sun, a 25 year old transgender woman known as Tyra, born Anthony Trent, found dead, Saturday, someone wandering into a vacant city-owned home in Northwest Baltimore and finding Trent's body in the basement. She had no identification and no cell phone, but an autopsy revealed that she had been asphyxiated. City homicide detectives are investigating the case. It took two days to confirm Trent's identity and notify family. Trent had been reported missing two weeks earlier, after leaving home late at night on a Sunday and never returning. Trent had been known to leave for a few days at a time, but always kept in touch with her mother, Sundra, but did not this time. Relatives gathered at the Trent family home Tuesday night, where they remembered Trent as a vibrant person who liked to dance, loved animals and loved to style hair. She worked with people with disabilities, they said. She also worked the streets, often spending time at an area of lower Charles Village known as "The Stroll" that transgender prostitutes are known to frequent. Court records show dozens of arrests for loitering and prostitution between 2003 and 2008, however Trent hadn't been arrested since 2008, and it is unknown what circumstances led to her death. Sandy Rawls, director of Trans-United, which provides outreach for members of the transgender community, said she had been working with Trent, who was in the process of formally changing her name and working to obtain a GED. "The whole transgender community is at risk," Rawls said. "We don't have the economical foundation set up for us as transgender people. We can't go into jobs without being discriminated against, and it's really hard for individuals to be themselves and have a way of living. Sometimes they end up doing wild things to survive, and they end up" in dangerous situations.