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A Dallas County jury convicted Ruben Alvarado, 24, of first-degree murder for strangling a transgender woman, Chynal Lindsey, to death in 2019 and dumping her body in a lake.
Alvarado had testified that he took the Dallas woman to White Rock Lake for sex but ordered her from his sport utility vehicle upon discovering her biological sex.
He claimed Lindsey then attacked him, so he strangled her with his belt in self-defense.
Lindsey’s body was found in White Rock Lake with a belt around her neck. She suffered other injuries as well.
Alvarado’s attorney changed the defense several times during the three-day trial.
When prosecutors presented evidence that the defendant’s phone was pinging off the same cell phone tower as the victim’s on the day of the murder, the defense argued that it didn’t prove they were together.
The defense switched to trans panic when Alvarado testified although the two had spoken previously, he panicked when he realized Lindsey was transgender. So he climbed on top of her and started punching her and finally took his belt off to strangle her. Then he dumped her body in the lake.
The defense was hoping for a conviction on a crime of sudden passion.
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The prosecution was relentless in its description of the murder, telling the jury Alvarado threw Lindsey’s body away like trash.
In the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury was told he had a lousy childhood. The jury, quickly reached a verdict and sentenced Alvarado to 37 years in prison.
Lindsey’s case – along with investigations into the killings of Tiffany Thomas, Muhlaysia Booker, Merci Mack, Coco Wortham, Kier Kartier and others – are among those putting the Dallas area at the center of national attention, over the past two years, for attacks and murders against transgender women or gender non-conforming people.
Although these cases remain unsolved, Lindsey’s trial is a small win.
“For the family, it’s going to provide a sense of closure as well as a sense of justice,” said Naomi Green, an advocate who also handles transgender programming for the community based nonprofit Abounding Prosperity, Inc. in Dallas.