First Degree Murder and Hate Crime Verdict In Killing Of Angie Zapata: GUILTY!

Monica Murguia, one of the victim’s sisters, choked back tears Wednesday as the prosecution showed crime-scene photos during closing arguments in the trial of Allen Andrade.

April 23, 2009

GREELEY, Colo. — A jury took just two hours Wednesday to find a Colorado man guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of an 18-year-old transgender woman, and determined that the act was a hate crime.

Mr. Andrade, right, in court Wednesday with a public defender, killed Angie Zapata last summer.

The defendant, Allen Andrade, 32, was convicted of murdering Angie Zapata in her Greeley apartment last summer and was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the mandatory penalty in Colorado for first-degree murder.

Mr. Andrade beat Ms. Zapata to death with his fists and a fire extinguisher, prosecutors said, once he realized that Ms. Zapata, whom he had met on the Internet not long before, had been born male.

The case drew national attention not only because of the killing’s grisly nature but also because it is believed to be among the first in which a hate crimes law was applied in a murder trial where the victim was transgender.

At the sentencing hearing shortly after the verdict, Ms. Zapata’s mother, Maria, spoke through tears.

“The one thing he can never take away,” Maria Zapata said of Mr. Andrade, “is the love and memories that me and my children will have of my baby, my beautiful, beautiful baby.”

Christina Cruz, Mr. Andrade’s sister, also spoke. Ms. Cruz, though apologizing, said that her brother was human and that his family loved him no matter the outcome.

Throughout the weeklong trial, prosecutors argued that because of a hatred for gay and transgender people, Mr. Andrade had plotted to kill Ms. Zapata after coming to realize that she was born male. They said he had waited in her apartment and ambushed her in a fit of rage when she returned home.

The case “is about an unreasonable and deep-seated anger that he unleashed on Angie Zapata because she was a transgender woman,” the chief deputy district attorney, Robb Miller, said in closing arguments Wednesday.

Mr. Andrade’s public defenders never denied that he was the killer but said there had been nothing premeditated in what he did. They contended that he had been fooled by Ms. Zapata, formerly named Justin Zapata, and simply snapped when he found that she had been born male.

“Justin Zapata lived like a female, looked like a female, sounded like a female,” said one defense lawyer, Annette Kundelius. “That’s what Mr. Andrade believed. And when he found it wasn’t Angie, it was actually Justin, he lost control.”

Conviction of a hate crime in Colorado carries a sentence of up to three years on top of the punishment for the underlying offense. Since first-degree murder means life without parole, the hate-crime conviction in this case has no immediate practical effect.

But at a news conference after the trial, Ms. Zapata’s family, along with the Weld County district attorney, Kenneth R. Buck, emphasized that it was nonetheless important.

“Only a monster can look at a beautiful 18-year-old and beat her to death,” said Ms. Zapata’s brother, Gonzalo. “The message was sent loud and clear that crimes targeting L.G.B.T. people will not be tolerated in Colorado.”