Transgender activist and former teacher found guilty of triple murder in Georgia
A former teacher and transgender activist found guilty of murder and kidnapping in a murder-for-hire plot that targeted transgender people in the Atlanta area on December 24 and 25, 2017, a judge announced on Wednesday.
According to WSB-TV, Judge Thomas W. Wren, in his order for a sentence in the case, called it a “brazen display of violence,” and said that it was “designed to inflict harm not only on the victims but also to punish and silence them.”
Flynn International School in Alpharetta, Georgia, had been under investigation since mid-November. Former teacher and transgender activist Eliza Thomas posted on a blog that she and other teachers were planning to protest the school and “protect our children from the ignorance and violence that they will experience in the future.”
In a video she posted online days before the murders, Thomas, who is referred to as “E.T.” by the judge, said that the school was “corrupt” and “corrupting” the community.
As the videos of her teaching show her making a “transgender” sign, the judge said that the school’s “intentions were not only to harm transgender individuals, but also to instill fear and hatred against them.”
But in a final statement posted on the blog, Thomas warned that she and other “trans” teachers “would rather die than surrender a classroom of our children to the ignorant and hateful.”
A spokesperson for the school said they were “appalled by the content of the blog and the impact it could have on our students.” The spokesperson told Associated Press that the school and the school district would be “reviewing the matter and taking appropriate action.”
According to court documents, on the morning of December 24, 2017, E.T. called a business owner on the phone and told him that he had a job for him. His plan was to get the owner to tell a transgender woman, identified as K.D., to come to her house the night of December 24 to help “put a plan into motion