About four years ago, her cousin, Samuel, started dressing as a woman and identifying himself as a transgender woman named India Clarke, she said. Their son, born Samuel E. Clarke, who lived life as India, a transgender woman, was found dead outside the University Area Community Center in Tampa Tuesday.
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India Clarke’s mother, Thelma Clarke, fondly remembered her daughter to WTSP as “a good-hearted person, a very loving person” who enjoyed laughing and making others smile.
Officers say they responded to a 911 call about a woman’s body in a park on Tuesday morning at roughly 9:00 a.m. “There was, what appeared to be, a deceased female laying on the ground next to the basketball courts”, according to a statement issued by the sheriff’s office.
Hillsborough Sheriff’s detectives say she died of blunt force trauma, and are investigating her death as a murder.
More than half of these women have been black.
“The Lord made us this way”, he told reporters. (Nine of those 10 victims, including Clarke, have been women of color.).
The last time India Clarke’s family saw her was on Sunday. “What his lifestyle was prior to that we don’t know – whether he was a cross-dresser, we don’t know”. They said they are looking at her past, which they do in any case, and whether that played a role in the homicide.
The case has led the transgender community to criticize local media and law enforcement for initially identifying India Clarke as a man, and led others to speculate about the motive for her murder.
A candlelight vigil to commemorate Clarke is being planned in Tampa for Friday, July 24.
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According to Hillsborough County jail records, she was arrested in 2013 on charges of prositution and possession of cannabis. And we both said ‘we love you too, ‘ ” Thelma told WTSP. Clarke, whose last known address was on Patterson Street, was identified by homicide detectives who noted he was dressed in women’s clothing.
