On July 17, 2008, an 18-year-old trans woman, Angie Zapata, was beaten to death by Allen Andrade in Greeley, Colorado.
Zapata’s murder shocked the whole of Colorado and left the state and its LGBTQ community in terror. It was a brutal hate crime, and the crime’s brutality is still palpable to the public to this day.
Once caught, Andrade was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder and for committing a hate crime. The judge added the latter after it became clear that Andrade killed Zapata because she was a transwoman.
As tragic as the case is, it was the first in the nation where the authorities convicted the perpetrator of a hate crime for violent acts against a transgender person. Zapata’s story and murder were featured heavily on the United States’ most prominent provider of Spanish-language content, Univision’s November 1, 2009, Aqui y Ahora television show.
Angie Zapata Murder Update 2022
Allen Andrade met Angie Zapata through the mobile phone social network MocoSpace when she was 18, and he was 31 at the time.
Andrade, an unemployed 31-year-old, met Zapata on July 15, 2008, and proceeded to spend three days together. On July 17, however, Zapata’s two sisters found her body covered with a blood-stained towel lying in the carpeted living room of her one-bedroom apartment.
According to Andrade, during the three days he spent with Zapata, she only performed oral sex on him but refused to let him touch her genitals. On the third day, she left to babysit her sister Monica’s three kids, leaving Andrade alone in her apartment.
As he wasn’t a romantic prospect, she had kept the encounter secret from her family and most of her friends. Sadly, she would be returning to her death as when Andrade had grown increasingly suspicious when he was alone in her apartment.
Andrade later told the court that Zapata’s photographs in her apartment made her gender abundantly clear, and when she returned, he confronted her; when faced with the confrontation, Zapata replied that she was all woman. Still, Andrade grabbed her genitals and, after feeling a penis, violently beat her with his fists until she fell, then grabbed a fire extinguisher from the kitchen wall and hit her on the head twice.
Andrade then covered her head with a blanket and began to clean up, and when he realized she wasn’t dead yet but was struggling to sit up, he hit her on the head and fled, driving Zapata’s car. Luckily, Andrade was arrested near his residence, driving Zapata’s car.
Where Is Allen Andrade Now?
Allen Andrade was found guilty of second-degree murder (which was subsequently changed to first), hate crimes, aggravated motor vehicle theft, and identity theft on April 22, 2009.
The court sentenced Andrade to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Additionally, the judge dubbed him a habitual criminal because he had six prior felony convictions. On May 8, 2009, the court added 60 years to his sentence for the hame crime and theft convictions at his sentencing trial.
Due to the violence of Andrade’s acts, President Barrack Obama signed a new hate crime bill, where attacks against people based on gender, sexual orientation, or disability under the national hate crimes law.
As of October 2015, Andrade is serving his time at Limon Correctional Facility, a Level IV mixed-custody Colorado state prison for men in Limon, Lincoln County, Colorado. With no chance at parole, Andrade will spend the rest of his life sentence at this facility.
Why Did Allen Ray Andrade Kill Angie Zapata?
Andrade made it clear at the crime scene and in court that he killed Zapata because she was transgender.
The jury heard jailhouse conversations where Andrade told a girlfriend that gay things must die. Also, he grew increasingly violent towards Zapato only after his suspicions that she was transgender proved right after he grabbed her genitals.
Additionally, in the arrest affidavit, Andrade said he thought he’d killed it, referring to the recently deceased Zapato not even as a person but as it.
Before he’d had any suspicions, he was content on letting Zapato perform oral sex on him. It is precisely due to the reasoning behind his murder that his crime was deemed a hate crime.