Transgender woman, 65, who murdered three prostitutes because she was 'jealous they could have children' is found guilty of the slayings 17 years after she had gender reassignment surgery so she 'wouldn't get caught'
BY Snejana Farberov
Daily Mail
June 30, 2017
A jury in Spokane, Washington, has convicted a 65-year-old transgender woman in the serial killings of three women working as prostitutes nearly three decades ago. of three counts of first-degree murder.
Donna Perry will be sentenced on July 24 in Spokane County Superior Court. She faces up to three life terms.
Perry used to be known as Douglas Perry before undergoing gender reassignment surgery in 2000.
She was found guilty on Thursday of three counts of first-degree murder in the killings of 26-year-old Yolanda Sapp, 34-year-old Nickie Lowe, and 38-year-old Kathy Brisbois.
Their naked or partially exposed bodies were found dumped on the banks of the Spokane River.
Perry, with her long graying hair falling over her shoulders, displayed no emotion when Judge Michael Price read aloud the guilty verdicts. Before she was led away in handcuffs, the judge thanked the now-convicted murderer for showing 'dignity' throughout the proceedings, reported The Spokane Review.
The victims' families embraced and cried in the court hallway at the conclusion of the trial, 27 years after the serial killings.
'I'm so happy that it's finally done and over with and we have some sort of closure for my aunt and these two other women. It's amazing,' Chilsea Patzer, Nickie Lowe's niece, told KREM2.
All three victims were sex workers in Spokane and were all shot during a four-month span in 1990.
The cases went unsolved until 2012, when Perry was convicted in federal court for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
During that investigation, her DNA was entered into a national database and came back a match to evidence in the cold-case murders.
Prosecutors contended during this month's two-and-a-half-week trial that Perry changed her gender to avoid suspicion in the serial killings.
'She gelded herself like you would a farm animal,' Deputy Prosecutor Sharon Hedlund told the jury in closing arguments this week.
When Perry was arrested in connection with the crimes five years ago, she claimed that she had transitioned into a female to stop her male persona from being violent.
'Douglas didn't stop, Donna stopped it,' Perry told police about the killings, according to an affidavit filed in January 2014. 'I'm not going to admit I killed anybody, I didn't. Donna has killed nobody.'
When asked if Doug was responsible, she responded: 'I don't know if Doug did or not, it was 20 years ago and I have no idea whether he did or did not,' according to ABC News.
A woman who had shared a cell with Perry during a stint in an Oregon prison in 1998 told police that Perry confided in her that she had killed prostitutes 'because she couldn't breed and the women had the ability to have children and they were wasting it being "pond scum."'
Defense lawyer Pat Donahue tried to convince the jury that his client's DNA and fingerprints were linked to the victims because as a man, Perry had used the services of prostitutes.
Prosecutors expressed their satisfaction with the outcome of the case. The defense plans to appeal the verdict.
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