SOLVED: THE TRAGIC MURDER OF ANGIE ZAPATA

you're such a genuine gym thank you for clicking on my video i'm brooke mckenna but today's case is about the tragic murder of angie zapata now this was a woman who was more herself than many of us can even hope to be a light in this world taken for the darkest of reasons the lies and victim blaming in this one is sure to get you heated now i also want to thank our sponsor scent bird who makes it possible for me to make these videos now scentbird is actually a fragrant subscription service where you can try out the most expensive brands with a 30-day supply to make sure you love it without paying for the full bottle this isn't just a sample either these are full tubes that are the perfect size to be able to you know throw in your purse take on vacation because they will last you way more than just a few squirts there's a quiz on scentbird where if you kind of know what kind of scents you like but aren't quite sure they can help you match with one or you can just scroll through if you 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loved watching her sisters put on makeup she would drape towels over her head and cry if her mom cut her hair but by the time she was in her preteens she felt more comfortable telling her family of her gender identity angie was honest about wanting to be called angie and presenting as female while at home and she actually picked the name angie because she liked it but because it sounded sexy as angelica and spanish but angie wasn't ready to show her true self to the public just yet so she did kind of go to school and go certain places as justin or people would call her just but thankfully everyone in her family was completely supportive of angie being who she was and her mother maria did worry about angie only because she knew how other people treated those in the lgbtq plus community and so she you know kind of put off for a long time letting angie grow her hair out or do certain things fun beautiful loving she put everybody before herself she'd make everybody happy when she'd walk into the room i don't know you could feel her love all the time she was very energetic always wanted to do something never let me rest kind of find you some big words i would don't match you but full fulfilled she did she fulfilled every all everything she could probably accomplish in her age and without no regrets her mother said she had a sense from the beginning of angie's life that she was going to have to protect her more than the rest of her children and she didn't really know why but angie was more than just her gender identity she was also funny energetic and a wonderful person to be around she loves singing rapping and strived to be miss latina by the time angie was in high school at the age of 16 she began to live as a full-time woman who she was inside and unfortunately she began to endure harassment from her fellow students due to this and the teachers really didn't help nor did they make her feel any better she would often come home crying asking why people wouldn't accept her and she did try transferring schools but it was just as bad there she was being bullied there and she tried to defend herself in fights and she was this tall strong woman but even after you know she would beat them up and she would say see that's what it feels like to be beaten up as a and she would use the efsler they would still continue to come after her she always felt like she had to protect herself from those who didn't support her and she had actually admitted to her sister that she was sexually assaulted when she was a child by an older male and she said you know if i could attract men like that as a male then maybe i was meant to be a woman now she did have one childhood friend who meant everything to her her name was rochelle and they had been friends since first grade they often played barbies together and rochelle loved her ever since they were really tiny she didn't care how angie presented she was her friend and she loved her for that one time they had a crush on the same boy and so they threw rings down at his feet and each one had separate rings and whoever he picked up got to keep the crush on him so they didn't fight over him and so when angie frizz came out as gay to rachelle she said oh you didn't need to tell me that i already knew that but she was completely supportive of it and then when angie came out as transgender she supported her then too she would throw makeup at girls who made fun of angie and when rochelle first saw angie you know dressed up and makeup with her hair done she said hell yeah if that's what you want to wear let's wear it and it got to the point where angie was better at hair and makeup than rochelle was and she was mad at her for it but in kind of like a friendly goofy way and after a while she just started having angie do her hair makeup instead but in early 2008 angie actually decided to drop out of school and make a life for herself due to all of the bullying she moved a few blocks away from her family she was still nearby and greenlee but had a place of her own and she had one bedroom a 400 square feet apartment that she absolutely loved and she had a job babysitting her one nephew and four nieces and so she was earning quite a good bit of living from watching them she adored them she would often buy them clothes and shoes even though she didn't have much money herself but she wanted to spend it on those little adorable children she was also saving up for a fashion or a beauty school because that was some of her biggest passions but she knew she needed to save quite a bit of money because she was going to have to move to denver to do so because there wasn't really any in her area she was also saving up for gender confirmation surgery however she knew it's quite expensive and she didn't know if she would ever get to that point so she was focusing more on school first yet angie was still very close with her family even after moving out she would often go out with them and they said that wherever she went she turned heads she was just this tall beautiful fashionable girl and everybody just wanted to look at her at first they thought that angie would get offended by this and so they would stick up for saying you know don't look at her but after a while they realized that angie loved it she loved the attention as long as people were being nice or just not saying anything and just looking she let them look she was a beautiful vibrant girl everybody in the community knew who she was and angie never left her house without wearing you know low-cut dresses or high skirts or putting on makeup doing her hair she loved dressing up and always wanted to look good she got quite a lot of male attention but the only ones she would ever really go out with were ones that her sisters had set her up with because she trusted them and so she would go out with them but she was always very upfront with the fact that she was transgender because she actually had this mentor that was also transgender and a little bit older that said you know i see this strength in you this braveness in you angie but you need to be careful and you always need to be upfront about who you are because unfortunately people can be horrible and so angie had learned from a very young age to tell people about you know who she really was and so she did so and she she had gotten to the point where she realized some people would just walk away at that point but there were people who would stay and love her regardless around this time angie had traveled about an hour away to an artist beauty college in thornton and she went with her friend and this was a cosmetology school where she was going to learn everything she wanted to do and she was basically coming into her dream she had found this place that wasn't too far away they were going to be starting the program together her and her friend however she would be gravely disappointed by how they treated her angie was immediately told by the staff she would need to put her hair back not wear makeup and go by justin for school that is all about creativity and helping others feel confident they made angie feel awful on july 16th angie who always tried every day to be happy left the apartment in order to run some errands and go do her job so babysit for a little while and then she went over to her friend's house to kind of talk to her a little bit but two days later no one could get a hold of angie she was supposed to come back over and babysit and she didn't so her sister monica decided to come over to her apartment just to check on her she opened the door it was dark inside and that is when she found angie lying in her living room with blood everywhere there was a sheet over her body and she had been brutally murdered angie's family already knew where to look first because they knew she had been on a date with a man named allen andy told them everything she did at the age of 18 andrew was trying to keep her head up and you know just live her life to the best of her ability and she had gotten on mogospace which was an early social media network for adults you could chat have friends play games post pictures and videos and this was around the time that myspace was so popular but little did anyone know that it was going to be so much more popular just social media in general but this is kind of the beginning of it so through this she'd come across a man named alan ray andrado and they instantly hit it off through messaging they had messaged and text and emailed over 700 times and they finally said okay it's time to meet and so alan and angie planned to meet on a july 15th of 2008 and she left that day and one of her awesome outfits and she drove her mother's 2003 chrysler bt cruiser to go and meet him now that date went so well that that night allen actually came back to her apartment to stay overnight and it turned out that when angie brought allen back to her apartment she actually agreed to perform oral sex on him but she did not want to be touched by him at all she wasn't comfortable with that and he agreed she said that he could stay over but he would need to sleep in another room than her and allen actually didn't have a job or anywhere to go the next day so he stayed at her apartment while she went out and babysat and then went to her friend's house now like i said angie stopped to talk to her friend and there she told her friend that she had this older man in her apartment and she said that she was going to see if he would pay for any of her bills before she kicked him out so was he the killer and was that the reason for murder well andrew's autopsy revealed that she had been beaten to death her sister monica claimed that when she saw her her face was swollen and smashed in investigators said there was blood spatter around her head her forehead was concave and they weren't sure if she was beaten or stabbed at first because of all of the blood investigators were also unable to locate the car that angie had been using the pt cruiser was not in the apartment parking lot and her sister monica also had given her a credit card to borrow and this credit card was missing as well they began to believe that the murder weapon was actually the fire extinguisher that was missing from the apartment because there was a hangar of the fire extinguisher inside she was found to have been hit with a fire extinguisher about four times and also had been beaten with fists angie's sister monica said we want the whole community involved to find this person who hurt my sister and to let everyone be aware that all she wanted was to be beautiful we want this violence to end transgender people deserve to be treated with respect an apb was sent out for the pt cruiser to be located and this is when a call came in this call had to do with a noise complaint at an apartment and so they didn't believe it had anything to do with angie's murder however when they got there they found this pt cruiser sitting in the parking lot of another neighborhood apartment complex and this man was playing really loud music there was also beer cans scattered all around that were empty and when they went up to him his name was alan he was 31 years old and he was immediately rested for angie's murder he also had six prior felony convictions and he was brought in for questioning where he didn't really want to talk now all we really know about that night comes from alan's mouth so we cannot be sure that this is a hundred percent true or what really happened but at first alan said he wasn't going to be talking and he refused to do it and investigators thought maybe he's battling his conscience didn't want to admit to murder so they just kept pushing him and eventually he said that he thought he killed it and he was referring to angie a human being as it he said he met angie that day to go on a date and then the next day while she went to her job he was looking around the apartment and noticed photographs and realized that she was transgender when she arrived back at the apartment that night he was still there and he was angry and he demanded to know if she was a male or a female when angie said i am a woman he grabbed her by the genitalia felt the penis and began hitting her with his fist that's when he said she fell to the ground and he began to rummage through her apartment looking for who knows what but then he realized that she was trying to sit up she was gurgling and she was still alive and that is when he went back with the fire extinguisher and killed her allen then admitted to covering her up cleaning the apartment and grabbing her purse keys phone and fire extinguisher before stealing her car and leaving now this case was talked about in the news nationally and it was talked about in english and spanish at first it was looking like alan was going to be charged with a crime of passion claiming that he lost it in a fit of rage a moment of insanity alan was even saying that he snapped after feeling her genitalia but her family was pushing for this to be charged as a hate crime and on september 9th the murder weapon was actually found and a median on the road like somebody just tossed it near the greenlee mall now the trial for first degree murder commission of a hate crime and car theft as well as identity theft for using monika's credit card began on april 16th 2009. angie's sister monica said that they were always afraid for her because of how the world treated her and how they wouldn't accept who she was a girlfriend of alan's came forward saying that he had told her that gay things need to die the prosecutor said you know allen could have reacted like most people would admitted that's not what he thought and then went ahead and left but instead of moving on something wouldn't let him live with it and he killed her instead the prosecutor said that allen had been thinking about doing this all day after seeing the photo so this couldn't be a crime of passion he stayed there in that apartment all day until she came home to hurt her it was also revealed in court that allen could have been a gang member and that this could have caused him to kill her because gang members are not allowed to have homosexual relationships and that maybe he killed her so she couldn't tell anybody so he couldn't be killed himself for being in this gang however allen's confession was being ruled upon to see if it would could be admitted in the trial due to him saying he didn't want to talk an investigator is still pushing him to until he confessed now the defense claimed that he was very sleepy he was in there for hours and that his confession was not voluntary now part of his confession was thrown out and was not used at the trial but the judge also said that evidence that he could be in a gang could not be used either because it was speculative angie's whole family was there to make sure that she was the central of this trial they also told the defense lawyer when he was misgendering her and calling her justin most of the evidence shown was enough to make them all start crying and the defense said that he only told his girlfriend that gay things must die because he was joking and they were both laughing and that they didn't really mean it they said that this case isn't about the judgment of lifestyle but about deception and the reaction to the deception so basically at this point the blame was placed on angie for not telling him by that moment how she identified and this excuse was being used for why she was killed yet phone calls that allen made from jail were recorded and played at court and they said it's not like i went up to a school teacher and shot her in the head or killed a straight law-abiding citizen and another time he referred to a gay individual as a pink wearing mother effer prosecution said that this showed that he hated transgender individuals and he killed angie because of it and the problem with this the reason that they fought for it so much is because if this was ruled as a crime of passion or second degree of murder instead of first degree murder he could only be given eight to 24 years rather than life and he could also get another three years if this was a hate crime the jury was actually the only ones in the courtroom shown angie's body and it was also found that the day of alan and angie's date angie may have picked up alan to go to a court date with her she had told her family that she had to go pay a traffic ticket at court and that she was going to take a male friend with her they didn't know who this male friend was nobody else had come forward and that was also the day of the date and there she had to use her biological name and gender and so alan or whoever was with her would have heard this and known that she was transgender no one could confirm if alan was with her and they also couldn't find her phone to see if you know maybe they had talked about it over text over their 700 messages to one another because like i said before angie was one to tell people right up front that that's who she was the executive director of the national center for transgender equality said angie was not murdered because she did something wrong angie was murdered because a criminal was taught to disrespect anyone who would have the nerve to claim they beat someone with a fire hydrant because they found out they had male genitalia what kind of society do we live in where that is being used as an excuse after two hours of deliberation on april 22nd allen was found guilty of first-degree murder and a hate crime he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole yet because of his prior convictions he was a habitual criminal meaning he was given an additional 60 years to be added on to his sentence this was the first time in colorado that someone was tried under the hate crime law that had just included transgender individuals four years prior i will say mr andrade that i hope as you're spending the remaining part of your life your natural life in the department of corrections without the ability to parole that you every day think about the violence and the brutality that you caused on this fellow human being and the pain that you have caused not only your family but the family of andrew zapata and so the court is going to impose a life sentence in the colorado department of corrections that is that you spend the remaining natural life in the department of corrections without the ability to parole angie's mother maria blames herself for this happening to angie because she let her borrow the car that day she harbors a lot of pain and guilt and her other children have asked you know maybe you should move away because this is so painful for you and she said she just can't because she feels angie's presence there and she knows that angie just wanted to be loved and that she was willing to trust people that weren't that trustworthy and she said you know when i go to work i have to come back home rush back home to be with her i don't want to leave her alone i say i'm here baby i'm here i'm home there was actually an ad with angie's family that was given to 22 newspapers across the state with the slogan and hate and this was an ad for everybody to light a candle for angie and also for changes to be made to protect those affected by hate crimes i want them to remember her personality don't look at her as like a transgender you know look at her as a person i guess my message is to all the transgenders all their gays um all their families to be comfortable with him because if i could accept my sister then that i wish this whole world was like that too they were actually fighting for the matthew shepard act to be passed adding gender sexual orientation and gender identity as a federal hate crime law which would allow federal authorities to step in when somebody says that their local law enforcement are not helping or can't help or won't help this act had been passed through both houses a year prior to angie's murder but then president bush threatened to veto the bill now the matthew shepard act actually comes from a case that occurred in 1998 which is 10 years prior to angie's murder and matthew shepard was a 21 year old going to the university of wyoming and he had always been very small not very good at sports but he loved politics he had moved a lot as a kid he loved being in theater and he was a very optimistic boy he was very approachable and had that passion for equality everyone who knew him said he was a kind-hearted and tender individual yet on a trip in high school to morocco he was actually beaten and sexually assaulted by three men and after this he fell into a deep depression and had severe panic attacks and he even got hospitalized several times because he was having thoughts of suicide and they never caught the men who did this to him but this isn't even the worst part because by the time he got to college he was studying political science like he wanted he was even a student representative for the wyoming environmental council and he was doing better every single day until october 6th of 1998 when he was at a gay bar named the fireside lounge matthew was a gay man and where he was going to school actually didn't have any gay bars so he had gotten a limo with his friend and had driven all the way out to this certain gay bar but he had this kind of one-on-one with the limo driver and kind of told him something he didn't tell anybody in his life he was still struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide because he just found out he had hiv now he was found 18 hours later in the middle of nowhere tied to a fence a cyclist thought he was actually a scarecrow because he didn't appear to be human his face was completely unrecognizable covered in blood and the only way you could see his face is through the tears that had washed away his blood he had been pistol-whipped tortured and had a fractured skull and he was alive but unconscious once investigators found him the doctors brought him into the hospital they couldn't perform surgery on his injuries because they were that severe he was on full life support but six days later he was pronounced dead it was believed this was a hate crime due to matthew being gay and there were even protesters outside of his funeral speaking about hating the lgbtq community and matthew's father had to have a bulletproof vest on as he spoke about his son only a few days later surveillance footage at this bar showed that two boys approached matthew that night and left the bar with them they were found to be aaron mckinney and russell henderson who were not members of the gay community but pretended to be to get matthew out both claimed that they were just planning on robbing him and then going to his home to steal from him there as well but said that they attacked him when he put a hand on aaron's knee they said after the attack they left him there and they went into town where they found two other men who they began to get into a fight with as well and they ended up with head wounds and then an officer showed up and took them to jail they also found the gun that was covered with matthew's blood and his credit card their girlfriends the killers would testify that their boyfriends were not on drugs this was said to be a lie they also helped cover up matthew's attack as well and then his murder when he passed away while the girlfriends were being charged with accessories to murder they were being charged with first degree murder and russell actually pled guilty and testified against aaron and was given two life sentences and then in aaron's trial the lawyer said that this was all done in a gay panic that caused him to kill matthew now this is an excuse when you harm someone or kill them for unwanted same-sex advances but all they said that matthew did was place a hand on the leg because he was talked to by these men at the gay bar and asked to go home this was rejected by the judge and aaron was also given two life sentences but this is quite a well-known case especially for everyone in the area now although the killers said that the murders had nothing to do with his sexuality the world disagreed they would later do interviews saying that they were on hard drugs that week and that they really didn't know what they were doing and they would get into these fits of rages where they couldn't stop matthew said that he was going to tell on them after they beat him and then they beat him to the point of death they still said they never meant to kill him but the family of matthew wants everybody to know that he was gay and that is exactly why he was killed on october 12 1998 my first born son and hero died i miss my son but i'm proud to say he is my son the correspondence we got was easily half from the straight community i didn't know this was happening i had no idea it was ignorance mainstream media had not at all covered the gay community outside of the aids pandemic and the pride parades once a year and so that is why the matthew shepard act was created and it had not yet passed but thankfully in 2009 president obama did pass the matthew shepard act which is now actually the matthew shepard and james byrd jr hate crimes preventative act now who is james bird jr well he had actually been murdered the same year that matthew had been and he was a 49 year old man with a wife and three kids he was known to be the life of the party a free-spirited goofy man and he was great with his kids and he was well known around town as well and this was in jasper texas but he was then found badly mutilated and deceased in front dumped in front of an african-american church on june 7. his face was spray-painted his throat was slashed his right arm was severed from his body and his ribs were fractured he was urinated and defecated on and it appeared as though he had been drugged by his ankles the area where he was kidnapped and murdered was then found it was on a road near this town and it appeared that he had been drugged by a vehicle for three miles there was a name barry written on the road and then there was a lighter with the word possum on it now like i said everybody knew everybody in this area and so investigators immediately knew who did this this was sean berry lawrence brewer and john king john king's prism name was possum this was believed to be a lynching of a black man sean berry had known james and had offered him rye before kidnapping him now john king wrote deshawn berry in jail saying that he was proud of the crime and regardless of the outcome they made history and it was death before dishonor it was believed by many that john king wanted to start a kkk group sean and john did get the death penalty and were executed in 2011 and 2019 where lawrence was sentenced to life and he could get out in 2038. james's daughter is now a police officer to fight injustice is happening my dad was forced into a pickup truck by three white supremacists 22 years later she remembers that agony i wanted them drugged behind a pickup truck just like my dad was drugged she's those three white supremacists who pretty much planned to lynch a african-american male that night and my dad just happened to be that person we have to work harder as black people in general not just black police officers but just black people in general in teaching our kids uh the do's and don'ts and the fact that we're not privileged my dad would want me to go out and and be that change and be that voice and just stand on the right side of the fence now although this new act is passed and will hopefully help so many in the future angie matthew and james were not given that same help they were brutally murdered for their gender their sexuality and the race we as a world have a lot further to go when it comes to equality into making everyone in this world feel safe because all these three wanted to do was be who they were and that shouldn't be too much to ask so don't ever forget to speak up your voice is powerful enough and i love you to absolute pieces now don't forget that my last video is right here my playlist is right here of a whole bunch of true crime and then i you can subscribe to my true crime channel here and my vlog channel right here okay bye

Channel: Brooke Makenna

Views: 104,175

Keywords: true crime, true crime documentary, murder and makeup, LGBTQ+ murders, transgender murders, Angie Zapata, tragic murder, Allen Ray Andrade, Angie Zapata documentary, transgender teen murder, hate crime, hate crime solved, transgender true crime, transgender killings, Matthew Shepard, Matthew Shepard murder, murdered for being gay, the murder that changed America, James Byrd Jr murder

Id: gX6AXYVncuQ

Length: 29min 24sec (1764 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 08 2021