Her Name Was Emma

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I listen to a lot of true crime. Most of the time while I’m driving. Occasionally, Youtube will toss some content of a similar nature into my “suggestions” (if you can call them that), and suddenly it’ll have me watching police interrogation videos of numerous types of criminals. And then, yesterday, its algorithm showed me something so close to home it filled me with anger. While the case has been solved for quite some time, it’s only really started to enter public thought … maybe, last year, I have some things I want to say.

I’m talking about Emma, someone whom I wholeheartedly presume to be a trans woman, if what I’ve gathered is correct (last name Zimmerman). She went missing in 2015, and when her remains were found, the murderers were eventually caught.

Sparing the grizzly details, what her newfound roommates did was entirely depraved, motivated by shallow emotions. On one side it was jealousy in the midst of what can only be interpreted as what some might call a “polycule,” or a polyamorous relationship, and in a later interrogation, it’s also explained that the other trans woman (this part is confusing, because some say that the two murderers were both cis women, or that Jenn was a trans woman) in the relationship referred to Emma as someone who, and this is paraphrased: Didn’t deserve to be where she was, because she wasn’t trying hard enough to be a woman (True Trans, truscum, transmedicalist, etc, etc).

There are also details about an individual named Corey who is constantly referred to with he/him pronouns, and information on this person is sparse, and they were never properly interviewed. An accessory to murder? A bystander who was just an asshole who demanded Emma be removed from the household? Who knows.

You’ll see a lot of details in this case, and from people surrounding it (including the police and the media), referring to Emma in different names (deadnaming), and I don’t know if that’s because people close to her didn’t respect her identity, or simply didn’t know about it (maybe there are others who have more information on this piece of the puzzle). Having your life cut short kind of makes it difficult to explain who you are to others, if the former is the case. But, you see, I feel like, if someone was new to transition, maybe even newly out, and seeking room and board in a place with people who were transitioned (if this was a partially trans-household, as a lot of the media would have you believe), that person was probably seeking … support. Affirmation (you know, aside from the apparent romantic attachment involved, which I’m not even too sure about).

Obviously, I can’t speak for the dead, but I know the pattern. She was described as reclusive, shy. And, for all intents and purposes, I would also probably be a little reclusive around strangers, especially if, instead of opening up to me as their new roommate, they were instead stewing in jealousy and contempt (and unknowingly plotting my murder).

Fast forward, and her roommates didn’t want her there anymore. They killed her, and disposed of her, before there was ever a chance for her to be … anything.

This hits really hard, because I know a lot about rejection. I’ve built up a lot of walls to keep rejection out and all red flags away. I was the shy and reclusive newly out trans woman back in that same year. I was the newly-out trans woman who trusted people easily and gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. That’s how I landed in Laurelai Bailey’s hands.

But this isn’t about me.

I wanted to talk about Emma, because if she is who I think she would’ve been, then I think she’d want to be remembered as who she really was. I think she’d want people to say her name.

I would.

I’m sorry that you were taken away from the world by incredibly selfish, depraved, and sick fools before you could learn, and discover, and bloom into someone who was sure of herself, and confident. But you deserved to be here, and you deserved to take up space, and deserved to live no matter how you decided to go about transition. Whatever you would have done. We don’t, and won’t know. We’ll never know any of these things, because your life was stolen from you by transmisogyny.

I can’t really find much about Emma, only details about her murder, and tons upon tons of information including her legal name. But I did find this Reddit post.