Police have made an arrest in connection with the murder of Muhlaysia Booker, a transgender woman killed in Dallas last month.
Kendrell Lavar Lyles was arrested on June 5 and is suspected in two other murders, police announced Wednesday. He was charged with three counts of murder.
The other two victims were not transgender, according to police.
Maj. Max Geron said Wednesday that Lyles drove a vehicle similar to one reportedly involved in Booker’s case and was also known to frequent the area in South Dallas where she had last been seen.
Lyles, 34, is also a person of interest in the death of Chynal Lindsey, 26, a transgender woman whose body was pulled from White Rock Lake in northeast Dallas on June 1, police said.
Police said in May that Booker’s death shares similarities with other attacks on transgender women.
“These cases, although not directly related at this time, do have some similarities the public needs to be aware of,” Maj. Vincent Weddington told reporters at a news conference on May 21.
Booker, 23, was found shot to death May 18, a little more than a month after she survived a brutal beating in Dallas following a minor traffic accident that was captured on cellphone video that went viral.
Lindsey was at least the sixth black transgender woman who has been killed nationwide in 2019, according to the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group.