Los Angeles homicide detectives have made an arrest in the investigation of a suspicious fire that burned the apartment of a transgender woman in Pico-Union.
Firefighters responded to the blaze in the 1700 block of South New Hampshire Avenue about 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 10. They found heavy flames burning in an apartment on the second floor of a two-story, multi-unit residence.
Once the fire was extinguished, the Los Angeles Fire Department said, firefighters found a body that investigators from the coroner's office identified yesterday as Victoria Ramos Gutierrez. Police officers were responding to a radio call about a fight when the fire department received a call about the house fire at the same address. The police department had said at the time that its investigators were aware that a transgender woman lives at the location of the fire and acknowledged “She has not been located and may be the decedent.”
Local activists were the first to announce that Gutierrez was the victim and that they were certain she was murdered. Bamby Salcedo, president of TransLatin@ Coalition, announced the murder in a Jan. 10 Facebook post:
“It is with deep sadness, rage, and pain that I have to share with all of you that one of our sisters was brutally murdered in #southlosangeles last night.”