Post submitted by Mark Lee, HRC Senior Writer, Public Education & Research

HRC mourns the loss of Candace Towns, a transgender woman who was found shot to death on Tuesday in Macon, Ga., near where she was living.

According to TransGriot, Towns, 30, was reported missing on Sunday, October 29, and had last been seen alive on Saturday. On Tuesday, an anonymous 911 caller reported that a person was down at the end of a driveway and possibly dead. Initially the media misgendered and misnamed Towns until friends and family corrected them.

Town’s best friend, Malaysa Monroe, remembers Towns’ generosity.

“If I needed anything she would give it to me. She would give me the clothes off her back,” Monroe said.

The Telegraph reported that in July 2009 Towns was reportedly shot in the ankle, just a few blocks from where her body was found. Police are investigating the murder and have not released any additional information.

Towns is the 25th known transgender person killed in the U.S. this year. Sixty-four percent of the victims have been killed in the South, which among the four U.S. census regions has the fewest states that currently provide non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people in education, employment, hate crimes, housing and public accommodations.

So far this year, 21 of the 25 transgender victims of fatal violence, including Towns, has been a woman of color. Sixteen were Black or African American.

To learn more about HRC’s transgender justice work and violence against transgender people, visit hrc.org/Transgender.