Allen Ray Andrade, who was the man who murdered 18-year-old Angie Zapata, has just been convicted  by the Court of law. He was found guilty on the two main charges imposed against him and they are first-degree murder and bias-motivated crime or hate crime. Likewise, he was also found guilty on the significantly lesser charges of vehicle theft and identity theft.

It can be remembered that Andrade and Zapata met on a social networking site and that they spent a few days together before Andrade realized that Angie was biologically male. When Andrade came to know of such fact, he was enraged and began punching Angie in the face. Thereafter, he took a fire extinguisher and struck Angie in the end twice.

Andrade did admit that he killed Zapata. However, he claimed as a defense that he was not in his right mind and that he acted on pure instinct. There were witnesses like Andrade’s roommate JJ Alejandro, who said the accused killer absolutely thought Zapata was a woman. The prosecution, on the other hand, said Andrade knew of Zapata’s MTF status at least 36 hours before he murdered her and they presented evidence the pair went to a traffic court together nine days prior to the murder, where Zapata was recognized as Justin, her birth name. Andrade’s attorneys say he beat Zapata to death only after discovering she was born a man, and the crime was committed in the heat of the moment. This defense obviously failed, seemingly by a landslide.

This is the first time that an individual has ever been convicted of a hate crime against a transgender person and many are calling it a landmark case. Supporters of the transgender community have been active in publicizing this case and bringing awareness to equal rights for transgender people.

According to the JusticeForAngie Twitter account, “At 4:00 PM MDT, Allen Ray Andrade will be sentenced to mandatory life without parole.