Calls for Investigation Into Death of Ashley Moore, Black Trans Woman

Activists and community members are calling for an investigation into the death of Ashley Moore. Though her body was found in April, few details are available about the death. Moore's mother, Starlet Carbin, said in a recent interview that she only found out about the death through Facebook, and has called statements by police into question.

According to Carbin, who is a travel nurse, she kept in contact with her child mostly through social media. In April, as she went to post a happy birthday message on Moore's page, she was confronted with a wall full of "rest in peace" messages.

"That's when I found out that my child had passed nine days prior to that," she said in a recent video interview. Carbin then reached out to friends and other community members for context.

Carbin and others began to call around Newark, New Jersey for information. Carbin said that the story she was told by police changed multiple times: at one point she was told that Moore's injuries were sustained from falling a great distance and at another point she was told her daughter had been hit by a car. The police report, according to Carbin, stated that there were "ligature marks on Ashley's legs, and that Ashley's neck was grossly, grotesquely disfigured and swollen." To date, Carbin has yet to receive a copy of the medical examiner's report.

"Just going into my nursing assessment and what I know when I'm looking at a patient," Carbin said. "The description that is in that police report is not that of someone who number 1, fell or was hit by a vehicle. It paints a picture of someone that was held down, tied down, and possibly strangled. That's me, reading what I'm reading off of the police report."

The Newark LGBTQ Community Center is stepping in with calls for police to renew their investigation into Moore's death. Through the work of the Center, they directed police to pull nearby traffic camera footage which ruled out death by car. According to the Center, the footage does not go far enough to explain how Moore died. A GoFundMe page (@TheDeathofAshleyMoore) has been set up in Moore's name to support advocacy against violence in the LGBTQ+ communities. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Moore had been a victim of violence in the past, and she received no help when she went to police. She posted a video to Instagram where she said she was robbed in 2018, but was denied help by the police because she was trans. At the time of her death she was living at the YMCA and she reportedly died near the facility.

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