- San Antonio's district attorney will undertake a fresh review of Kenne McFadden's death.
- Protests erupted in 2018 when a judge found Mark Daniel Lewis had no criminal guilt in her drowning.
One early morning in April 2017, Kenne McFadden, a 26-year-old transgender woman, drowned in the San Antonio River. Her date that night, Mark Daniel Lewis, later told police he had pushed her in. When, not even a year later, a judge found Lewis wasn't criminally responsible, protests erupted among San Antonio's LGBTQ communities.
Now the Bexar County district attorney's office has told Insider it will take a fresh look at the case.
As Insider previously reported in a sweeping investigation of transgender homicides, the district attorney's office chose to bring manslaughter charges against Lewis before a judge at a 2018 probation hearing rather than seek a jury trial. Lewis was on probation at the time of McFadden's death, and Jason Goss, the prosecutor on the case, thought he'd have an easier time at the probation hearing, with its lower evidentiary standard.
"It would guarantee that he would take responsibility and he would be held accountable for Kenne's death," Goss previously told Insider.
The plan went wrong. The judge, Joey Contreras, ruled that Lewis' actions didn't rise to the level of criminal conduct. Because of a double-jeopardy provision known as collateral estoppel, his decision blocked Goss from trying Lewis before a jury.
Advocates poured into the streets, expressing shock and anger that the man who admitted to pushing McFadden in the river was walking free.
"It brought up a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the DA's office at that time as to how they would let this happen," Robert Salcido Jr., the executive director of Pride Center San Antonio, previously told Insider.
Insider recently learned that a subsequent change in Texas law meant Lewis could now be tried before a jury over McFadden's death.
When reached by Insider, LGBTQ advocates said they wanted Bexar County's Democratic district attorney, Joe Gonzales, to retry the case. Gonzales has spoken out in support of transgender rights amid a rise in anti-trans legislation and sentiment in Texas.
Yet when initially contacted by Insider, his office said prosecutors wouldn't reexamine the case.
Though the change in law means the office could prosecute a manslaughter case, the facts of the case "remain the same," a representative from the district attorney's office wrote in a statement to Insider, adding: "The State still cannot prove this case beyond reasonable doubt."
Andrea Segovia, a senior field and policy advisor at the Transgender Education Network of Texas, was frustrated to hear about the DA's decision. "If you're not willing to do this, what are you willing to do?" she told Insider. "Where do you stand up for people in San Antonio?"
Weeks after the district attorney's office told Insider the case was settled, First Assistant District Attorney Christian Henricksen said new information had come to the office's attention and the office would reconsider the case."Our DA, Joe Gonzales, is very concerned with making sure the justice system is working fair for everybody," Henricksen said. "We're going to take a look at this to make sure that we're doing everything we can to get the best outcome possible."
"Oh, wow. That's good news. Unexpected but good news," Salcido said after learning of the DA's decision.
"I hope they really take a good look into this case and bring justice for Kenne," Joann McFadden, Kenne McFadden's mother, told Insider. "Hopefully when they do they'll really see what happened."
A potential conflict of interest
Insider discovered that Lewis' former defense attorney, Daniel Rodriguez, was recently hired by the DA's office as chief of the misdemeanor division. He started the position at the beginning of the year.
As Insider previously reported, during the 2018 probation hearing Rodriguez appeared to blame McFadden for her death. "You have a person who is intoxicated, and the defendant didn't put that person in a situation where they became intoxicated. That person, himself — or herself, sorry — got herself intoxicated, became offensive, is known for being offensive to other people," he told Contreras, the judge.
Henricksen said Rodriguez would be recused from any decisions regarding the case.
Other district attorneys have turned fresh attention to cases in the wake of Insider's reporting on transgender homicides. After Insider reported on the unsolved case of Jaheim "Bella" Pugh, 19, a gender-nonconforming teen who was killed at a crowded party in Prichard, Alabama, the newly elected Mobile County DA said he wanted to have his investigative unit reopen the investigation. In California, the Los Angeles County DA filed charges nearly a year after a driver hit and killed Rayanna Pardo, 26, after Insider began to ask questions and request documents related to the case.
Insider also identified two officers, Thomas Halfhill and Willie Haymon of the St. Louis Metro Police Department, who fatally shot a 30-year-old transgender woman, Kiwi Herring. Their names had previously been shielded from the public.
A spokesman for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department declined to answer questions about why the department hadn't previously disclosed their names. "We do not discuss personnel matters," Sgt. Charles Wall said in an email.
Matt Drange contributed reporting.