Two days after a courtesy ride by Philadelphia police on December 22, 2002 transgender woman Nizah Morris died at a Philadelphia hospital of a subdural hematoma, the result traumatic blows to her head. Her family believes that
police murdered her and have received a $250,000 dollar settlement in civil court where it is easier to fix blame, but her murder remains unsolved today.
What happened that December 2002 night as best as we can figure..
A concerned individual called an ambulance for an inebriated Morris at the front of the Key West bar where she had been drinking. Morris declined the hospital visit instead accepting a courtesy ride from Philly officer Elizabeth Skala. According to witnesses who helped her into the squad car, she asked to be taken her home
Skala gave her a courtesy ride because of her inebriated state but denied she needed help getting Morris into her car and made no mention of injuries in her report.
Morris never arrived at her home.
Crossposted from planetransgender blogspot....
Officer Skala testified that Morris asked to be dropped off at Chancellor St and S. Juniper St, two minutes distant driving from the bar and 45-minute walking distance from her home. One minute after being dropped off at 3:30am a motorist testified he called 911 reporting a woman she was laying on the street naked from the waist up, bleeding from her head.
The DA has refused to release the 911 records.
Another wittiness testified he saw her body laying in the street at 3:45am. He later said one officer placed a jacket over her face as she was being loaded into the ambulance. The ambulance attendants said they loaded her at 3:30am. The officer on the scene testified the ambulance didn't depart until 3:45am.
Since publishing on planetransgender I have engaged in a twitter conversation with the Philadelphia DA which along with the rest of the story and other visuals can be viewed at the planetransgender post asking why is the DA not fully cooperating with the Nizah Morris murder investigation?.