Josh Vallum is a 28-year-old member of the Latin Kings. He's an ex-con, having been convicted of felony false reporting of a crime, for which he was sentenced to serve 8 years. He was paroled in May of 2014.
On June 1 Josh told his father Bobby Jim that he had killed someone. Not only that, but the body was in a field behind his daddy's house in Rocky Creek, MS.
On June 2 the elder Vallum and sheriff's deputies started a search of the property and Deputy Sgt. Larry Harvard discovered a partially decomposed body hidden under some debris.
It so happened that a young girl had gone missing from nearby Theodore, AL. Police had been provided with a DNA sample of the missing teen and it was compared to DNA from the body that had been found.
The body was indeed that of missing transgender teen Mercedes Williamson. Since this past September, Williamson had been living with Jeanie Miller in a one-bedroom camper they rented to $50 a week in Theodore.
Miller had become Mercedes' surrogate mother.
I was overprotective because she was closer to me than my own daughter. She always said 'I have two moms, two Momma Jeanie's.' She wanted to be cosmetologist one day.
Mercedes, Miller said, told her she realized she was different by the second grade.
She liked to play with dolls, not trucks. She said she just knew.
--Miller
Mercedes' birth mother, Jeannie Garner, from whom she was estranged, has yet to comment on the murder.
Williamson was last seen by Miller around 2pm on May 30. Mercedes had said she planned to go "over the Bay" to Gulf Shores.
The last thing she said to me was 'Love ya later,' something Mercedes always said when she left to head out somewhere.
--Miller
When Mercedes didn't return home for several days, Miller said she got worried and called a girl she thought had picked up Mercedes the day she left. That's when, she said, the friend told her Mercedes was dead.
I couldn't believe it. I don't want to hear. I miss how she flipped her hair. I miss the crooked teeth with that beautiful smile ... I can smell her. I just keep wanting her to walk through the door ... I'll never have nobody like her again. That is barely something that crosses people's lives anyway. She was the most beautiful person.
--Miller
Shortly after the remains were found, Miller learned Vallum had been charged in her killing. Vallum, she said, knew Mercedes as transgender long before her death. She said she knew Vallum to stay around the Theodore area, though authorities listed his home address at his father's home in George County.
According to law enforcement reports obtained by the Sun Herald, Vallum was a self-professed member of the Latin King street gang, which originated in Chicago and has since had members in states around the country, including in Mississippi.
Angela Scott, a friend who lived near Mercedes in Theodore, said she will always remember Mercedes as a "wonderful person," who was always "happy and encouraging everybody to get along."
No matter what she was going through, she always had a smile on her face.
I want to know why. She didn't do nothing to deserve that. Nothing.
--Scott
The 17-year-old Mercedes is the ninth or tenth reportedly murdered transgender woman so far this year. The delay in reporting is due to the misgendering of the victim by police and media.
As we celebrate Pride across the U.S., let us honor the names of those who have been murdered. Let’s remember that the gay pride movement was built on the backs and literal bodies of trans women of color. Let’s do more than say their names. Let’s stand collectively and say that this must stop.
--KaeLyn, AutoStraddle
After a manhunt was begun for Josh Vallum, the suspect turned himself in to the George County sheriff's office.
George County Justice Court Judge Cedric Howell set bond Monday at $1 million for Josh Brandon Vallum, the 28-year-old man charged in the murder of an as-yet unidentified victim during the weekend of May 30-31.
--from June 8
Living as transgender in the South is very difficult, There is a lot of ignorance about what it means to be transgender.
--James Robinson, executive director of the Free2Be Anti-Violence Project, which provides services to LGBT people who are the victims of attacks and harassment
As Robinson sees it, lawmakers validate hostility toward transgender people when they take up legislation aimed at diminishing LGBT rights. Alabama passed a religious freedom law in 1998 that critics say allows people to discriminate against LGBT people; by contrast, in May, state lawmakers nixed a bill that would have banned discrimination against LGBT people.
In a state like Alabama, where politicians are trying to pass legislation to institute discrimination, that gives some of the population the feeling they have permission to be violent. If your state is telling you it’s okay to discriminate, then it’s okay for me to discriminate — and to harass people or attack someone.
--Robinson