DA VANCE: EQUAN SOUTHALL SENTENCED TO 23-YEARS-TO-LIFE FOR MURDER OF TRANSGENDER GIRLFRIEND
Last week, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., announced the sentencing of EQUAN SOUTHALL, 28, to 23-years-to-life in state prison for strangling and stabbing his girlfriend to death in their East Harlem apartment in August 2011. On April 29, 2014, a New York State Supreme Court jury found SOUTHALL guilty of the top and only count in the indictment against him, Murder in the Second Degree.
“Domestic violence can escalate in a heartbeat,” said District Attorney Vance. “It ends the lives of too many vulnerable individuals who may not know where to turn for help. In this case, the defendant brutally attacked and killed his girlfriend, a transgender woman and a member of the LGBT community, at their apartment in East Harlem. I encourage domestic violence survivors to call my Office’s Domestic Violence Hotline at 212-335-4308 and visit the Manhattan Family Justice Center at 80 Centre Street. Help is available for those in need, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those who step through the Center’s doors.”
As proven at trial, SOUTHALL and his girlfriend, a woman of transgender experience who moved to New York from Chile and went by the name Camila Guzman, lived together in an apartment at East 110th Street and Third Avenue. On August 1, 2011, SOUTHALL attacked the victim, stabbing her multiple times in the back and torso with different knives and using a candlestick to bludgeon her in the head. The defendant then wrapped a pillowcase around the victim’s neck and strangled her to death.
Assistant District Attorney Craig Ortner, Deputy Bureau Chief of Trial Bureau 60, and Assistant District Attorney Lanita Hobbs, Deputy Bureau Chief of Trial Bureau 80, handled the prosecution of the case, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Kerry O’Connell, Chief of Trial Bureau 80, and Executive Assistant District Attorney John Irwin, Chief of the Trial Division. Trial Preparation Assistant Pia Freedman also provided assistance with the case.
District Attorney Vance thanked Detective William Dunn, of the NYPD’s 23rd Precinct Detective Squad for his assistance with the case.
Defendant Information:
EQUAN SOUTHALL, D.O.B. 5/16/1986
Brooklyn, NY
Convicted:
- Murder in the Second Degree, a class A felony, 1 count
Sentenced:
23-years-to-life in state prison