A Miami man was arrested Tuesday for killing his wife, transgender activist and beauty queen Yunieski Carey Herrera. Her death comes in the middle of Transgender Awareness Week.
According to Local 10, Ygor Arrudasouza said he was under the influence of meth when he stabbed Herrera with a fork and knife.
She allegedly told him that she had a better man, and in a fit of rage, he killed her. After calling the police, he was arrested and booked at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday for second-degree murder with a weapon and aggravated battery. He has a hold for immigration.
Arrudasouza appeared in court Wednesday, crying before the judge.
The two appeared to be a happy couple on Herrera’s social media. On Oct. 15, she posted a Facebook Live video of Arrudasouza getting her name tattooed on his abdomen.
“He got my name! My husband loves me,” she wrote.
Also known as Yuni Carey, she was active in beauty pageants and was crowned Miss Queen Universe in 2006. She represented Cuba a number of times in the Miss International Queen, the premier transgender beauty pageant hosted in Thailand, where she won for Miss Photogenic in 2011 and Miss Congeniality in 2014.
“I came all this way to show Cubans that transgender people have beauty, elegance and intelligence and who deserve their place in the human race like everyone else,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2011.
She most recently competed in Barcelona in Miss Trans Star International in 2019.
This week is Transgender Awareness Week, a celebration of transgender lives. It leads up to the somber Transgender Remembrance Day, which commemorates those who have been killed for their gender identity.
In 2020, the transgender community has been rocked by a high number of transgender people, particularly Black and brown women, murdered in the U.S. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 36 transgender people have been killed — with Herrera included, 37. In 2019, the number was 25.
Bree Black, a Black trans woman, was shot and killed over the Fourth of July weekend steps away from her Pompano Beach home. No arrests have been made in her murder. Tony McDade, a Black trans man, was shot and killed by a Tallahassee police officer in May.
Members of the community and fans took to social media to pay their respects to Herrera:
Horrified to learn about the death of this beautiful soul @Yunicarey. Another member of the trans community taken away from this world too soon. When will the madness stop! #TransAwarenessWeek #TransLivesMatter #TransRightsAreHumanRights #GoneTooSoon #LGBTQ #NeverForget 🙏🏽😥 pic.twitter.com/QoIG8pRep8
— Franco Chevalier, MD #wearyourmask (@FrancoChevalier) November 18, 2020
This is a developing story.
