Family Has Questions After Missing Transgender Woman Found Dead

The lifeless body of a transgender woman missing in South Carolina was found this week, and her family is disputing initial police reports that no foul play was involved in her death.

Shandon Floyd, 20, of Mullins went missing in Columbia on Tuesday, November 8. Floyd’s mother told local ABC affiliate WPDE that her daughter was in town to attend a football game and was staying with a group of friends at a local Roadway Inn. She reportedly went missing after borrowing a friend’s car around 3 a.m. to drive a man from the group to a store.

Police say surveillance captured the couple leaving the store, but she was not heard from again.

Floyd’s mother, Amecil Floyd, reported her daughter missing the following day. Shandon’s body was found in an empty house in north Richland County by police shortly after midnight on Tuesday, November 14. Police say they have no reason to suspect foul play at this point but are awaiting the result of an autopsy.

Floyd’s family, however, firmly believes her death was a murder and a hate crime.

“We know it just wasn’t no up-and-die thing,” Floyd’s grandmother, Bonnie Platt Scott, told WPDE. “It was done. It was done to [her]. And Lord, I can just imagine what [she] was going through. I can just imagine. [She] was such a sweet kid. [She] wouldn’t even harm a fly.”

Family and friends remembered a vivacious soul who loved her family.

“Shandon was a very fun person, life of the party, kindhearted, would give you the shirt off her back,” Mason Powell, a close friend, told local CBS affiliate WLTX. “When I met her, she was like a light. She was definitely the friend to get to know and the person to be around if you want to have a great time. And, you know, she loved her family and her brothers. She definitely loved them.”