After committing the mutilation and murder of a transgender woman who was 27 years old, a man from Philadelphia was found guilty of first-degree murder conviction.
According to a statement released by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Akhenaton Jones, 41, was found guilty by a jury of the brutal murder of Dominique Rem’mie Fells in June of 2020.
“I applaud Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski for her skillful prosecution of this difficult and horrifying case,” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner stated.
“I also want to thank our victim support staff for standing with the victim’s family for five long years, and to the jury for delivering justice for Rem’mie, who was by all accounts a remarkable and creative woman loved by her family, friends and community,” Krasner stated.
Prosecutors claim that Fells’ body was discovered floating in Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River on June 8, 2020. At first, authorities only discovered her torso, which was stabbed more than 40 times. Her legs were found on the riverbank three days later in a trash bag.
According to the prosecutor’s office, two witnesses informed authorities that Fells was visiting Jones at his Philadelphia home.
When the witnesses returned to the house that evening, they discovered Fells dead in a pool of her own blood that filled the whole space.
In their statement, prosecutors claim that investigators subsequently secured a search warrant for Jones’ residence. Investigators arrived to find blood all over the place, along with a white hazmat suit, an electric saw, and a knife.
According to surveillance footage, Jones left his house and entered a white van with a trash can and trash bag containing Fells’ remains. Surveillance footage then showed Jones driving the van to the Schuylkill River, according to the prosecutor’s office.
According to prosecutors, Jones left for California before an arrest warrant was issued later that month. On November 9, 2020, he was taken into custody in Los Angeles and returned to Philadelphia via extradition.
After apprehending Jones, the police compared his DNA to that found on the knife, saw, and hazmat suit.
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According to the Human Rights Campaign, since 2014, there have been at least 372 instances of deadly violence against transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in the US. According to a 2024 report, Black transgender women accounted for almost half of these fatalities.
“We are reminded with this, and countless other painful losses — especially within our transgender communities — that there is much left to do until we achieve full equality, respect and support for us all,” The Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs stated. “The murder of transgender people, especially those of color, is truly an epidemic, and a crisis that we cannot afford to allow to persist any further.”
According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office, Jones is expected to be sentenced on September 26.
