No suspect in homicide

Authorities do not have a suspect in the killing of a North Little Rock teenager whose body was found June 25 in a vehicle parked on a walking path near Gap Creek Drive in Sherwood, the city’s Police Department said.

The death of 17-year-old Braylen Stone, a transgender teen who went by the name Brayla Stone, has led Arkansas residents and others across the nation to take to social media calling attention to the killing.

A Sherwood police spokesman, officer Richard McNeil, wrote in an email this week that “at this time we do not have any indication or evidence” as to whether the crime was motivated by hate or bias.

Stone’s death has been ruled a homicide, McNeil said, but he said he could not release a cause of death at this time. A request to the Pulaski County coroner for a report on Stone was denied this week, with the office citing the ongoing investigation.

Stone’s killing has attracted attention on social media in recent days, with individuals sharing her image and name amid renewed attention to violence against Blacks and calls for racial justice spurred by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Close to 100 people — family members and supporters — mourned Stone at a vigil Monday night at First Presbyterian Church in Little Rock by holding lit candles during five minutes of silence. They placed flowers at a memorial that held a framed photo of Stone, a transgender pride flag signified by its light blue, pink and white bars, and a plaque that read “Black Trans Lives Matter.”

Relatives said they will remember Stone as a fun-loving and generous person who they knew as Braylen growing up before Stone began living publicly with her gender identity.

“I’m just going to remember him by the loving, kindhearted person he was,” Stone’s cousin Rikeya Holmes, 17, said after the vigil.

Another cousin, 19-yearold Audrey Jackson, said she would remember Stone as a giving person.

“Everything he had, he split with me,” Jackson said. “And I wouldn’t even have to ask him.”

Speakers at the vigil also called attention to a broader pattern of violence against transgender people.

“I can’t believe that this is happening in our community,” said longtime LGBTQ advocate Sharyn Grayson, 71.