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Episode 53 | Rita Hester & The Murder That Started A Movement, Allston, Massachusetts
- Anngelle Wood
- Nov 17, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 10, 2024
This is a true crime, local history, and storytelling podcast. I write about crimes, I set the scene, connect story themes, I talk about things that happened here, in Massachusetts and New England.
This episode is about violent crime, society, the LGBTQ+ community, Trangender women, unsolved murder, and the impact on the community. Listen with care. And always about where the events of the story take place.
Chanelle Pickett and Rita Hester were murdered three years apart. Chantelle in 1995 in Watertown, Mass, and Rita Hester in 1998 in Allston. Both were brutal crimes. Neither of them got justice. The attitudes and the language around gay and transgender lifestyles were very different back then. How the media covered violence against transgender people was cruel, if they covered them all. As a result of the mistreatment they got event in death, their murders were instrumental in the creation of the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance on Novemer 20th. Rita Hester's murder is still unsolved.
Mallery Jenna Robinson, transgender and HIV advocate and host of A Hateful Homicide podcast, joins me to talk about the violence transgender women face - then and now. We talk about the fight for justice for transgender victims, the urgent need for laws to protect the transgender community from hate crimes and the critical role empathy and compassion play in our society.
2021 was the deadliest year to date. In the US, a record of 57, there are likely many more deaths that go unreported or inaccurately reported due to deadnaming and misgendering.
2022: At least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States
2023: 14 Trans and Nonbinary People were Lost to Violence in 2023
There is no relief in lower numbers, certainly we do not want them to go up. It needs to be zero,
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) is Monday, November 20
Photos: Chanelle Pickette and sister Gabrielle, Gabrielle and Chanelle on the Jenny Jones show. Rita Hester, Rita with some of her many friends,
Gabrielle and Chanelle on Jenny Jones, 1992
Sources
updating
Hots Dogs for Life at The Silhouette
Human Rights Campaign
https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-nonbinary-community-in-2023
GLAAD
The Panic Defense
Chanelle Pickett
Chanelle Pickett on Jenny Jones
Is this Gabrielle? https://www.hartisland.net/burial_records/gabrielle-pickett
Rita and Chanelle
Bay Window reporting on Rita Hester https://www.baywindows.com/_Search?q=rita+hester&p=1
Bay windows misgendered Rita
Boston Phoenix reporting on Rita Hester, by Sarah McNaught https://bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/98/12/10/cityscape.html
Deadliest Year on Record for Trans and Non Binary people
Public Files Request, Rita Hester
NBC News report by Kate Sison, 2020 - Rita background story
A Murder That Started A movement - Rita Hester
Petition for Rita https://www.change.org/p/name-the-allston-yards-community-green-space-after-rita-hester
Boston.com - Rita's memorial mural
19th News
Rita Hester's Cold Case https://defrostingcoldcases.com/rita-hester-nov-30-1963-nov-28-1998/
PBS 2021 Deadly Year
Fenway Health
The Boston Globe
My South End
