Body Found on Detroit's East Side ID'd as Missing Trangender Teen

DETROIT (WJBK) - A mother is in tremendous pain after learning her 19-year-old child, who she thought was missing, was in fact murdered in an horrific way.

The body of Shelley Hilliard, a transgender also known as Henry, was found on Detroit's east side on Bewick, just a torso that had been set on fire and covered with a mattress.

"I don't know anybody that would want to do this to her, to do anything to her," said Lyniece Nelson, the victim's mother.

The last anyone had heard from Hillard was the night of October 23rd. Nelson says her daughter had a date and a cab driver dropped her off at a home in the 900 block of Longfellow.

Hilliard asked the cab driver to stay on the phone until she knew it was safe.

"She didn't feel comfortable, to stay on phone with her. He heard her saying a few phrases and heard her saying 'no,' her phone dropped and it was muffled, scuffling noises and then it went dead," Nelson explained.

However, that cab driver never called police, just a friend of Hilliard's who eventually told her mother about what happened.

A few days later, Nelson filed a missing persons report with Detroit Police.

Nelson held out hope, but nearly three weeks later her worst nightmare came true. She got a call from the Wayne County Morgue. Investigators identified Hilliard by some cherry tattoos on her upper arm.

"They showed me the pictures and that was my baby," Nelson said.

It appears Hilliard was killed some time after she was dropped off at that Longfellow address and when parts of her body were discovered on Bewick early that next morning.

"Michele's death wouldn't be the first in our community," said Laura Hughes.

She is the director of the Ruth Ellis Center in Highland Park -- a safe place for lesbian, gay and transgender youth. Hilliard had spent a lot of time there over the last couple of years.

"It's a time for us to reach out an outpouring of love to support her, her friends, her family and to really demand that within our community it's not acceptable for this to happen to a child," Hughes told us.

Hilliard's vicious murder will continue to haunt her mother, who says she will not rest until her killer is caught.

"Whoever did this, you can't hide from God. You can try, but you can't hide from God," she said.

We're told it was a police liaison that works with the morgue that was able to make the connection between the missing persons report and the body.