ATLANTA (WUPA) — Trans woman Rasheeda Williams, 35, who performed on stage under the name Koko Da Doll, was found shot to death in southwest Atlanta Tuesday night, according to police.
She was found in the 2400 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW, near the intersection with Hamilton E. Holmes Drive. According to Atlanta Police, officers responded to a report of a person shot on Tuesday evening at about 10:42 p.m.
“Upon arrival, officers located a female victim with an apparent gunshot wound. She was not alert, conscious or breathing, and pronounced deceased on scene,” a statement from APD read in part. “Homicide investigators responded to the scene and are working to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
They did not identify Williams by name in their release, but according to reports from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline, sourcing documentary director D. Smith, the victim was Williams.
Williams and other trans women were chronicled in the Sundance Film Festival documentary “Kokomo City.”
“On Tuesday night, Rasheeda Williams was shot and killed in Atlanta. Rasheeda, aka Koko Da Doll, was the latest victim of violence against Black transgender women,” Smith said on Instagram. “I created Kokomo City because I wanted to show the fun, humanized, natural side of Black trans women. I wanted to create images that didn’t show the trauma or the statistics of murder of Transgender lives.”
According to the APD, including Williams, the department is actively investigating three violent crimes involving transgender women in Atlanta since the start of 2023 — two of them within the past 10 days.
Anyone with information on any of the three active cases is asked to contact Crime Stoppers Atlanta online at www.StopCrimeAtl.org or via telephone at 404-577-TIPS (8477). Crime Stoppers tipsters do not have to give their name or any other identifying information in order to be eligible to receive a reward of up to $2,000 for the arrest or indictment of the suspect or suspects in the case.