Authorities in Pennsylvania have confirmed that dismembered remains found late last month are those of a transgender teenager who was reported missing.
The Mercer County Medical Examiner’s Office and Pennsylvania State Police confirmed last week that body parts found June 25 in Lake Shenango River, a reservoir in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, were those of Pauly Likens Jr., 14.
Likens was last seen June 23 in a public park in her hometown of Sharon, Pennsylvania, about 15 miles east of Youngstown, Ohio, police said. She was reported missing two days later, the same day unidentified human remains were discovered nearby.
The coroner’s office identified the remains as Likens’ on Wednesday. Police said the cause of death was “sharp trauma to the head” and that his body was dismembered by “some type of sharp instrument”.
DaShawn Watkins, 29, was arrested last week in connection with Likens’ death and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, according to court documents. Watkins could face the death penalty or life in prison if he is found guilty.
An attorney for Watkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and efforts to reach Likens’ family for comment were unsuccessful.
Pamela Ladner, who leads the Shenango Valley LGBTQIA+ Alliance, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Mercer County, spoke with Likens’ relatives in recent days and said the family confirmed that Likens identified as a transgender girl. Ladner said Likens’ mother is “in complete and utter shock” and that she is requesting privacy and pressing authorities to charge Watkins with a hate crime.
“Just the severity of how Pauly was murdered and then cut into pieces and put in bags and thrown in the river and various places,” Ladner said. “That alone exudes a lot of hatred for being able to do something like that.
Mercer County District Attorney Peter C. Acker said authorities do not currently suspect the homicide was motivated by anti-transgender hatred, but said that could change as the investigation progresses. He called the homicide “one of the most heinous crimes I have seen in 46 years as a lawyer.”
“I have pieces of the body of a 14-year-old homicide victim, dismembered, brutally killed, with acute trauma to the head. I want justice,” Acker said. “People can say whatever they want, they can defend whatever position they want, but, frankly, the first thing we have to do is convict this individual of the fundamental crimes.”
The night before she disappeared, Likens was at a friend’s house and left for home on foot between 9 and 9:30 p.m., according to a criminal complaint shared with NBC News. Her friend told authorities that Likens communicated with her on Snapchat a few hours later, around 2:30 a.m., the complaint says.
Authorities connected Watkins to Likens and the crime scene through cellphone data and security video, according to the complaint.
The complaint says the video shows Likens waiting for someone near the Budd Street Public Park — which is next to the reservoir where her body was found — between 3 a.m. and 3:40 a.m. the day she disappeared. Likens’ cell phone last communicated with cell towers in the area around 3:40 a.m., before his service was cut off, according to the complaint. Likens’ phone has not yet been recovered.
Videos from local businesses show Watkins’ car traveling to and from the area near the park around the time Likens’ phone stopped communicating with cell towers, the criminal complaint says. Video from Watkins’ apartment complex that morning, June 23, and the next day also shows Watkins struggling to carry large backpacks and trash bags in and out of his apartment.
The complaint adds that Watkins’ apartment tested positive for blood in several locations, including the bathroom and under the bathroom floor. Watkins also purchased a chop saw the day Likens disappeared, according to the complaint. When police recovered the saw from Watkins’ apartment last week, one of its interchangeable blades was missing, he said.
When authorities interviewed Watkins last week, he said he had sex with someone he met on Grindr, a popular gay dating app, the morning Likens disappeared, according to the complaint. Watkins told police that he had sexual contact with the same individual – whose description matched Likens’ – and that the individual never returned to his apartment with him. When asked about the large suitcases he carried in and out of his apartment, Watkins told authorities the suitcases were luggage he never took out of his car on a vacation he took a month ago.
Watkins is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on July 25.
Ladner said a vigil for Likens will be held Saturday in Sharon.
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