A Texas man who strangled a transgender woman to death and dumped her body in a lake in 2019 was sentenced Thursday to 37 years in prison.
A Dallas County jury sentenced Ruben Alvarado, 24, of Mesquite, a day after finding him guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Chynal Lindsey, 26, in June 2019.
Alvarado told jurors that he had taken the Dallas woman to White Rock Lake for sex but ordered her from his sport utility vehicle upon discovering her biological sex. He claimed that Lindsey then attacked him, so he strangled her with his belt in self-defense and dumped her weighted body in the lake.
Prosecutors had asked for a 60-year prison term. Alvarado could have gotten between five years to life in prison.
Lindsey’s death had marked the second killing of a transgender woman in Dallas in less than a month.
In a separate case, Kendrell Lavar Lyles, 36, remained jailed while awaiting trial on murder charges in the deaths of three women in Dallas, including 23-year-old transgender woman Muhlaysia Booker in May 2019. It wasn’t clear Thursday if Lyles has an attorney.
