Transsexual702
11-20-2005, 12:13 PM
TRANSGENDER'S DEATH REVEALS SECRETS, LIES (THIS STORY HIT CLOSE TO HOME)
A secret sex change operation, a missing boyfriend from Saudi Arabia, and a woman found under a locust tree, a pistol with no bullets beneath her — these are elements of the mystery of Kaaseem Juanda.
She is the 60-year-old Kansas City woman who used to be a man who was found face down and dead at an Interstate Highway 29 northbound rest area in Mills County.
Friends and relatives of the retired postal worker who loved to travel said her death — which law enforcement officers in Iowa have not determined was suicide or murder — has unfolded the secrets she kept from loved ones.
Derrick Juanda, 37, is trying to unravel the case. Kaaseem Juanda was his father.
"I just found out my father had a sex change, just to find out my father has died," he said. "To find out the last five or six years he's been living a separate life."
Derrick Juanda, a Colorado resident, said his father had told him he had been living in Saudi Arabia. In truth, Kaaseem Juanda had been living in Kansas City and was a woman, friends said.
Many of Kaaseem Juanda's loved ones said the most shocking revelations about her gender reassignment surgery came after her death. Those lies have hurt the credibility of some of the things she told them while she was alive, family said.
"Could he have been lying to us about everything?" Derrick Juanda said.
Transgender activists in Kansas City said they don't believe Juanda, who appeared to be a happy person, killed herself. Her death will be a focal point of services Sunday during Transgender Day of Remembrance, an event that memorializes transgender people who were killed because of hatred or prejudice.
"Nobody who knew her is buying the whole suicide thing," said Stephanie Shockley, 47, who knew Juanda.
The case started the morning of Oct. 17 , when Mills County dispatchers received an anonymous call from a pay phone at the northbound rest stop reporting a dead body at the rest area near Glenwood.
Officers found the body of a black woman 100 yards away from the main restroom area. The corpse appeared to have a single gunshot wound to the head.
Near her body, investigators found a 1993 Chrysler LeBaron registered to Kaaseem A. Juanda.
They searched the car and found six bullets in a gun magazine located in the trunk.
Terry Klooster, special agent in charge with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said a gun found beneath Juanda's body lacked a magazine, which was discovered in her car.
"There must have only been one round in the chamber," he said.
He said investigators still hope the anonymous caller will come forward.
"We would like to know the circumstances surrounding the discovery of (the) body," he said. "What placed him in that area?"
Mills County Sheriff Mack Taylor said investigators are not willing to say whether the case is a homicide or a suicide, because they don't want to jump to conclusions.
"We want to make sure we have our facts as straight as we can get them before we make any determination," he said. "Is this a deal where this person was maybe depressed or took their own life? Was this a hate crime, and somebody killed them? As one question is asked, sometimes two or more pop up."
Those who knew Juanda in Kansas City said she was a meticulously clean, animated woman.
In the year and a half before Juanda died, she lived in a rental home filled with doctors, medical students and some blue collar workers in a neighborhood near a hospital, said Elsie Davis, her friend and landlord.
After Davis agreed to rent to Juanda, they became friends, despite their different backgrounds.
"I'm raised in a strict WASP environment, where she was raised in a very poor neighborhood in the black community by a mother who insisted she study and do well," Davis said. The women would go shopping, ride bikes together and sit on Davis' porch and talk about the past.
"She was never depressed that I knew of," Davis said. "As a matter of fact, she would call and cheer me up if I was down or feeling emptiness."
Investigators who searched Juanda's home after her death asked Davis to look inside and see if she had noticed anything different, Davis said.
She did.
Two photos of a man Juanda had said was her boyfriend were missing. Davis also said she noticed that clothes had been laid out and a week's worth of food had been cooked and placed in the fridge.
Klooster said investigators also seized a computer from Juanda's home and a cell phone.
"We're really seeking public assistance," he said. "We're looking for anyone that had seen Kaaseem in the last week of her life. We wouldn't turn anybody away."
Investigators are also trying to find a man who has been referred to as a boyfriend and a husband of Juanda. Klooster said the man is from Saudi Arabia.
Roberts, the friend of Juanda's, said she had spoken to her about a boyfriend from Saudi Arabia who was a devout Muslim.
Roberts said Juanda called her the Thursday before she was found dead to say she would be leaving soon on a trip to Saudi Arabia to see the man.
His family did not know that Juanda had previously been a man.
"That was very much a secret between them," Roberts said. "He knew about (it), but his family wouldn't accept that."
Roberts shares the conviction that Juanda did not take her own life — mainly because Juanda had only started to really live it the way she had always wanted.
"She was more alive than anybody I know," Roberts said, "and lived life to the fullest."
A secret sex change operation, a missing boyfriend from Saudi Arabia, and a woman found under a locust tree, a pistol with no bullets beneath her — these are elements of the mystery of Kaaseem Juanda.
She is the 60-year-old Kansas City woman who used to be a man who was found face down and dead at an Interstate Highway 29 northbound rest area in Mills County.
Friends and relatives of the retired postal worker who loved to travel said her death — which law enforcement officers in Iowa have not determined was suicide or murder — has unfolded the secrets she kept from loved ones.
Derrick Juanda, 37, is trying to unravel the case. Kaaseem Juanda was his father.
"I just found out my father had a sex change, just to find out my father has died," he said. "To find out the last five or six years he's been living a separate life."
Derrick Juanda, a Colorado resident, said his father had told him he had been living in Saudi Arabia. In truth, Kaaseem Juanda had been living in Kansas City and was a woman, friends said.
Many of Kaaseem Juanda's loved ones said the most shocking revelations about her gender reassignment surgery came after her death. Those lies have hurt the credibility of some of the things she told them while she was alive, family said.
"Could he have been lying to us about everything?" Derrick Juanda said.
Transgender activists in Kansas City said they don't believe Juanda, who appeared to be a happy person, killed herself. Her death will be a focal point of services Sunday during Transgender Day of Remembrance, an event that memorializes transgender people who were killed because of hatred or prejudice.
"Nobody who knew her is buying the whole suicide thing," said Stephanie Shockley, 47, who knew Juanda.
The case started the morning of Oct. 17 , when Mills County dispatchers received an anonymous call from a pay phone at the northbound rest stop reporting a dead body at the rest area near Glenwood.
Officers found the body of a black woman 100 yards away from the main restroom area. The corpse appeared to have a single gunshot wound to the head.
Near her body, investigators found a 1993 Chrysler LeBaron registered to Kaaseem A. Juanda.
They searched the car and found six bullets in a gun magazine located in the trunk.
Terry Klooster, special agent in charge with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said a gun found beneath Juanda's body lacked a magazine, which was discovered in her car.
"There must have only been one round in the chamber," he said.
He said investigators still hope the anonymous caller will come forward.
"We would like to know the circumstances surrounding the discovery of (the) body," he said. "What placed him in that area?"
Mills County Sheriff Mack Taylor said investigators are not willing to say whether the case is a homicide or a suicide, because they don't want to jump to conclusions.
"We want to make sure we have our facts as straight as we can get them before we make any determination," he said. "Is this a deal where this person was maybe depressed or took their own life? Was this a hate crime, and somebody killed them? As one question is asked, sometimes two or more pop up."
Those who knew Juanda in Kansas City said she was a meticulously clean, animated woman.
In the year and a half before Juanda died, she lived in a rental home filled with doctors, medical students and some blue collar workers in a neighborhood near a hospital, said Elsie Davis, her friend and landlord.
After Davis agreed to rent to Juanda, they became friends, despite their different backgrounds.
"I'm raised in a strict WASP environment, where she was raised in a very poor neighborhood in the black community by a mother who insisted she study and do well," Davis said. The women would go shopping, ride bikes together and sit on Davis' porch and talk about the past.
"She was never depressed that I knew of," Davis said. "As a matter of fact, she would call and cheer me up if I was down or feeling emptiness."
Investigators who searched Juanda's home after her death asked Davis to look inside and see if she had noticed anything different, Davis said.
She did.
Two photos of a man Juanda had said was her boyfriend were missing. Davis also said she noticed that clothes had been laid out and a week's worth of food had been cooked and placed in the fridge.
Klooster said investigators also seized a computer from Juanda's home and a cell phone.
"We're really seeking public assistance," he said. "We're looking for anyone that had seen Kaaseem in the last week of her life. We wouldn't turn anybody away."
Investigators are also trying to find a man who has been referred to as a boyfriend and a husband of Juanda. Klooster said the man is from Saudi Arabia.
Roberts, the friend of Juanda's, said she had spoken to her about a boyfriend from Saudi Arabia who was a devout Muslim.
Roberts said Juanda called her the Thursday before she was found dead to say she would be leaving soon on a trip to Saudi Arabia to see the man.
His family did not know that Juanda had previously been a man.
"That was very much a secret between them," Roberts said. "He knew about (it), but his family wouldn't accept that."
Roberts shares the conviction that Juanda did not take her own life — mainly because Juanda had only started to really live it the way she had always wanted.
"She was more alive than anybody I know," Roberts said, "and lived life to the fullest."