Williams, 36, who has been recalled as being “something special” by her friend, was slain on the morning of 26 January at Palos Verdes Street and Twain Avenue.

The Metropolitan Police Department detained Hassan Howard, 20, immediately after the attack, at his family’s home nearby.

Howard, who remains incarcerated with no bond, has been charged with murder. Officials are attempting to decide if he’s able to stand trial after two doctors have “declared him incompetent” to do so, as reported by The Las Vegas Review Journal.

Williams came out as trans at 16 and was reared by her father, with the help of some relatives, as an only child in Raleigh, North Carolina.

David Leach, the victim’s close friend, told the publication: “She died in cold blood, in broad daylight, in the middle of the street in Las Vegas.”

He spoke of meeting her in 2021 through the Las Vegas ballroom scene: “She really stuck out in my head for some reason… and I was like, ‘I really like this girl: She’s something different, something special.’”

Williams’ aunty Tina Thornton claimed the 36-year-old, who dreamed of being a singer in Las Vegas, had suffered from melancholy, made worse by the loss of her home and dogs.

Her melancholy saw her grow distant from her friends such as Leach as she turned to drugs, with Leach submitting a missing person’s report a month before to her death.

Despite her later troubles in life her aunty regarded her as being a “very smart kid”.  Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) transgender justice initiative, said:

“My heart breaks for Sasha’s family, her friends, and for her community – it is clear Sasha was fighting hard to better herself against long odds. “Yet again, we find ourselves mourning a life that ended far too soon.”

According to the HRC, Williams is the first transgender or gender non-conforming Nevadan to lose their life to lethal violence since their tracking of such incidents began in 2013.

But others have lost their lives to such violence this year, with Meraxes Medina, a 24-year-old trans Latina who was assassinated in Los Angeles, having been recalled by friends and family as “an amazing soul” in April.