California man heads to prison for killing MS Coast transgender woman, wounding sister

A man from Los Angeles will spend three decades in prison after he pleaded guilty to killing a transgender woman in Gulfport.

Makhari Seven Gasaway, 22, was sentenced on Friday. He pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault and one count of tampering with evidence, the District Attorney’s office said in a news release.

In June 2022, police responded to the Emerald Pines apartments on 39th Avenue in Gulfport and found the 27-year-old victim dead from two gunshots, the news release said. Friends and family previously identified the victim as Shawmayné Giselle Marie.

Gasaway met Marie through a dating website and admitted to shooting into the apartment when he met her there and learned Marie was transgender, according to the release.

“Why didn’t you just walk out?” Judge Lisa Dodson asked Gasaway during the plea hearing, according to the news release. “I can’t fathom why you would react so viscerally as to shoot somebody. No one did anything to you. The family will suffer forever, and you will have this long sentence.”

Dodson sentenced Gasaway to 50 years. He will serve 30 years in prison with 20 suspended and faces five years of post-release supervision. His second-degree murder sentence must be served day-for-day with no early release or parole.

The shooting also wounded Marie’s sister with three gunshots, the release said.

Marie’s sister, who survived, told police a man wearing dark clothes came to the apartment near midnight and shot her and her sibling, according to the release. Detectives reviewed surveillance video from 20 spots around Gulfport and tracked Gasaway as he fled on a bicycle to the Oxford Point apartments, where police later found the bicycle.

On a search warrant, authorities seized the bicycle and searched the apartment, where they found Gasaway’s ID, the gun and clothes worn during the shooting. Gasaway also admitted to deleting messages after the murder, the release said.

Marie grew up in Gulfport and worked as a personal care assistant and as a certified nursing assistant, according to the Human Rights Campaign .

“Shawmaynè was a kind, beautiful young person who, like any person, deserved to live a full life,” Tori Cooper, the Human Rights Campaign director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative said in a statement in 2022.

“These tragedies happen all too often to Black and brown transgender women in communities across the country,” Cooper said. “The violence we face is one of the devastating results of ongoing stigma and discrimination. All of us must step up to end that stigma. We are people. We have friends and family, passions, hopes and dreams, just like anyone else. And we deserve to live our lives fully without discrimination or violence.”

Assistant District Attorneys Chris Daniel and Haley Broom prosecuted the case.

District Attorney Crosby Parker called the crime “senseless and tragic.”

“This is an important day for the family,” District Attorney Crosby Parker said. “We appreciate the hard work, dedication and commitment of the Gulfport Police Department that ensured this arrest and conviction.”