GREELEY, Colo. — Angie Zapata began living as a woman six years ago even though she was born male and named Justin.
Friends said Angie Zapata, who was found dead on July 17, was a glamorous figure in Greeley.
While Ms. Zapata, 18, was accepted by her many friends and five siblings, she was bullied in school and at times was lonely and troubled, an older sister, Monica, said. Eventually, Ms. Zapata dropped out of school and got her own apartment here in Greeley.
It was in that apartment that Ms. Zapata’s badly beaten body was found on July 17.
On Wednesday, the police arrested Allen R. Andrade, 31, and charged him with murder. According to the authorities, Mr. Andrade had gone out on a date with Ms. Zapata, and upon discovering she had male genitalia, beat her to death —starting with his fists and then with a fire extinguisher.
Mr. Andrade told investigators that he thought he had “killed it,” according to an affidavit filed by the police. Mr. Andrade, who is in custody, has said nothing publicly about the killing, and his arraignment has not yet been scheduled.
On Thursday, the Weld County district attorney announced that he would prosecute the killing as a hate crime, which carries an additional 18-month sentence if Mr. Andrade is convicted.
“We applied the law to the facts, and we thought the law was appropriate,” said the district attorney, Kenneth R. Buck.
The killing has both shaken and rallied this rural, conservative town about 60 miles north of Denver, where there has long been a sense that minorities face discrimination, a feeling that became especially inflamed among Hispanics after a federal immigration raid on a meatpacking plant here in 2006.
“We’ve heard from so many people expressing not only just outrage but also shock as to how this could happen,” said Chris Fiene, a board member for the Lambda Community Center in nearby Fort Collins, which provides services for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
At a recent memorial service, nearly 200 people filled the church Ms. Zapata had attended. A vigil is being planned for this month. With her long hair, baby-smooth face and distinctive looks, Ms. Zapata cut a glamorous figure, friends and family members said.
“We loved to take her out, because she got so much attention,” her sister Monica, 32, said. “I couldn’t even take her to Wal-Mart because people would turn around. Everybody knew Angie.”
According to the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, there were 121 incidents of violence committed against gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people in Colorado last year, numbers that have held relatively steady over the past few years.
In 2007, however, there was a 24 percent increase nationally in the number of victims reporting such violence, said Avy Skolnik, coordinator of statewide and national programs for the National Anti-Violence Project in New York City. Ms. Zapata’s death is emblematic of a surge in the violence over the past month, Mr. Skolnik said.
Ms. Zapata had dreamed of moving to Denver, becoming a professional drag queen and working as a cosmetologist. But she started hanging out with a rough crowd and dated too many men, some of them dangerous, her sister said.
“One time she came home crying saying, ‘Why, Monica, why won’t people accept me?’ ” Monica Zapata said. “All my sister wanted was somebody who would take her down the street and be proud of who she was.”
Monica Zapata said her sister had drifted into drugs and at one point talked about prostitution to make extra money.
“I worried about her every time she left my house,” she said. “I couldn’t fix her loneliness.”
According to an arrest affidavit, Ms. Zapata met Mr. Andrade on an Internet dating site. They spent time together at Ms. Zapata’s apartment on July 15, and she performed oral sex on him. But Mr. Andrade told the police that Ms. Zapata would not let him touch her, and that they slept in separate rooms that night.
The next evening, after viewing photographs in her apartment, Mr. Andrade confronted Ms. Zapata over her sexual identity just before killing her, the affidavit said. “I am all woman,” Ms. Zapata told him, according to the affidavit.
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