Staff at a facility for abused women and children unwittingly housed a transgender woman for weeks before she stabbed a guard so viciously that “her internal organs were exposed,” police say.
Michelle Silva Perez was offered a spot at Shepherd’s Gate in Greenville, South Carolina, less than four miles from a men’s shelter also run by Miracle Hill Ministries.
The 36-year-old had been evicted the night before for “not following facility guidelines,” but returned on July 18 armed with a sword before nearly disemboweling a staff member named Kirby.
“Last night we discovered that this attacker, who had been residing at Shepherd’s Gate for a number of weeks, was in fact a man,” Miracle Hill Ministries Executive Director Ryan T. Duerk said in a statement that evening.
‘Let me assure you that we did not know or suspect this, and Shepherd’s Gate followed all its admission procedures appropriately.’
Michelle Silva Perez was offered a spot at Shepherd’s Gate in Greenville, South Carolina, less than four miles from a men’s shelter also run by Miracle Hill Ministries.
The 36-year-old man had been evicted the night before for “not following facility guidelines,” but returned on July 18 armed with a sword.
Police were called at 11 a.m. when witnesses reported seeing Perez push the woman to the ground before stabbing her in the torso.
The victim was rushed to hospital for surgery where he remains in stable condition.
Witnesses reported seeing Perez push the woman to the ground before stabbing her in the torso.
Perez was arrested at the scene and has been charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime.
She was denied bail during a hearing last week and is currently being held in the Greenville County Jail, where she has been registered as a man.
Greenville County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Ryan Flood said she is “isolated because she is still transitioning to being a woman.”
The case echoes that of Harvey Marcelin, 84, who identified as a transgender lesbian when he murdered Susan Leyden, 68, in the women’s section of a New York homeless shelter in 2022.
He had already been convicted of two previous murders when he was admitted to the Sage Center at Stonewall House in Brooklyn, where he was filmed stuffing Leyden’s decapitated torso into a garbage bag and dumping it into a shopping cart.
Surveillance footage from another store recorded Marcelin sitting on a severed human leg in his electric wheelchair.
Last week, it emerged that a federal judge denied a transgender murderer’s request to be transferred to a women’s prison because she suffered from “chronic diarrhea” and stress.
Michelle Renee Lamb, 83, is serving three consecutive life sentences for kidnapping two women, strangling one to death and dumping her naked body in a field in 1969.
She is currently being held at the Topeka Correctional Facility in Kansas, having been transferred from a men’s prison in January 2023 when she underwent gender-affirming surgery.
“I also suffered from frequent bouts of diarrhea. This was never a problem until I was put in this hateful environment,” Lamb, who previously identified herself as Thomas, said in the handwritten lawsuit.
Harvey Marcelin, left, had already killed two women when he was admitted to the women’s section of a New York homeless shelter, where he murdered Susan Leyden in 2022.
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum dismissed the case because Lamb failed to prove she was being discriminated against, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.
“Plaintiff has not demonstrated that her housing assignment subjects her to atypical and significant hardship relative to the ordinary incidents of prison life,” Lungstrum wrote.
Duerk said staff at Shepherd’s Gate in Greenville had no reason to believe Perez was in transition before granting her shelter, and said they would have treated her “differently” if they had known.
“All documentation was provided to ensure this individual was a viable candidate to remain in our women’s facility,” she wrote.
“This is a series of terribly unfortunate events from which we will learn and adapt.”
