Remembering Acey D. Morrison: A Mother’s Reflection As Killer Of Two-Spirit Trans Woman Gets Sentenced Four Years After Her Murder

Featured Image: Acey D. Morrison with her mother in the Badlands (courtesy of Edelyn Catches)

Trigger warning: descriptions of violence and crime scene

The essence of Acey D. Morrison, a transgender Native American woman, was captured in her obituary: a “kindhearted, down-to-earth, joyous, respectful, and loving soul. She was a helpful and giving person who was always there for her family and friends.” Now, nearly four years after her murder, the man who shot her dead was sentenced to seven years in prison; with credit for two years already served, Gregory Edward Landers could be eligible for parole within several years. It’s not easy for those who lived alongside Morrison and loved her during her lifetime. The wait has been long and the process, arduous. “I am still having a hard time processing the whole outcome,” says Morrison’s mother, Edelyn Catches of Oglala, SD.

Morrison, an enrolled member of South Dakota’s Oglala Sioux Tribe, was found dead in a trailer on a country road in Rapid City, SD on August 21, 2022. At the time that the 30-year-old was murdered, Human Rights Campaign had calculated that hers was at least the 30th violent killing of a transgender or gender non-conforming person in the U.S. during that year to date. HRC took pains to note that they were using the term “at least” because “too often, the loss of trans lives goes underreported and unresolved,” says Tori Cooper, Director of Strategic Outreach & Training at HRC.

Image: Raena, Acey’s sister, with Acey (2022), courtesy of Edelyn Catches

Morrison’s mother tells GO that she believes Landers should have gotten life in prison, and that he lied and manipulated the system. She says he presented various scenarios to try to secure freedom – at one point, suggesting that charges should be dropped because the detective initially on the case had left the force. But what really troubles Catches is that the crime scene didn’t resemble the sort of scene where a fight would have taken place – Lander’s “official story,” she says.

Instead, the crime scene showed Lander’s clothing hung “perfectly” near the bed. Not what you would expect if mayhem had broken loose. “And how is my baby laying gently with a pillow behind her head?”

Catches believes that the two had met on Grindr, went back to Lander’s trailer and probably “had a hook-up,” which she says Landers denied. She says Lander’s DNA was found on Morrison’s body. She does not believe Lander’s story that he shot Morrison in self-defense.

“How was Acey just laying there, looking like he just murdered her?” She does not believe Acey had the gun, or that she pointed it at Landers. “She was the type of person who would try to stop the fights or would leave peacfully. Acey never ever spent the night in a stranger’s home. Never.”

Life wasn’t always easy for Acey D. Morrison.

“She had a hard struggle growing up, because of the teasing,” Catches remembers how it was for her trans daughter. “But I told her, never hide who you are, don’t try to be a people-pleaser. Dress the way you want to dress so you feel comfortable,” she advised. “It’s your skin you’re using so you don’t need to please other people.”

The whole family accepted her. And on the day she graduated high school, Morrison went out to live independently, staying first at her aunt’s home in Nebraska, where she got a job right away as a housekeeper. Within two months, she secured enough money to have her own place.

“Even in her younger years, she used to keep up with what was going on in the community,” her mother remembers. “She’d bring back summer youth applications, save up money, buy her own clothes. I was so proud. She’s say, ‘Mom, take care of the little ones and I can take care of me and Daniel.’ They raised Daniel since birth after his mother abandoned him in the hospital.

It’s been hard for Morrison’s mother these past four years, as she’s waited for some semblence of justice. Every month, she’s had to make the trip for a 10-minute status hearing on the case. “Very disappointing, and made me cry a lot,” she recalls. “I used to say to my attorney, every time we come here, Acey is being victimized all over again.”

Morrison’s mother remembers footage of a crime scene that showed her daughter’s body riddled with shrapnel on her chest and neck, with pieces on her face.

But the images in her heart will always be the ones where Acey spent time with her cousins and friends – who would come spend weekends and have cookouts. They enjoyed family time on a trampoline and in the backyard pool. “It was always laughter and fun movies or just sitting around and chill talk, going for walks by the creek to get cherries, plums and currants.”

“Acey was the best sister, mama, Auntie, cousin and friend ever to have by your side,” says her mother. “She was the go-to person to us all, always made plans for family and friends – picnics, movies, bingo, bowling, swimming, riding the lake on a pontoon, nature walks, exploring the spookiest sites in the Black Hills or even a quiet cook-out at my house. Spur of the moment trips to Chicago to explore the museum and 2nd tallest building in the world. We even went to Devil’s Tower once! My grandson often says he misses her because we went all over the world!”

“Acey always put a smile on others and had those around her laughing and happy,” Morrison’s family memorialized her in her obituary. “She always had her natural ways in being there for those she loved. She used laughter as medicine and chose self-love to heal wounds. She was the one to open her home up to you, give you her lasts, then inspire you to keep going, ‘this too shall pass.’”