Self-defense claim on opening day of trial of trans prostitute accused of murdering client at San Francisco scenic spot
The trial of the transgender prostitute accused of murdering his client at San Francisco’s Crissy Field in 2023 began today with prosecutors giving a second-by-second account of the killing, defense attorneys claiming ‘self-defense’ and the jury being shown a succession of horrifying photos of the victim’s body.
Leion Butler, aka Leniyah Butler, is accused of shooting Ramza Walupupu on the morning of November 12.
“She was a sex worker,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Hageman of the defendant, reflecting prosecutors’ decision to imprecisely refer to him as a woman.
“She was sitting in his car…she had just given him oral sex and she shot him in the face because he asked her for a refund, that she didn’t want to give, and he asked her to get out of the car, which she didn’t want to do.”
Hageman took the jury through what he described as the “the crime”, “the cover-up” and “the confession.”
Coincidentally, he explained, both the victim and the accused had spent the previous night in Oakland – Butler at a party with his mother and Walupupu performing a DJ set at a club.
As November 11 turned into the early morning of November 12 Butler took a bus to San Francisco’s “trans blade” – an area near the intersection of Post and Polk Streets that transgender prostitutes frequent – and made himself available to clients.
It was here that Walupupu drove and spoke with Butler with a view to retaining his services. The pair drove to an ATM and then drove to the parking lot at Crissy Field.
“She gives him oral sex and he ejaculates,” Hageman told the jury.
“At this point there’s a disagreement. According to Ms Butler, Mr Walupupu wanted everything, he wanted more, as in full sexual intercourse. But she believed she was done.
“She brings up she was transgender,” he said, ”and she assumes that Mr Walupupu already knew that based on the corner where she was picked up.”
“Mr Walupupu asked for a refund…Mr Walupupu asked her to get out of the car…Mr Walupupu asked her again.”
“It was ‘cold as fuck outside’, in her words, and she didn’t want to walk home.”
“The evidence will show that she was getting mad. She sees this as disrespect. She knows she has a gun in her purse.”
“At a moment when Mr Walupupu has just stepped outside the car, she pulls that gun and ‘bam!’ one shot through the eye killing him.”
“The evidence will show that she was mad about the refund. The evidence will also show that she is mad about the idea of having to walk home in the cold.”
“Over the course of this trial, just like a puzzle, it starts to form a picture,” Hageman said.
“All that evidence will show that Ms Butler is guilty of second degree murder,” he concluded.
Prosecutors read the jury answers given by Butler to FBI special agents in an interview undertaken shortly after his arrest.
“He already nutted in my throat, it’s no money back, he already gave me the money, I was never giving it back to you in the first place.”
“I would have been stranded cold as fuck.”
“I was thinking about spitting on him and hella shit but he is already dead.”
The jury was shown a ‘flock’ surveillance photo of the car being driven away from the Presidio at 6:12am and another photo captured by surveillance camera after driving the car to Kiska Road in the Bayview.
Shortly afterwards, according to prosecutors, a Jeep driven by Butler’s mother, Leslie Blueford, arrived at the scene. Butler is then seen cleaning the vehicle.
“Over the course of this trial, just like a puzzle, it starts to form a picture and…all that evidence will show that Ms Butler is guilty of second degree murder.”
In her opening statement defense attorney Shaffy Moeel admitted that her client shot the victim and told the jury that he acted in self-defense after Walupupu had become “loud, angry and threatening.”
“Leniyah Butler shot him because she was afraid he was going to hurt her, she was afraid he was going to rape her, and she was afraid he was going to kill her.”
“Hamza Walupupu preyed on her…because she was young, she was alone, it was the middle of the night, and because she was a black transgender prostitute that no one would believe.”
“And she was right and that’s why we are here.”
“It was sad and it was tragic for Hamza Walupupu’s family but it was not a crime.”
“Leniyah Butler was legally justified in shooting her attacker in self-defense and she is not guilty.”
Moeel made astonishing allegations against family members of her client.
“Leniyah is the victim of child sex trafficking. She was coerced into sex work as a child by her own biological mother.”
“Throughout her childhood Leniyah Butler was brutally sexually abused by multiple family members and neighbors.”
Butler’s mother is listed as a potential Government witness and has not been charged.
The jury was shown a succession of photographs of the victim’s body splayed across a line separating spaces in the Crissy Field parking lot with a large pool of blood surrounding his head.
A photograph of what was described as a bloody tire track, taken at the scene, was also shown.
They had earlier seen a photo of Walupupu, dressed in a black puffer jacket and dark shirt, withdrawing money from a Chase Bank ATM near the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street at 5:32am.
Also testifying today were a walker who discovered the body, a canine officer from the U.S. Parks Police who was first on scene, and a number of crime scene investigators from both the parks police and FBI who processed the scene on the 12th.
The trial, before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, is expected to last no more than three weeks.
The case continues.
The trial is bedeviled by the imprecise use of female pronouns to describe the defendant. See our editorial note on our approach here.
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