When I first heard about this case in 2018, Zakaria Fry had not been identified yet. The news said that a rancher in Stanley, NM, near Santa Fe, found the dismembered remains of a woman in a trash box on his property. Police then found another body of a man nearby. The bodies were unidentified and the case really horrified me. It wasn’t until 5 weeks later that the bodies were identified as Zakaria Fry (28) and Eugene Carrol Ray (70).
Zakaria Fry was a trans woman who went by “Z.” At the time she was killed, she had come out to everyone, including her family. She rented a room from Eugene Ray in Albuquerque.
Ray was a retired attorney who had once owned a family law practice. The nature of their relationship is unclear, but Ray’s daughter stated that her father led a “high-risk sexual lifestyle” wherein he invited random strangers from the streets into his home for sex and then let them stay in his spare guest room. Ray had been the victim of fraud and theft in the past as a direct result of this. It is possible that Zakaria Fry was staying in the room in exchange for sexual favors.
On January 18, 2018, Zakaria Fry and Eugene Ray both went missing. Ray’s daughter reported Ray missing when he didn’t show up to pick up her kids. His family also noticed he had not been on Facebook since the 18th.
Police went by the home and found newspapers stacked outside and Ray’s silver Mustang was gone. Inside the home, a large amount of blood was found in the guest bedroom where Zakaria Fry was staying. Bloody towels were found in the bathroom, as well. There was cocaine or some other white powder drug on the table and hypodermic needles in the home. There was no sign of Ray or Fry anywhere.
Then Ray’s silver Mustang was found abandoned. Inside there was more blood splatter and a roll of duct tape and some disinfectant spray. Police now knew they had a murder on their hands. But without bodies, there was not much they could do in the investigation. They gathered lots of DNA evidence from the scene and they began to track Ray’s credit cards.
On February 19, 2018, the rancher in Stanley noticed a “trash box” near his land full of black plastic bags that smelled foul. He assumed someone had dumped some dog remains or animal carcasses in the trash box so he opened the bag. The first thing he saw was fingers and long women’s hair. He panicked and called police, who searched the area and found a man’s body 3 miles away. This body had the hands removed at the wrists and had been wrapped in black trash bags and covered in pine needles and grass clippings. He was then put in an old wooden trunk and dumped at the end of a dead-end road.
The bodies were identified as being Zakaria Fry and Eugene Ray. They had both been murdered by blunt force trauma to the head, dismembered, and dumped in the Stanley area, a good 45 minutes from where they lived.
It was not long before authorities uncovered who did this heinous thing. It was James Knight, who went by the alias Charles Spiess.
Police noticed several credit card purchases using Ray’s credit card. They then viewed surveillance footage at the stores and identified James Knight. Knight was driving Ray’s silver Mustang for weeks and using his credit card to buy fast food as well as the materials he used to dump the bodies, like trash bags and duct tape. He eventually abandoned the car with a lot of evidence inside. He also left tons of physical evidence behind at Ray’s home.
Knight evaded capture for a while. But then Sandia tribal police saw him stealing something from the back of a truck at the Sandia Resort and Casino. When they questioned him, he claimed he was Charles Speiss. The name didn’t return any results so they used his birthday and found a warrant out for James Knight. He was arrested for concealing his identity from police. While in jail, police charged him with the murders.
No one knows exactly how James Knight knew Ray and Fry. They think he may have been renting another room from Eugene Ray and the three lived together. For some reason, on the 18th, he beat the two to death with a golf club in Ray’s home. The drugs on the table may have been a factor, or maybe Knight was acting out of homophobia due to the possible sexual relationship between Ray and Fry. Knight never came clean about what really happened.
Knight pled guilty to second-degree murder and got 30 years in prison. The families of both victims seemed happy with Knight’s plea deal; only Ray’s daughter objected to the fact Knight got second degree murder instead of first-degree. Unfortunately, prosecutors were unable to prove premeditation, which ruled out the first-degree murder charge.
Zakaria’s sister remembers her as a really loving soul. But it seems her family never accepted the fact she was transgender. Her sister even refers to her as “my brother” in interviews later on. Zakaria’s friends flooded Facebook with comments about how positive and fun she was. She left behind many people who missed her. Sadly, Knight made her another number in a disturbing statistic of trans women being murdered. I am not sure if Zakaria Fry’s gender identity was a factor in her death, but I do know she didn’t deserve what happened to her and neither did Eugene Ray regardless of his sexual proclivities.
https://www.advocate.com/crime/2018/3/01/transgender-woman-and-housemate-murdered-new-mexico
https://www.krqe.com/news/suspect-in-roommate-murders-appears-in-court-on-different-case/