A Manhattan man was convicted of murder for strangling a transgender woman to death in her Glendale apartment and then tampering with physical evidence in 2010 for the second time.
Rasheen Everett, 43, of Jefferson Street in Lower Manhattan, was originally tried and found guilty in 2013. That conviction was reversed due to a judicial error of the trial judge in 2021.
His retrial openings began on Sept. 18, and closings occurred on Oct. 2. Everett was found guilty on Thursday in Queens Supreme Court of murder in the second degree, burglary, and tampering with physical evidence following a two-week jury trial.
The jury deliberated for approximately one hour before reaching the guilty verdict.
“We are determined to seek justice for the victims and their loved ones, no matter how much time passes,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
According to trial records, on the morning of March 27, 2010, Everett entered the apartment of the victim, Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, located on 62nd Street in Glendale. Several minutes after he entered the apartment, the victim’s upstairs neighbors heard screams and loud banging, consistent with a struggle. Police from the 104th Precinct in Ridgewood were called to the location, but no one answered the door when the officers tried to gain entry.
Approximately eighteen hours later, just after 3 a.m., Everett was seen on video surveillance exiting the apartment by himself while carrying two bags. The bags were later discovered to contain the victim’s camera, keys, laptop, suitcase, coat, and cell phone.
Three days later, at around 4 p.m. on March 30, 2010, concerned family members entered the apartment and found the body of Gonzalez-Andujar lying on a bed with chemical burns across her body and a bottle of empty bleach nearby. The city’s Chief Medical Examiner later determined that the chemical burns occurred post-mortem and that the cause of death was manual compression of the neck, more commonly known as strangulation.
After the murder, Everett fled the state, but he was arrested in Las Vegas on April 9, 2010, and extradited back to Queens. His DNA was found under the fingernails of the victim. Everett was found guilty following his initial four-week-long trial in 2013 and served several years of his prison sentence before his conviction was overturned on appeal.
“Upon a reversal of a conviction through no fault of the prosecutors, my office built a strong case against this individual once again, and we successfully proved that he callously murdered a young woman 14 years ago,” Katz said.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Yavinsky, who presided at trial, scheduled sentencing for Nov. 11. At that time, Everett faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
