The trial gets underway today of a man accused in last year’s murder of a 16-year-old Burlington High School student.
Jorge Luis Sanders-Galvez will face a jury in South Lee County as a national spotlight is shone on the March 2016 murder of Kedarie Johnson — a popular student who identified as “gender-fluid,” meaning he sometimes identified as a woman.
Johnson was found shot to death in a Burlington alleyway.
The prosecution is expected to argue that Sanders-Galvez intended to have sex with Johnson but became enraged when he discovered that Johnson was “biologically male.”
Jury selection and opening statements will start off the trial, which is expected to last two weeks.
Another man, Jaron Narelle Purham is also charged in Johnson’s murder. He remains in a St. Louis, Missouri, jail on unrelated charges.
By Rob Sussman, KBUR, Burlington