Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier, 31, a transgender woman, was stabbed to death on the night of Wednesday, October 3, 2018, inside an abandoned building in the 4500 block of West Adams Street, in West Garfield Park on Chicago's West Side. Area North detectives of the Chicago Police Department investigated. The Chicago Sun-Times homicide tracker, which lists every homicide in the city, records the location as the 4500 block of West Adams St.
According to a police statement, at 9:28 p.m.
Frazier was with a man inside the vacant building when a disagreement between them flared up. Police said he stabbed her and left her body in the backyard of the building. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and an autopsy found she died of multiple sharp force injuries. She was identified the next day by a staff member of the Howard Brown Health Center. Her mother, Tanya Griggs, later went to the spot. "Oh my God, it was so much blood," she told NBC 5. "And I know my child was a fighter."
A man was questioned and treated as a suspect, but he was never charged. The Chicago Tribune, which reviewed police records in the case in 2022, interviewed that former suspect, whom it did not name because he was not charged with a crime. Her father, Darrin Frazier, told the Tribune that police never told him they had made an arrest in the case. Her mother said that "no one contacted me at all" and that everything she learned came from her other daughter, not from detectives. No reward announcement could be found.
Frazier was known in Chicago's ball scene, the dance and competition gatherings of the Black LGBTQ community, and was active in both Chicago and Minnesota. Her sister Lunetta Frazier remembered her voguing through the kitchen late at night, telling her family to "hold that pose for me," and said, "She would always give me a real tight hug." Her mother said she loved to dance, had an uplifting spirit and made others laugh. She was honored at Transgender Day of Remembrance events in 2018, and advocates noted she was the second trans woman killed in Chicago in about a month. "It feels like we are being targeted," said LaSaia Wade of Brave Space Alliance.
The 4500 block of West Adams Street lies in West Garfield Park, a West Side neighborhood near Garfield Park and the Green Line, where vacant buildings stand among occupied homes. People in the area may have seen who entered the building with her that night or who left it afterward.
Chicago recorded about 580 homicides in 2018 and about 500 in 2019. Chicago police reported clearing roughly half of homicides in the years that followed, though those figures count cases closed without charges.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Ciara Minaj Frazier could be found in news archives or public records. More than 8 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who saw Ciara on West Adams Street that evening, or who heard the man she was with talk about it afterward, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Chicago Police Department's anonymous tip line at (833) 408-0069 or submit a tip online at CPDTIP.com, or contact Cook County Crime Stoppers at (800) 535-STOP (7867).
