A trans-identified male was one of two men found guilty this week in a San Francisco court of the brutal torture and murder of a young man. David Anderson, 41, who identifies as transgender and uses the name “Angel,” hung 23-year old George Randall-Saldivar from the ceiling by a noose before raping him and injecting the victim with a lethal dose of fentanyl, the court heard.
Prosecutors told the jury that the young man was still alive when Anderson and his accomplice, 52-year-old Gerald Rowe, stuffed Saldivar into a suitcase, which they rolled down the street before dumping into the San Francisco Bay. Assistant District Attorney Charly Weissenbach said the killers treated the man “like garbage.”
Weissenbach told the court that the crime involved “some of the most egregious charges and horrific facts anyone should ever have to hear, let alone experience.”
She added: “While this conviction cannot undo the hours of torture and painful poisoning experienced by the victim, it does condemn the depravity of the defendant’s acts along with the inhumane way he handled the victim’s remains when he threw him into the Bay like garbage.”
According to testimony heard at the trial, Saldivar was an “acquaintance” of the killers, and had visited Rowe and Anderson at Rowe’s apartment on Market Street on February 3, 2019. The three men were said to have engaged in intercourse together before the murder took place.
Following the sexual activity, Anderson threatened Saldivar with a machete, then tied him up and hung him from the ceiling before mercilessly torturing the victim over a period of four hours.
“A noose was placed around the victim’s neck with the attached rope tethered through a pulley device near the ceiling. The victim’s hands were bound behind his back with zip ties, a strap, and duct tape. The victim was tortured for more than four hours in this position as he was screamed at, hit, punched, sodomized, assaulted with pliers, and a bag placed over his head,” the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office wrote.
After hours of brutally abusing the victim, Rowe left the residence to purchase fentanyl. Rowe and Anderson injected the victim via syringe with a lethal dose of fentanyl mixed with water.
“Within about 90-seconds, the victim began to convulse and struggle to breathe. Next, while still alive, Mr. Rowe and Ms. Anderson folded the victim into a large rolling suitcase, before zipping it up and waiting for him to die,” the DA’s Office wrote, referring to Anderson with a feminine honorific.
Approximately 20 hours later, the men put on disguises and rolled the suitcase containing Saldivar, who was reportedly still alive, to the waterfront at Rincon Park, before throwing the suitcase into the water.
On February 18, 2019, a local resident found Saldivar’s body floating in the water. San Francisco Police investigators and the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) determined the victim’s identity, and two days later, Anderson confessed to Sacramento Police to having committed the murder. Within the week, homicide investigators took Anderson and Rowe into custody.
Anderson is currently in custody at San Francisco County Jail and faces a sentence of to 25–years-to-life in state prison, set to be determined on March 18.
Disturbingly, Reduxx has learned that Anderson is currently imprisoned at County Jail #2, a mixed-sex facility that is the only San Francisco County Jail unit that houses women. According to the Jail’s description, it offers “gender-responsive rehabilitation programs.” Among them, SISTER – or, sisters in sober treatment empowered by recovery – and GLIDE, which supports women who struggle with violence and poverty.
Rowe is currently in custody awaiting his sentencing hearing. Along with Rowe, he will be sentenced on March 18, and faces life in state prison without the possibility of parole.
Once Anderson is sentenced, there is a high likelihood that he will request transfer to a women’s correctional facility if he is not housed there automatically.
Since January 1, 2021, the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) has been required to place male inmates who claim to be transgender in women’s prisons. The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, also known as SB 132, mandates that the CDCR cannot deny an inmate a search preference or housing placement “based solely on an incarcerated person’s external genitalia,” which it classifies as “discrimination” related to “gender identity.”
Since the Act went into effect, 358 male inmates have requested transfer to a women’s prison. According to Keep Prisons Single Sex USA, they had previously learned that 33.8% of the men seeking transfer to the female estate are known to be registered sex offenders.
Within the past three years, several violent men have been transferred to the female prison estate, including a sadistic man who beat two of his own infant children to death. Jessica Marie Hann, born Jason Michael Hann, is now reportedly awaiting breast implants at taxpayer’s expense while incarcerated at a women’s prison, the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF).
Last June, a once-prominent trans activist found guilty of a grisly triple homicide was sent to a women’s prison following his conviction. Dana Rivers, born David Chester Warfield, violently murdered lesbian couple Patricia Wright and Charlotte Reed, along with their son, Benny Diambu-Wright, before setting their home ablaze.
In 2022, just one year after the gender identity policy went into effect, incarcerated woman Mimi Le at the Central California Facility for Women came forward with a sworn declaration of having been eyewitness to the aftermath of an alleged sexual assault committed by a trans-identified male against a female inmate.