A trans-identified male serving a 35-year sentence for charges including the brutal 2014 murder of his girlfriend has been relocated to a women’s prison and awarded a payout of $295,000. Zera Lola Zombie, born Daniel Lee Smith, was granted $95,000 with an additional $200,000 for attorney fees as a result of a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging the Oregon Department of Corrections had violated his rights by housing him in a men’s prison.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Zombie was granted the classification of a “vulnerable” inmate in 2023, having lodged a legal complaint two years prior. In their preliminary statement, attorneys for Zombie argued that the state of Oregon was “discriminating against Ms. Zombie on the basis of her gender and gender identity” by housing the killer in a men’s prison, and by failing to designate him as a “Vulnerable Adult-In-Custody” (AIC). Under Oregon law, inmates designated as AICs receive certain privileges, including protections from staff and other inmates, and certain housing benefits.
The suit also claimed that Zombie “is a female person who was previously regarded as being a male person.” Zombie’s attorneys argued that “Ms. Zombie has suffered ongoing harassment and verbal, mental, and psychological abuse by both prisoners and ODOC staff as a result of her sex, gender, and gender identity,” and specifically alleged instances of sexual and physical assault.
A trans-identified male inmate in Oregon is seeking transfer to a women's prison for the second time after being deemed "vulnerable" by a court.
— REDUXX (@reduxx) September 11, 2023
Zera Lola Zombie was convicted of beating his girlfriend to death in 2014.
FULL REPORT: https://t.co/vEDiApKENa pic.twitter.com/aoRBfrDg8L
The complaint reported that Zombie, after being sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary, had been placed in a cell with Mikal Shabazz, an inmate serving a 40-year sentence for multiple violent crimes against women. Zombie alleged he made repeat complaints about Shabazz sexually harassing him, and claimed Shabazz had sexually assaulted him on multiple occasions over the course of a year.
After Shabazz was penalized by the institution as a result of Zombie’s complaints, he says other inmates begun harassing him for “snitching.”
Zombie argued that the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) had violated his rights by housing him in a men’s prison, and by placing him in a cell “with a known sexual predator” serving a sentence for “violence against women.” He also stated he was “deliberately and maliciously” misgendered by correctional officers during his time in a male prison.
Zombie’s lawyers filed a request for a jury trial on the matters outlined in the lawsuit, seeking an undisclosed sum to compensate him for his “pain and suffering … emotional distress … economic losses” and legal fees, as well as an award of “punitive damages.”
In a September 2023 ruling, Judge Ann Aiken found it “more likely than not that plaintiff has been repeatedly subjected to abuse, including sexual assault, by male inmates with whom she [sic] is housed” at both the Oregon State Penitentiary and at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla.
The judge determined that Zombie had “repeatedly communicated her [sic] concerns about the likelihood of sexual assault and the actual occurrence of sexual assault to prison officials through appropriate channels.”
NEW: A transgender inmate has been deemed "vulnerable" by an Oregon Court, entitling him to special privileges while he continues to fight for transfer to a women's prison.
— REDUXX (@reduxx) October 14, 2023
Zera Lola Zombie was convicted of beating his girlfriend to death in 2014.https://t.co/72QTzGAdht
In an amended complaint filed in December 2023, Zombie makes bizarre allegations regarding an incident when he refused to be strip searched by male correctional officers. Upon his refusal and repeated requests to have a female officer conduct the strip search, Zombie says he was placed into segregation, where he urinated on himself and told an officer, “I have small breasts, I can’t bear the thought of showing these men my breasts and my booty.”
The complaint describes Zombie being taken to the strip search area “in only her bra and urine-saturated underwear… on full display,” and states that Zombie was “crying and kept repeating, ‘Please don’t judge my body.’”
Bizarrely, the amended complaint also alleges that the strip search was uniquely difficult for Zombie because his genitals had retracted inside of his body – something that is not known to be a side effect of the ingestion of feminine hormones by men.
“Because of the female hormones Plaintiff takes, her genitals are contracted against and into her body, which is difficult to even discuss with others, let alone show them,” reads the statement. “Plaintiff felt acutely aware of her body and humiliated, as if she was on full display to have to show and discuss all her biggest flaws and insecurities all at once.”
Zombie is serving a 35-year-sentence for charges including the brutal 2014 murder of Samantha Brown, who had been his girlfriend at the time. Brown’s corpse was found in the trailer Zombie was living in, the woman having been beaten and bludgeoned to death. While the motive for the crime was never made clear, Brown was survived by four young children.
During the trial, Zombie pleaded guilty to manslaughter and assault to avoid possible murder and attempted murder convictions that could have put him in prison for life without parole. Zombie also pleaded guilty to an additional charge of first-degree assault on a man while in custody. Zombie, along with another inmate, attacked 34-year-old Justin Bedard with a broken broom handle, and was later seen on surveillance video footage “celebrating” the violence.
Zombie began identifying as transgender in 2020 and started a hormone regimen around that time. He has since changed his name and gender marker on legal documents. His attorneys in the lawsuit also insist he has developed “obvious breasts” due to his hormones, and have used the point as though to emphasize he is at heightened risk in a men’s prison.
At the time that the initial lawsuit was filed, September 10 2021, Zombie was already being housed in women’s prison Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF), having been transferred from Oregon State Penitentiary the week prior. However, ODOC Media Manager Amber Campbell explained to Reduxx that Zombie was returned to a men’s prison, at the end of 2021, just three months after being sent to the women’s facility.
Yet the current ODOC listing for Zombie categorizes him as “female” and states that he is once again being held in the women’s prison, CCCF.
In recent years the ODOC also transferred a double murderer into CCCF on the basis of his self-declared gender identity.
Vietnam war and US Navy veteran Susan Monica, born Steven Buchanan, was found guilty of murdering two men and feeding their corpses to pigs, and was sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison.
A trans-identified male who murdered two people and fed their bodies to pigs is demanding a retrial 10 years after being convicted.
— REDUXX (@reduxx) January 8, 2025
Susan Monica is currently serving his sentence at a women's prison in Oregon, where he is listed as a "female" inmate.https://t.co/0jRldbtqtk
While awaiting sentencing, he was held among female inmates at Jackson County jail. A former cellmate of Buchanan’s, Jordan Farris, testified in court that Buchanan had confessed to the grotesque murders.
Farris also described getting “chills” after receiving a birthday card from Buchanan signed, “from the sweetest murderer in Jackson County.”
While it is unclear how many men have been transferred into women’s prison CCCF, there have been at least five lawsuits since 2019 filed by female inmates there alleging “widespread” rape and sexual abuse at the facility.
An investigation by Oregon State Police found that a total of 11 female inmates had reported some form of sexual abuse from the same prison official. However, prosecutors declined to charge him, saying some of the accounts were unreliable and that the women’s claims were “unsupportable” as a whole.