Slain Trans UW Student Identified as Juniper Blessing: "The Most Amazing Human Being"https://www.them.us/story/slain-trans-uw-student-identified-juniper-blessing-family-statement 🔗Samantha Allen (14 May 2026)
The 19-year-old transgender student who was fatally stabbed in the laundry room of an off-campus housing complex near the University of Washington on Sunday night has been identified by the medical examiner's office as Juniper Blessing.
Blessing was a recent graduate of the New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, who obtained a statement from her family.
"Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known — highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others," the family wrote via the Santa Fe Human Rights Alliance. "Juniper's loss not only devastates us but diminishes the world."
Per local CBS affiliate KIRO, the King County Medical Examiner's report states that Blessing was stabbed over 40 times.
Her body was found shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday night in a laundry room at Nordheim Court, a privately managed apartment complex affiliated with the university. Authorities subsequently launched a multi-day manhunt for an individual caught on surveillance footage. That search came to an end when 31-year-old Christopher Michael Leahy turned himself into Bellevue Police on Wednesday night after images of him were made public.
