Monday marked the six-month anniversary of the murder of local transwoman Stacey Blahnik, and police this week announced a possible break in the case.
In an interview with PGN Tuesday, Homicide Capt. James Clark said police have identified a person of interest in Blahnik’s murder. More details about the individual could not be made public, but Clark said an arrest is within sight.
“As of lately, we have developed a person of interest and we’re continuing down that path right now to hopefully make an arrest in the near future,” Clark said.
Blahnik, the house mother of House of Blahnik, was strangled with a pillowcase in her South Philadelphia home Oct. 11. There was no sign of forced entry.
Clark said that two detectives were assigned to the case but that, as in most murder cases, the squad of 12-14 detectives often works on parts of the investigation.
Since the fall, the investigators have conducted numerous interviews with neighbors in the vicinity of the murder, which occurred in the 1800 block of Manton Street, and tracked multiple tips offered by community members.
“We have the detectives going out in the neighborhood, running down leads, interviewing and re-interviewing people. This has been a very, very thorough investigation,” Clark said. “We have gotten several tips that have come in on this case, and our investigators have followed up on them all. Some have turned out not to have been good but we appreciate all the tips we get and, with each one we get, we run them out and see where they take us.”
A few weeks after Blahnik’s murder, a transgender woman was arrested for the murder of a client in the Omni Hotel.
The arrest in that case took place a few days after the murder, leading some in the community to question the length of time it was taking to seek justice for a transgender victim.
Clark said the gender identity of victims and defendants played no role in the handling of the cases.
“With the Omni case, we had video, we had cellphone records and we sort of knew from the beginning who we were looking for, we just had to identify who that person was,” he said. “But in [the Blahnik] case, no one saw this individual, or at least no one’s come forth and told us that they saw this individual leaving the property. It was just the decedent and the doer and no one else.”
Clark said he sympathized with Blahnik’s friends who are eager for justice, but assures them the case has not fallen off the department’s radar.
“I understand people’s frustrations. But we have some of the best investigators in the country. Unfortunately, some cases take longer than others, but we’ve continued to work on this, and I believe very soon we will make an arrest on this job.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].