Body of missing Toronto trans woman identified as Alloura Wells

Wells, 27, hadn’t been seen since July 2017


The body of a trans woman found in a mid-town Toronto ravine has been identified as missing woman Alloura Wells.

Wells, 27, hadn’t been seen since July, and was reported missing to police on Nov 6, 2017; however, Wells’ father says he felt that his daughter wasn’t a priority because she was homeless.

Three months before Wells was reported missing, a woman was walking through the Rosedale ravine with a friend when she came across a body. She called the police as well as The 519 community centre in the hopes of finding out who the woman was, but says she had not heard back in months.

Police issued a news release on Nov 8, 2017, asking for the public’s help to find Wells.

They now confirm the person found in the ravine was Wells.

According to a Nov 30 news release, Toronto police received assistance from the Centre of Forensic Sciences to identify the body, as well as help from a family member of Wells because of the possible link between the cases.

The case has now been transferred to 53 Division and the cause of Wells’ death is still being investigated.

Toronto police did not reply to Xtra’s request for comment by the time of publication.

On Nov 19, the day before the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a vigil was held at Barbara Hall Park in Church-Wellesley Village for Wells and the woman found in the ravine.

“We’re not 100 percent sure this is Alloura,” longtime trans and sex-work activist Monica Forrester told the crowd of people at the time. “But this is a body, though; we’ve got to recognize that it’s a person in our community. She has a family, she has friends.”

Eternity Martis is an award-winning journalist and editor who has worked at CBC, CTV and Xtra Magazine. She is the author of the bestselling 2020 memoir They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up, the course developer/instructor of "Reporting on Race: Black Communities in the Media" at Ryerson University and UBC's 2021 Journalist-in-Residence.

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Power, News, Policing, Toronto, MMIWG, Trans

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