I guess all portents indicated my first essay upon returning from a bout of sickness would concern some death. The Lady Chablis died. Alexis Arquette.

But we're left to believe those were from natural causes. Chablis died after a month in a hospital fighting pneumonia. Alexis was in a coma at Cedars Sinai for four days before passing while listening to David Bowie's Starman.

Near the train tracks in West Garfield Park in western Chicago, the body of a transgender woman was found Sunday evening. She did not die of natural causes unless murder is natural. She is being identified at this point only as T.T. She wanted to be a hairdresser.

Police at first identified her as a man. of course. After all, she wasn't famous or anything. Her firnds said she was 26 or 27. She was identified by employees of the West Side nonprofit Taskforce Prevention & Community Services Chicago.

She had a "neck laceration" and was pronounced dead on the scene, Pacheco said. A knife was found near her body, which was near train tracks in the area, police said.

Jaliyah Armstrong, who had known T.T. for seven years, said she thinks she may have been killed by another trans woman. She told DNAinfo that her friend had a fight with a woman three days before she was killed.

This woman said online that she was going to kill her. Three days later, she's dead. It's just sad. She didn't go to the police because she believed it wasn't much of a threat. She didn't think another transgender sister would kill her.

--Armstrong

Armstrong met T.T. while they were both incarcerated. She credits T.T. with helping her get her life together.

She helped me get through it. Knowing that she got into it with another transgender woman is crazy.

This is sad. I lost a friend, and another transgender sister.

--Armstrong

At a vigil Reyna Ortiz of the Taskforce read the names of the 20 transgender people who have died from violence this year. She does not feel that police respect transwomen.

Not on the West Side, or the South Side for that matter. We don't feel the protection from the police as we should as trans women.

--Ortiz

Five transgender women have been murdered on the West Side in the last three or four years.

With all that's going on in the city, we get pushed down to the bottom. A lot of the transgender youth say that the police pick on them. We can put cameras all over the city, but not in this area? When they hire those new officers, I hope we get some of them over here.

--Rhonda Johnson, Cook County Hospital