Ally Lee Steinfeld murder: Prosecutor 'not pursuing' hate crime charges against three suspects despite police finding mutilated genitals of trangender teen

Violent details of the attack prompted calls for the trio to be charged with committing a hate crime; however the prosecution has decided it will not be pursuing those charges

Ally Lee Steinfeld/Instagram (Ally Lee Steinfeld/Instagram )

The three main suspects arrested for the brutal murder of a transgender teenager will not be facing hate crime charges.

Eighteen-year-olds Andrew Vrba and Isis Schauer, along with 24-year-old Briana Calderas have been charged with the first-degree murder of 17-year-old Ally Lee Steinfeld, but not for hate crimes.

Vrba claimed he stabbed the victim’s genitals repeatedly and gouged her eyes out in Cabool, Texas Country, Missouri.The teenager's parents reported her missing in September.

Investigators later found her charred remains in a bag dumped in a chicken coop near the mobile home she shared with the three attackers.

Violent details of the attack prompted calls for the trio to be charged with committing a hate crime; however the prosecution has decided it will not be pursuing those charges, CNN reports.

Prosecutor Parke Stevens Jr did not immediately return a request for comment, but he told news agency AP: “I would say the murder in the first-degree is all that matters. That is a hate crime in its self.”

Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Chris Sgro disagreed, stating that Steinfeld was the twenty first transgender person to be killed this year in the US.

He told AP: “This violence, often motivated by hatred, must come to an end. We will continue to mourn Ally and fight back against transphobia and anti-trans violence.”

A first degree murder charge in the state of Missouri carries either a death sentence or life imprisonment and according to CNN and HLN analyst Joey Jackson, a hate crime charge cannot therefore be applied to a murder.

Steinfeld had been in a “physical altercation with Vrba” almost two weeks prior to her death.

Later in a police interview “Vrba stated that he had to kill Steinfeld…and he planned to do so by poisoning him…but Steinfeld would not drink the poison so he used a knife instead," a police report states.

Despite Missouri being one of 17 states with hate crime laws that include offences against people on the basis of their gender identity, they have led to “few prosecutions,” according to The Washington Post.