NEW YORK, NY — More than 25 years after LGBTQ icon Marsha P. Johnson’s body was pulled from the Hudson river on July 6, 1992, the circumstances surrounding her death remain a mystery.
Johnson, a drag queen, activist, and New York City icon who identified as a woman, was reported missing shortly after the 1992 Pride March on June 30. Six days later, her body was found floating in the Hudson River off the West Village Piers. She was 46.
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According to the medical examiner’s office, Johnson drowned. The NYPD initially described her death as a suicide — a definition her family and friends reject.
The controversial case is the subject of a new Netflix documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson. Filmmaker David France said he met Johnson soon after he moved from the Midwest to New York City, where she was a key figure in the political movement for LBGTQ equality.
The documentary follows retired Anti-Violence Project counselor Victoria Cruz as she re-investigates the case. Cruz seeks out witnesses and follows leads, including reports that Johnson was seen trying to escape two men down 22nd Street toward the water. The documentary also investigates rumors that she may have been targeted by the mafia or anti-LGBTQ forces due to her activism.
Johnson was born in New Jersey, and moved to Manhattan after graduating high school in 1963. She first worked in a restaurant before pursuing a new life as “the biggest drag queen in the world.”
Johnson modeled for Andy Warhol and performed onstage with the drag performance troupe Hot Peaches.
She was referred to as both the “mayor” and “saint” of Christopher Street, where she was frequently spotted wearing flowers. She participated in the Stonewall riots in the summer of 1969 — and many identified Johnson as the first to fight back against the police during the fracas. She then cofounded trans-rights organization STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) with activist Sylvia Rivera in 1970, an organization which helped young homeless drag queens and transwomen of color.
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Though Johnson reportedly had mental-health issues, many friends and other members of the local community insisted she was not suicidal and noted that the back of Johnson’s head had a massive wound. Others believed that she may have experienced hallucinations, or that she could have jumped to her death in an effort to escape harassers.
One witness reportedly saw someone, a “known rabble-rouser” named Michael, fighting with Johnson days prior to her death and calling her a homophobic slur. Michael allegedly later bragged to someone at a bar, saying that he “had killed a drag queen named Marsha.”
Despite a campaign from Johnson’s friends and vigils at the site where Johnson’s body had been found, initial attempts to get the police to investigate the cause of death were unsuccessful. Finally, in November 2012, Lopez was able to get the New York Police Department to reopen the case as a possible homicide.
According to People, detectives were not available to discuss the investigation, and a spokesman with the district attorney’s office declined to comment.
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Main photo: Marsha Johnson [Wikimedia Commons]
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