COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — Tee Tee Dangerfield had just purchased her first home in June of 2017 after saving up for nearly 11 years while working as a server at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Her mother, Yolander Dangerfield, said she was so excited. She recalled being on the phone with her on July 30.
"You know, when I retire I was planning to move up there. Tee was asking me what color did I want my bathroom painted and my room," Dangerfield explained.
Sadly, their plan would never play out.
"Tee didn't live long enough to pay the first mortgage," she said.
Hours after that phone call, where Yolander and Tee Tee were talking about paint colors, in the early morning hours of July 31, 2017, someone walked up to Tee Tee's car while parked at an apartment complex on Godby Road in College Park and opened fire.
She was found shot multiple times in the driver seat. Tee Tee was rushed to the trauma center at Grady but didn't survive.
"It was just horrible," Yolander said.
A couple weeks after the shooting, College Park Police charged Tyrone Kemp with several charges including murder. Kemp would go on to be incarcerated at the Fulton County Jail on Rice Street for four years until a jury found him not guilty on all charges on Nov. 24, 2021.
Dangerfield drove up from Louisiana and stayed the entire week for the murder trial. When the verdict was read, "I was just devastated," she recounted.
She said after hearing all the evidence presented by the district attorney's office, she just couldn't believe the jury found Kemp not guilty. Dangerfield recalled immediately leaving the courthouse but running into one of the jurors before making it to her car.
"He said we're sorry about your loss -- you know I was like, I just said, 'thank you, baby,'" she recalled.
Dangerfield said one of the hardest things was knowing Kemp was walking out a free man to be with his family for the holidays that year and she was driving back to Louisiana, still with no closure Tee Tee's homicide.
"She wasn't only my child, that was my best friend you know," Dangerfield described.
Almost two years to the date, the man acquitted in Tee Tee's case, Kemp, filed a federal lawsuit through his attorney against the College Park detective who worked the case and eventually charged him with murder. The lawsuit claims Kemp's civil rights were violated and accuses the detective of malicious prosecution and wrongful incarceration.
When Dangerfield found out about the lawsuit she responded, "It's a hard slap in the face."
She added, "I just can't believe that."
You can read the full lawsuit here and see the allegations Kemp's attorney is making against the detective and why Kemp said he was innocent of all the charges in Tee Tee's homicide.
They argue the detective got several things wrong, saying that Kemp's clothes didn't fit the description given by witnesses and that "no physical evidence," such as his fingerprints, were found that would have tied him to Tee Tee's car where she was killed.
11Alive reached out to College Park Police for a comment on the lawsuit and to ask about where the homicide case stands. A PR company hired by the city said the city can't comment on pending litigation.
Dangerfield said she feels that because Tee Tee was a transgender woman, it is what got her killed, and doesn't believe the right verdict was delivered in the trial.
Kemp's lawsuit claims the two met online and when they met up just prior to Tee Tee being killed, she revealed to Kemp she was transgender. The suit claims they went to a bar, found it closed, and returned to Kemp's apartment complex where Tee Tee, the suit argues, spent a "short time lingering in Plaintiff's parking lot" before driving off - with the shooting happening in a different part of the complex.
Tee Tee's mother feels it played out differently.
"Because his homies saw Tyrone get in the car with Tee Tee, they were teasing him," Yolande Dangerfield said. "That's why my child is gone today."
You can read the full lawsuit below: