Kalena “Peaches” Croskey was the kind of person who filled a room. Friends remember a 32-year-old Black trans woman who sang Beyoncé, vogued, and put together glamorous makeup looks — someone who kept finding ways to share joy even after surviving years of homelessness.
On the afternoon of June 11, staff at the Birmingham City Jail found her unresponsive in a single-person cell. She could not be revived.
Croskey had been held at the jail since April 21 — 51 days — on a set of relatively minor charges: disorderly conduct, public intoxication, criminal mischief, and two counts of third-degree assault. She never made it out.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin publicly confirmed her death, along with a second death that followed days later.
According to Woodfin, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office found no signs of foul play and determined that both deaths were suicides.
He said Croskey had attempted to take her own life once before at the jail. Staff intervened, she was taken to UAB Hospital for evaluation, and she was released back into the facility.
The Birmingham Police Department says its investigation is ongoing, and the coroner has not released a formal cause of death.
When the news first broke, officials released Croskey’s birth name and identified her as a man — an erasure her community pushed back on immediately.
It was only later that the city named her as Kalena “Peaches” Croskey.
For the people who knew her, the word “suicide” does not tell the whole story. TAKE Resource Center, a Birmingham nonprofit that supports trans people of color and had stood by Croskey for years, said, “This loss is not accidental.”
The group called her death a tragic reminder of how the carceral system fails the people locked inside it, where inadequate mental health care, negligence, and systemic neglect keep costing lives.
TAKE’s founder and executive director, Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd, was a close friend. In a public tribute, she laid out what Croskey endured in the deteriorating jail: bullying from other inmates, no access to the specialty medications she needed, medical appointments that were never prioritized, inedible food, pest infestations, broken windows, and no air conditioning.
Croskey was also living with untreated mental illness, Duncan-Boyd said, and navigating it largely alone. “Once again, a system has failed you,” she wrote.
Three days after Croskey died, the jail lost another person. The mayor identified him as 35-year-old Kendall Sweazer, describing him as somebody’s son and somebody’s family.
Like Croskey, Sweazer had reportedly attempted to take his life before, was taken to UAB for evaluation, and was returned to the jail, where he was placed on suicide watch.
He, too, was later found unresponsive in his cell. Two people died in the same facility within a single week.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Local reporting has documented worsening conditions at the Birmingham City Jail for years.
In 2025, the jail faced a federal lawsuit over the death of an inmate who, attorneys said, was left unmedicated and struggling to breathe for ten days after testing positive for COVID-19 before she died in her cell.
One attorney who regularly visits clients there described the facility as visibly deplorable and said the problems were not unique to a single case.
Advocates aren’t claiming no one bears responsibility because the deaths were ruled suicides.
They are arguing the opposite: when a person is denied medical care, mental health treatment, safe conditions, and basic dignity, the outcome is not an accident. It is a predictable result.
Peaches was a human being who deserved care she never received.
TAKE Resource Center planned a memorial and balloon release in her honor during its Juneteenth gathering on June 20, telling her that her life mattered and her memory would remain.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
