BLM Activist Oluwatoyin Salau’s Killer Sentenced To Life In Prison

A Florida judge has sentenced Aaron Glee to life in prison for the 2020 murders of 19-year-old BLM activist Oluwatoyin Salau and 75-year-old Victoria Sims.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Glee was supposed to plead guilty in January 2023 but decided to have a trial instead. In June, the 52-year-old Glee pleaded guilty to a first-degree murder and kidnapping charge. He opted to spend the rest of his life in jail rather than face the death penalty.

Salau, who attended Tallahassee Community College and participated in Black Lives Matter protests, went missing a few days before Sims.

Glee admitted to tying Salau up and sexually abusing her multiple times before he eventually killed her. Police found the women’s bodies after tracking the phone belonging to Sims, who was also kidnapped by Glee after he raided her home. Sims’ body was found in one of Glee’s bedrooms underneath a sheet stained with blood. Salau’s body was found underneath a pile of leaves in a wooded area behind Glee’s shabby rented house in Tallahassee.

Glee fled from the police on a Greyhound bus, but he was caught in Orlando.

Salau’s murder set off a firestorm of criticism around who is centered in calls for justice in the Black Lives Matter movement, causing the hashtag #JusticeForToyin to trend on Twitter. Vox reported that a video showing Salau’s call to include trans people in the more extensive discussion about Black Lives Matter went viral following her disappearance.

On June 6, 2020, Salau tweeted about a series of events, including a sexual assault that had recently happened to her. She also had been trying to escape abuse at the hands of her family, according to Danaya Hemphill, one of Salau’s friends.

Hemphill wrote on Twitter in memory of Salau, “Oluwatoyin, You spent your life being abused by family, sexually assaulted, and you still managed to FIGHT for black lives. You protected black lives. Only for you to be raped and killed. We need to protect our black women. They are dying while fighting a war for us.”

Sims was a volunteer for AARP Florida. Her neighbors remembered as a kind woman who greeted everyone she met with a smile.

“She was probably one of the most kind and gentlest souls I knew,” Leslie Spencer, associate state director for AARP Florida, told the Tallahassee Democrat. “She always had a wise and thoughtful word to add to the conversation, but she wasn’t afraid to ask hard questions of lawmakers. She was an amazing human being, and absolutely—the void that she will leave, I don’t know that we can fill it.”

Sims’ daughter, June Campos, told the court in a victim impact statement: “An angel lived and walked among us. On June 13, 2020, the angel’s earthly light was extinguished, and the heavens called her home . . . She was an advocate for all humans and all human rights, even for monsters such as you.”

Toyin’s murderer sentenced to life in prison pic.twitter.com/ii6bDcvuI3

— nysha 🦋 (@nyshthabeast) September 22, 2023

Rebecca Figueroa, a friend of Salau, expressed regret and guilt for not picking up a call from her friend on the night she was killed. Figueroa told the court, “Part of us is still enraged toward this disgusting excuse for a human being,” she said. “We’re not the same, just glued pieces of something Aaron Glee has torn apart.”

Later, Figueroa also called for Glee to receive the death penalty, saying that “consecutive life sentences are a far more precious gift than he deserves.”