US — Kern County, California. A convicted child molester who identified as having two personalities – an “enforcer side” and a “transgender side” – will stand trial for the murder of a fellow member of a survivalist transient group.

Last year, it came to light that, at the age of 17, Hannah Tubbs lied in wait in a women’s restroom at a Denny’s restaurant in Palmdale, California, and dragged a 10-year-old girl into a stall with him by her throat before proceeding to molest her. The case sparked national outrage after the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office refused to recommend a prison sentence for Mr Tubbs, and the 26-year-old was sent to serve a two-year sentence in a juvenile facility.

Now Kern County Sheriff’s Sgt Steven Davis says that in 2019, Mr Tubbs beat a man named Michael Clark with a rock and caused him to drown.

The two men were members of a survivalist transient group, with Mr Tubbs serving as second-in-command and enforcer of the group.

Mr Tubbs “hated” Mr Clark, and had assaulted him in Washington and routinely subjected him to such demeaning treatment as forcing him to crawl on hands and knees to retrieve cigarette butts, witnesses told the sergeant.

On the evening of April 20, the group was on a Keyesville campground. According to witnesses, Mr Clark accused Mr Tubbs of having stolen $100 sent by Mr Clark’s father via Western Union. Mr Clark threatened to call police, and the two men engaged in a long, heated argument. The duo then went for a walk from which only Mr Tubbs returned, witnesses said.

The decomposing body of Mr Clark was discovered in August 2019.

Mr Tubbs has given several conflicting versions of events, some of which lay blame on other group members for the crime.

In one account, Mr Tubbs told officers that he shoved Mr Clark into the river during a fight, and the other man lost consciousness. He “made a comment that it was an accident,” Sgt. Mark Chambless said, stating “something to the effect that ‘it had gone too far.’”

Mr Tubbs, who was named James before he began identifying as a woman, has been charged with First-Degree Murder.