It wasn’t until Josh Vallum was kissing Mercedes Williamson that he reached between her legs and realized she had a penis.

The next thing he knew, he was standing over the transgender teen’s dead body with a hammer in his hand.

That, at least, is the story Vallum, a member of the Latin Kings street gang, told sheriff’s deputies in George County, Miss., after 17-year-old Williamson was discovered in a shallow grave last spring.

On Tuesday, more than 13 months later, Vallum was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder, according to the Associated Press.

“I killed Mercedes Williamson, sir,” the 28-year-old told the judge, WLOX reported.

Even as Vallum’s sentencing seemed to close the murder case, however, questions remained about his account of the killing.

A roommate claimed Vallum and Williamson were a couple and that Vallum knew his victim was transgender long before the murder. The two had an active sex life, the roommate said, and Vallum even took his transgender girlfriend to a Latin Kings beach party.

Instead of shock, it was self-preservation that motivated the murder, as Vallum killed Williamson because she knew too much about his gang activities, Vallum’s brother and a friend testified, according to the Biloxi Sun Herald.

Vallum’s plea, meanwhile, avoided what promised to be an explosive trial in which prosecutors threatened to call other Latin Kings to the witness stand and expose the structure and finances of the gang.

The truth about the killing could determine whether Vallum faces an additional federal hate crime charge and, potentially, the death penalty.

The case drew national attention last summer when Caitlyn Jenner mentioned Williamson during her ESPY Awards acceptance speech.

“They’re getting bullied, they’re getting beaten up, they’re getting murdered and they’re committing suicide,” Jenner said during the July 15, 2015, ceremony before mentioning Williamson’s murder just a weeks earlier. “The numbers that you just heard before are staggering, but they are the reality of what it is like to be trans today.”

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