New Orleans, Louisiana – A Black man is accused of slamming a White woman into the wall of a nearby storefront with an SUV and killing her. The horrifying act would be just the latest instance of violence stemming from an interracial relationship in the United States
According to reports, 31-year-old Anthony Cooper—who is Black—and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Anastasia Rayborn—who is White—were arguing inside a Silver Ford Edge SUV on Monday morning. A nearby surveillance camera captured the moment Rayborn abruptly exited the vehicle, while the two continued to argue through the open driver’s side window.
Police state that at some point, Rayborn called Cooper a “f——g bitch” and began to walk away from the car. That’s when Cooper is believed to have accelerated “at a high rate of speed…hitting Ms. Rayborn and slamming her through the wall.”
Police then arrested Cooper and retrieved the body of Rayborn from inside the building she had been crushed against. According to Curt McClain, a former firefighter who rendered aid to Rayborn, the young woman was still clutching her purse after the attack, with her body bent at angles that suggested a broken back or neck.
He also said he saw Cooper with blood on his hands frantically running in and out of the crime scene.
“He had blood in his hands,” said McClain. “He said he tried to turn her over. Police said, ‘Were you driving?’ He said no, but they handcuffed him anyway.”
“He just drove over her,” said one witness to WLBT3. “Right through here.”
Upon arrival, EMS declared Rayborn dead at the scene. Cooper was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder, currently sitting in the Orleans Parish Jail at an appropriate $2 million bond.
Meanwhile, Rayborn is dearly remembered as a free-spirited, loving, and kind mother-of-one whose murder comes amid a troubled upbringing and a lifelong battle with what her sister says was schizophrenia. A GoFundMe has been set up to assist the family with funeral costs.
“This poor baby has been tossed around her whole life, and she never asked for any of it,” said her step-sister, Skye Guillory. “She was perfect. She was perfect.”
“She chose the wrong man to be with,” she continued.
According to reports, Rayborn and Cooper were engaged in a long-term interracial relationship and had a child together. In order to woo Rayborn, Cooper had allegedly lied about his age, claiming he was 24 years old when he was really 27. Rayborn was only 17 at the time. Guillory described their relationship as “tumultuous” from the start and may have been wracked with cases of domestic violence leading up to her death.
“They lost a baby. Then they got pregnant with (their son),” she explained. “They had a tumultuous relationship from beginning to end.”
“I gave her a safe word,” said Guillory in an interview with 4WWL. “I got her out of that situation more than once. I’m livid. That’s how I feel.”
The tragic death of Anastasia Rayborn is the unfortunate consequence of interracial relationships in the United States, which have increasingly become violent or deadly for White partners. In February, 24-year-old Angelo Terrell Spencer was arrested for the horrific knife murder of a White 73-year-old in Bel Air, Maryland. After killing the woman, Spencer—who is Black—is then believed to have raped her young granddaughter, a girl he allegedly maintained a relationship with.
Also in February, 31-year-old Gregory Deonte Norwood was convicted for stabbing the White mother of his children 15 times and killing her in an area east of Atlanta, Georgia. Norwood—who is Black—then kidnapped the couple’s infant daughter and fled. A jury took less than an hour to find Norwood guilty of the crimes, and a judge ultimately condemned him to 100+ years in state prison for the crime.
The majority-Black city of New Orleans, Louisiana, where Anastasia Rayborn is alleged to have been crushed by a Black man’s SUV, is no stranger to interracial violence. In May of 2023, two Black gunmen were arrested for what investigators said was a racially-motivated drive-by shooting of a White handyman in Kenner, a subsection of NOLA. According to police, the pair said they wanted to “kill a White person,” and shot the first one they saw while out on a drive.
According to the latest estimates from the US Census Report, New Orleans is currently 30.8% White alone, staring down a 57% Black population and a growing Hispanic and mixed-race population. In 2022, New Orleans surpassed St. Louis as the murder capital of the US, with a homicide rate of 70 per 100,000 people.
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