Juju Nadeau, Trans 21-Year-Old Killed in Maine, Remembered as “An Angel Sent Here to Make Things Better”

Дата публикации: 12-08-2026 21:51:47

Content Warning: This story contains descriptions of fatal violence against a transgender woman.On the evening of August 5, Juju Nadeau was walking with friends along Back Cove Trail, a wooded path wedged between the water and Interstate 295 in Portland, Maine. As an avid urban explorer, the 21-year-old wanted to show her gaggle of friends one of the pieces of graffiti under Tukey’s Bridge, which her loved ones tell Them was one of her favorite spots to visit.But what was supposed to be a fun adventure ended abruptly after a man on a bicycle, later identified by police as Glen Rodney, 58, allegedly approached the group and began wielding a knife, per court documents. The same documents obtained by The Portland Press Herald alleged that Rodney fatally stabbed Nadeau in the chest after chasing her and her friends. According to a GoFundMe, Liz McGehee, one of Nadeau’s close friends who was there at the time, tried to pull the assailant off of her and called 911. Nadeau died later at Maine Medical Center.In the aftermath, initial media coverage misgendered and deadnamed Nadeau, a common macroaggression trans people face after becoming the victim of a violent crime. But for Kasper DeWitt, Juju’s partner of two years, she was so much more than a name in a headline. To her loved ones, DeWitt says, Nadeau lit up the world. She was “divine.”“It sounds cliche but she’s the most loving person,” DeWitt tells Them. “She was an angel sent here to make things better — and she did.” Courtesy of Kasper DeWitt Before meeting Nadeau during the summer of 2024, DeWitt, who uses they/she pronouns, said they had spent hours playing video games and in online spaces with other furries, but tells Them they had never really engaged in the real-life side of the subculture, like attending conventions. That all changed once she and Nadeau started dating. Though furries are a famously online subculture, Nadeau valued meeting her community in real life, partying, and making friends everywhere she went, especially at furry cons across New England.“She really had this just pull and attraction,” DeWitt said. “She changed my life in that she just got me out and got me wanting to enjoy life and not wanting to be on a computer looking at a screen all day and just enjoy music and enjoy the world and enjoy the city and just my time with her.”She had several fursonas, all of which DeWitt said embodied her unique nature and bubbly personality, including a small cat-like mammal called a genet. Ultimately, the fursona Nadeau became most known for was a pink-and-green-striped hyena she named Chlugsy, which came to be after she bought the suit second-hand at Furpocalypse 2024, a Halloween-themed con in Stamford, Connecticut. DeWitt said Nadeau loved the fursuit so much, frequently sewing its well-loved colorful fabric back together.View this post on InstagramMuch like DeWitt, Nadeau’s friend Liz, 26, bonded with her over their shared love of furry spaces and cons. One of Liz’s favorite memories of her took place at this summer’s Anthrocon, hosted at the David L. Lawrence Convention center in Pittsburgh, a large furry convention that happened to overlook the waterfront of the Allegheny River. It was Nadeau’s favorite place in the world.“We would literally spend thousands of dollars to go to Anthrocon and we would barely even be in the convention itself because she just wanted to be at the waterfront all day,” DeWitt tells Them. It’s at conventions like Anthrocon that Nadeau would hold court, dance all night with her friends, and leave lasting impressions on even the people who she interacted with just once.In addition to being a furry, DeWitt says that Nadeau was also a fennec fox therian. Though therian identity can be broad, many therains identify strongly as animals or other non-human beings. For Nadeau, DeWitt says this translated into her other-worldly effervescence and magnetic presidence. She embodied that playfulness, frequently barking, meowing, and even saying her own name, “Juju,” as DeWitt woke her up from a nap, just “like a Pokemon,” they recalled. For Nadeau, who held both her furry and her therian identities close to her heart, being in touch with community felt valuable and important.“It makes me sad because, obviously I'm sad about a lot, but I think that she experienced socially more than a lot of people ever will in their life,” DeWitt says. “It's horrible because she would have had the chance to live 10 times that much.” Courtesy of Kasper DeWitt In a GoFundMe posted on August 7 intended to raise money for expenses left in the wake of Nadeau’s death, such as breaking a lease and moving out of the city where their partner was fatally stabbed, Joe-la and Matt DeWitt, Kasper’s parents, wrote, “It’s cliche to say someone lit up a room, but if you knew her — that’s exactly how it was. This was a kind, compassionate, vibrant, spirited person with a whole life ahead of her.”DeWitt had planned to propose at next year’s Anthrocon. Instead, her loved ones are now seeing signs of Nadeau and her love of life everywhere. Both DeWitt and Liz say they have seen pink, green, and white, Nadeau’s colors, in everything, from dogs to the McDonald’s Refreshers from where she worked.“I remember me and Liz were like, ‘Out of all the things that she could reincarnate and send a message as, she absolutely would do it as weed, a dog, and a fucking McDonald’s Refresher,’” DeWitt laughed. Courtesy of Kasper DeWitt Her loved ones plan to honor her energy by sewing some of Nadeau’s fursuit into their own, retiring the well-loved hyena by burning it, and throwing the biggest party ever.“She was a massive party girl and I know that she would have wanted me to throw literally the biggest party I've ever thrown ever for her — and that's my plan,” DeWitt says.Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.

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