The authorities said they’d classified the deaths as a hate criminal activity following keeps of two females were found in a badly burned car a week ago.
Per week following the bodies of two transgender lady were present a badly burned vehicles in Puerto Rico, the police mentioned Thursday that they have detained two boys regarding the the killings together with transformed them up to the F.B.I.
The people, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, were used into guardianship on Wednesday but have perhaps not already been billed, per Capt. Teddy Morales, the principle of criminal investigations when it comes to police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern coast, where in actuality the women’s remains were found on April 22.
The guy stated the F.B.I. got absorbed the case and got exploring Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for possible civil rights violations.
“We tend to be classifying it as a detest criminal activity since they had been interacting because of the subjects, and once they learned these were transgender girls, they made a decision to eliminate all of them,” head Morales said on Thursday.
Law enforcement mentioned they were waiting for autopsy brings about figure out how the women had been killed. Activists need identified the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two pals exactly who lived-in new york. Their own remains had been receive after one known as 911 to report a burned automobile under a bridge on a desolate road in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, Captain Morales mentioned.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon have been interacting with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez regarding evening before these were killed and had been taped on a single of this women’s social media accounts, master Morales mentioned.
He stated the police got in addition fastened Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon with the killings through security camera footage and “scientific proof,” that he declined to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to playing the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon switched himself in, the guy said.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for all the F.B.I.’s San Juan industry workplace, dropped to talk about the arrests but mentioned the bureau regularly collaborates with neighborhood, county and federal agencies.
“The Bureau is and can always be contemplating unlawful run which may drop within federal jurisdiction,” she said. “However, our rules is we do not confirm or reject the existence of investigations, to safeguard the integrity of every possible investigative energy.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never immediately become hit for comment on Thursday night, and it was not instantly clear if they had solicitors.
If the guys are recharged, it may express a switching point in the management of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, which includes a disturbing reputation of violence against homosexual and transgender folk, activists said.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez comprise the third and 4th transgender individuals murdered in Puerto Rico within the last few 8 weeks, activists said. These people were additionally believed to be the seventh and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming individuals are killed in the usa in 2010, in accordance with the person liberties promotion.
In past times 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. individuals have been murdered in Puerto Rico, according to Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay legal rights activist. Just about three for the deaths stay unsolved, the guy said.
“These arrests become one step inside the correct way, but these murders have to be prosecuted as hate crimes,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We craving the us government to complete the research inside some other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. people regarding island and offer justice regarding of those.”
Ms. Velazquez stayed in Queens and Ms. Pelaez inside Bronx. Both had not too long ago moved to Puerto Rico, plus they comprise planning to travel back again to New York later on this thirty days, based on loved ones and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, stated Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon are detained after a local broadcast section submitted graphics of those on myspace and folks started to contact the section to determine all of them.
“We are super appreciative with the jobs that the authorities and society place in to acquire just who did this,” she stated on Thursday.
She stated the photographs came from two video that Ms. Pelaez got published on 
her behalf Snapchat and Twitter account, which showed the woman and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“we spotted the video clips, also it seemed like they were spending time together as friends,” she said. “It appeared regular. There was clearly musical playing within the background. Everyone Else appeared fine.”
She stated law enforcement have informed her families just that men had been in federal custody.
The killings arrived four weeks after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, was murdered in Moca, P.R., in accordance with the peoples legal rights Campaign.
In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a well-known figure on Puerto Rico social media who had been transgender and homeless, ended up being shot to demise after a McDonald’s client reported that Ms. Negron got spied on her behalf in the women’s room.
Ms. Negron’s final moments — framed into the headlights of a vehicle amid a cackle of fun — happened to be published on social media, an undeniable fact that activists mentioned underscored the impunity homophobic attackers feeling whenever committing such crimes.
