The authorities stated they’d categorized the deaths as a dislike criminal activity after the keeps of two people were found in a defectively burned auto the other day.
Weekly following the bodies of two transgender lady happened to be found in a poorly burned vehicle in Puerto Rico, law enforcement mentioned Thursday they got arrested two people relating to the killings and had transformed them over to the F.B.I.
The boys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, comprise used into custody on Wednesday but I have not already been billed, relating to Capt. Teddy Morales, the main of violent research your authorities in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east coast, in which the women’s keeps happened to be entirely on April 22.
The guy said the F.B.I. have bought out the actual situation and was actually investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.
“We include classifying it a detest criminal activity since they had been socializing making use of the sufferers, and once they realized these people were transgender girls, they chose to eliminate all of them,” Captain Morales mentioned on Thursday.
Law enforcement stated these were looking forward to autopsy leads to regulate how the women have been slain. Activists has identified the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two friends which stayed in New York City. Their unique keeps had been discovered after individuals labeled as 911 to document a burned vehicle under a bridge on a desolate roadway in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales said.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been interacting with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez about night before these people were killed and comprise recorded using one associated with the women’s social media account, head Morales said.
The guy stated the authorities had also tied up Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon towards the killings through security camera video footage and “scientific research,” that he dropped to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to participating in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon transformed themselves in, he stated.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for your F.B.I.’s San Juan industry office, decreased to talk about the arrests but stated the agency routinely collaborates with neighborhood, condition and national firms.
“The agency is and certainly will often be into violent run that may drop within federal legislation,” she mentioned. “However, our coverage is we do not verify or deny the presence of research, to guard the stability of any feasible investigative work.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never right away become reached for touch upon Thursday evening, therefore was not immediately obvious when they had lawyers.
In the event the men are charged, it may portray a flipping reason for the managing of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, that has a disturbing reputation for violence against gay and transgender visitors, activists mentioned.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez were the third and next transgender men murdered in Puerto Rico in the past two months, activists said. These people were furthermore considered to be the 7th and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming men and women to being murdered in the usa this current year, in accordance with the people legal rights Campaign.
In past times 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. people have been killed in Puerto Rico, based on Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay rights activist. Just about three associated with fatalities stay unsolved, he mentioned.
“These arrests become a step for the correct direction, nevertheless these murders need to be prosecuted as hate crimes,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We desire the us government in order to complete the research within the some other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. everyone on isle and offer fairness for many of those.”
Ms. Velazquez stayed in Queens and Ms. Pelaez into the Bronx. Both have recently traveled to Puerto Rico, http://www.datingmentor.org/manhunt-review plus they comprise intending to travel returning to nyc after this thirty days, based on loved ones and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, mentioned Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon were arrested after a local radio facility submitted photographs of these on myspace and people began to phone the place to identify them.
“We is super appreciative for the efforts the authorities therefore the society place in to find who did this,” she said on Thursday.
She mentioned the photographs came from two video clips that Ms. Pelaez had published on the Snapchat and Facebook accounts, which confirmed her and Ms. Velazquez socializing with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“I watched the clips, and it seemed like they were hanging out collectively as family,” she said. “It seemed normal. There seemed to be tunes playing in the back ground. Anyone appeared fine.”
She said the police got informed her families best your guys happened to be in federal guardianship.
The killings arrived monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, ended up being slain in Moca, P.R., according to research by the peoples liberties Campaign.
In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a well-known figure on Puerto Rico social media marketing who had been transgender and homeless, had been recorded to death after a McDonald’s buyer reported that Ms. Negron have spied on her for the women’s space.
Ms. Negron’s last minutes — framed in the headlights of an automobile amid a cackle of laughter — had been published on social networking, an undeniable fact that activists said underscored the impunity homophobic assailants feeling whenever committing such crimes.
