The police stated they’d classified the fatalities as a detest crime following the keeps of two female had been present a defectively burned vehicle last week.
Weekly after the system of two transgender people happened to be present in a badly burned vehicle in Puerto Rico, law enforcement mentioned Thursday which they got detained two boys relating to the killings together with transformed them to the F.B.I.
The guys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, are used into custody on Wednesday but I have maybe not already been recharged, based on Capt. Teddy Morales, the main of violent investigations for police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern shore, in which the women’s remains had been available on April 22.
The guy mentioned the F.B.I. have bought out the fact and was actually exploring Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for possible civil-rights violations.
“We include classifying it as a detest criminal activity because they happened to be interacting using the victims, and once they revealed these people were transgender ladies, they made a decision to kill all of them,” master Morales stated on Thursday.
The authorities stated they certainly were looking forward to autopsy results to regulate how the ladies was indeed murdered. Activists have actually determined the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two company exactly who lived in new york. Their particular keeps are receive after you labeled as 911 to report a burned vehicles under a bridge on a desolate path in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales mentioned.
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon was basically socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez on night before they certainly were killed and were taped using one associated with the women’s social media profile, Captain Morales stated.
He said the police had additionally tied Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon towards killings through surveillance camera video footage and “scientific evidence,” which he declined to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to participating in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon transformed himself in, he said.
Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman your F.B.I.’s San Juan field workplace, decreased to talk about the arrests but mentioned the agency consistently collaborates with neighborhood Hinge vs Tinder 2021, county and federal firms.
“The agency is actually and certainly will always be interested in violent conduct that might fall within federal jurisdiction,” she stated. “However, the rules was we really do not verify or refuse the presence of research, to guard the stability of any possible investigative energy.”
Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon couldn’t immediately end up being hit for comment on Thursday night, and it also wasn’t instantly obvious should they got lawyers.
In the event the guys are recharged, it might portray a switching point in the managing of crimes against L.G.B.T.Q. folks in Puerto Rico, which includes a disturbing reputation of physical violence against gay and transgender men, activists said.
Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez happened to be the next and last transgender anyone murdered in Puerto Rico within the last few 2 months, activists mentioned. They certainly were also thought to be the seventh and 8th transgender or gender-nonconforming people to happen killed in the United States this season, according to the peoples legal rights venture.
In past times 15 period, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have become slain in Puerto Rico, based on Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay legal rights activist. Just about three from the fatalities continue to be unresolved, he stated.
“These arrests become one step for the correct direction, nevertheless these murders need to be prosecuted as dislike crimes,” Mr. Serrano mentioned. “We craving government entities to complete the research into the more seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. people on the isle and serve justice for several ones.”
Ms. Velazquez lived in Queens and Ms. Pelaez into the Bronx. Both got recently traveled to Puerto Rico, and had been intending to fly returning to nyc later on this month, per family unit members and activists.
Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, mentioned Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon happened to be detained after a regional radio station published files ones on Twitter and folks started initially to phone the station to spot them.
“We become super appreciative of services that officials in addition to people devote to track down who performed this,” she stated on Thursday.
She stated the photographs came from two video clips that Ms. Pelaez had submitted on her Snapchat and fb accounts, which confirmed her and Ms. Velazquez socializing with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.
“we watched the movies, and it also seemed like they were spending time together as family,” she stated. “It seemed regular. There clearly was tunes playing for the background. Every Person seemed good.”
She mentioned the authorities got told her family members just that guys comprise in federal guardianship.
The killings arrived 30 days after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, got slain in Moca, P.R., in accordance with the people legal rights strategy.
In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a popular figure on Puerto Rico social networking who had been transgender and homeless, was actually recorded to passing after a McDonald’s client reported that Ms. Negron have spied on her in the women’s place.
Ms. Negron’s final moments — framed within the headlights of an auto amid a cackle of fun — had been uploaded on social networking, an undeniable fact that activists mentioned underscored the impunity homophobic attackers feel when committing such criminal activities.