Two Arrested in Killings of Transgender ladies in Puerto Rico

Law enforcement stated they had classified the deaths as a hate criminal activity after the remains of two girls were within a severely burned auto a week ago.

Each week following the bodies of two transgender lady are within a badly burned automobile in Puerto Rico, law enforcement said Thursday that they had detained two men associated with the killings together with turned all of them to the F.B.I.

The guys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, happened to be used into custody on Wednesday but I have perhaps not already been energized, per Capt. Teddy Morales, the chief of criminal investigations your authorities in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east shore, in which the women’s remains had been entirely on April 22.

The guy stated the F.B.I. have absorbed the case and ended up being exploring Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.

“We is classifying it a hate criminal activity since they comprise interacting together with the sufferers, and when they found out they were transgender female, they chose to destroy all of them,” Captain Morales stated on Thursday.

The police mentioned they were awaiting autopsy results to decide how the women have been killed. Activists have recognized the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two pals just who lived-in nyc. Their stays were found after people called 911 to document a burned car under a bridge on a desolate highway in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, Captain Morales stated.

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez from the nights before they were slain and comprise taped using one of this women’s social networking accounts, chief Morales stated.

The guy stated the police got in addition fastened Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon towards killings through surveillance camera footage and “scientific evidence,” that he decreased to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to taking part in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon turned themselves in, he mentioned.

Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for all the F.B.I.’s San Juan industry office, decreased to go over the arrests but mentioned the agency consistently collaborates with local, state and national organizations.

“The agency is actually and will be interested in violent conduct which could drop within federal jurisdiction,” she mentioned. “However, our plan is we do not confirm or deny the presence of research, to safeguard the integrity of any possible investigative energy.”

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon cannot right away getting reached for discuss Thursday evening, therefore wasn’t instantly obvious should they got solicitors.

When the the male is billed, it could express a switching part of the managing of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, which includes a disturbing reputation for physical violence against homosexual and transgender men and women, activists stated.

Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez had been the next and fourth transgender people slain in Puerto Rico within the last 2 months, activists said. They were in addition considered to be the seventh and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming men and women to have now been murdered in america this season, in accordance with the Human liberties Campaign.

In earlier times 15 period, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. men and women have already been slain in Puerto Rico, in accordance with Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay liberties activist. Just about three of the deaths continue to be unsolved, the guy mentioned.

“These arrests were a step inside the right path, however these murders have to be prosecuted as detest criminal activities,” Mr. Serrano said. “We need the us government to finish the investigations from inside the additional seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. men and women from the isle and serve fairness for every of these.”

Ms. Velazquez stayed in Queens and Ms. Pelaez for the Bronx. Both got not too long ago journeyed to Puerto Rico, in addition they had been intending to fly back once again to New York later this month, according to friends and activists.

Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, stated Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon were detained after a regional broadcast facility posted photos ones on Twitter and other people began to call the facility to determine them.

“We include super appreciative with the perform that the authorities therefore the area place sniffle gay in to obtain just who did this,” she said on Thursday.

She mentioned the photographs originated two films that Ms. Pelaez have posted on the Snapchat and Facebook reports, which confirmed the lady and Ms. Velazquez socializing with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.

“I watched the video, and it seemed like these were hanging out along as company,” she said. “It seemed regular. There was tunes playing during the back ground. Everybody appeared great.”

She mentioned the police had shared with her household best that the males had been in national custody.

The killings arrived monthly after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, is killed in Moca, P.R., based on the Human legal rights Campaign.

In February, Alexa Negron Luciano, a famous figure on Puerto Rico social media who had been transgender and homeless, was actually recorded to demise after a McDonald’s buyer complained that Ms. Negron got spied on her behalf from inside the women’s room.

Ms. Negron’s best minutes — framed in the headlights of a car amid a cackle of laughter — were posted on social media, a fact that activists said underscored the impunity homophobic assailants feeling when committing these crimes.