Puerto Rican police have arrested a suspect in the murder of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, 19, a gay man whose body was found decapitated, dismembered, and partially burned in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 14. Lopez Mercado’s body was discovered on the side of an isolated road in the in the southern town of Cayey, a few miles away from Caguas, where he resided.
The suspect, Juan Antonio Martinez, 26, who is married and father of four children, says he was cruising the “red light” district in Caguas looking for women. After several rejections, Martinez saw Lopez Mercado dressed as a woman and asked him to go to the house.
District Attorney Jose J. Bermudez says that in his confession, Martinez said that he thought Lopez Mercado was a woman when he asked him to go home with him. Martinez said the victim asked him for money and when he refused, Lopez Mercado pulled out a knife. When Martinez realized that the teenager was actually male, he says he had a flashback to when he was raped in prison while he was serving a sentence for domestic violence. He then attacked Lopez Mercado, separating his arms from his torso.
Police found a wig, a knife, a burned mattress, a burned PVC pipe and blood on the wall where the murder took place. The forensic evidence is being investigated by the FBI.
Police told media outlets that the suspect will likely use a “homosexual panic” defense, arguing for a plea of temporary insanity.
In addition to the shock of Lopez Mercado’s brutal murder, the Puerto Rican LGBT community was also outraged by the response of Police Investigator Angel Rodriguez, who initially headed the investigation. The Puerto Rico Police Department removed Rodriguez from the case after Rodriguez made comments suggesting that Lopez was to blame for his own death.
“When these types of people get into this and go out into the streets like this, they know this can happen to them,” Rodriguez reportedly said in a statement to local media outlets.
Puerto Rico Para Todas, the LGBT advocacy group, is calling for Rodriguez to be disciplined for the comment. The group is also calling on police to investigate the case as an anti-gay hate crime. Although Puerto Rico added sexual orientation to its hate crimes statute in 2002, Para Todas says the statute hasn’t been used to prosecute anti-gay violence. Though they have not specified charges yet, Bermudez says that he is certain this murder will qualify as a hate crime.
LGBT groups plan several vigils as well as a protest outside the U.S. territory’s Capitol.
