Preliminary hearing for gay Puerto Rican teenager’s alleged killer continues
As the preliminary hearing of the man who allegedly decapitated and dismembered Jorge Steven López Mercado continues in a Puerto Rico court room, details about the murdered teenager's life continue to emerge.
David José Medina Quiñones, known as Andrógena, told the court on Tuesday he and López went to a Caguas street to prostitute themselves in the hours before Juan José Martínez Matos allegedly murdered the gay teenager. Juan Carlos Quiles, who calls herself Maritza, said Martínez offered her drugs in exchange for sex. Quiles said she refused, but she identified Martínez as the man with whom she saw López leave on Nov. 12, 2009.
"She saw Jorge leave with the suspect," Thomas Bryan, a lawyer and activist who has attended the hearing every day since it began on Feb. 1, told EDGE late yesterday afternoon. "She also declared she had identified him before."
Martínez reportedly told investigators he killed López after he discovered he was a man. And his lawyers have pointed out the teenager's reported drug-cocaine-use and prostitution during their cross-examination of López's boyfriend and friends.
The teenager's father and one of his aunts have attended the hearing, but his mother, Miriam Mercado, has not come to court. Pedro Julio Serrano of Puerto Rico Para [email protected] criticized attempts to highlight López's reported prostitution and drug use.
"We cannot allow anyone to indict a victim who is no longer alive and can no longer defend himself," he blogged. "We cannot forget there was a criminal who committed this hate crime: Juan Martínez Matos."
Puerto Rican authorities have said they plan to prosecute Martínez under the territory's hate crime statute, which includes sexual orientation. Prosecutors can only apply the law during sentencing, but Bryan applauded prosecutor Yaritza Carrasquillo.
"I think she's working a lot on this case," he said. "I am very satisfied by what she is doing."
Puerto Rican media outlets continue to follow the hearing closely. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and other elected officials from the five boroughs and Chicago traveled to Puerto Rico last month to meet with López's family, legislators and activists and to pressure Gov. Luis Fortuño to break his silence on the murder and to address anti-LGBT hate crimes on the island. Bryan said the gruesome details of López's death continue to shock and disgust the Puerto Rican people.
"It was a very heinous crime," he said. "Jorge was a young, tender guy who didn't deserve to die this way; regardless of his orientation."
Bryan added LGBT Puerto Ricans will continue to follow the trial until justice is done for the teenager's family.
"The story is not going away," he said.
The hearing is scheduled to continue through next week.