A Manhattan grand jury has indicted a number of suspects in reference to the deaths of two males who have been drugged and killed in separate incidents following visits to New York Metropolis homosexual bars final 12 months, two regulation enforcement officers mentioned Wednesday.
The officers mentioned the suspects have been indicted within the deaths of John Umberger, a 33-year-old political marketing consultant, and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social employee. It was not clear what number of suspects have been charged with homicide, however they have been amongst six individuals indicted on theft expenses in a sample that police say concerned a complete of 17 victims.
The officers added that police consider the victims have been focused for monetary acquire and never due to their sexual orientation. Nonetheless, the officers mentioned, the New York Metropolis Police Division’s Hate Crime Activity Power is helping within the investigation.
The Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace declined to remark, as did an NYPD spokesman, citing the continuing investigation.
Umberger and Ramirez have been each discovered lifeless after visiting homosexual bars within the metropolis’s full of life Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood final spring. Each had left the bars with a minimum of one unknown particular person earlier than their financial institution accounts have been drained of hundreds of {dollars} utilizing facial recognition entry on their telephones, in response to their members of the family. This month — almost a 12 months after they have been discovered lifeless — the health worker’s workplace dominated their deaths as homicides attributable to a “drug-facilitated theft.” A number of medicine have been discovered of their techniques, together with fentanyl, lidocaine and cocaine.
“I’m relieved as a result of it means we’re one step nearer to those individuals not with the ability to harm anybody else,” Linda Clary, Umberger’s mom, mentioned of the indictments. “These individuals are hurting too many individuals, and so they should be taken off the streets.”
The New York Metropolis health worker’s workplace additionally confirmed Wednesday that it’s investigating “a number of extra deaths in comparable circumstances” to these of Ramirez and Umberger. It’s unclear, nonetheless, in the event that they have been of homosexual males discovered lifeless after visiting homosexual bars or whether or not they have been linked to the indicted suspects.
A spokesperson for the health worker’s workplace mentioned they “couldn’t remark additional because of the ongoing prison investigations.”
Within the months following the deaths of Ramirez and Umberger, extra homosexual New Yorkers stepped ahead with eerily comparable accounts. NBC Information has spoken with a number of homosexual males who mentioned they survived comparable incidents from December 2021 to October 2022, each earlier than and after the deaths of Ramirez and Umberger.
The NYPD confirmed in mid-November that it was investigating extra accounts of grand larceny at different Manhattan homosexual bars that had similarities to the Umberger and Ramirez instances. Police additionally mentioned they have been investigating comparable incidents that occurred at bars within the metropolis with out LGBTQ affiliations.
