Brody's Notes... Juan "Casper" Martinez Matos- Alleged Murderer Of Gay Student Jailed On $4 million Bail

Juan Martinez-Matos is escorted to Bail Hearing by Police Detectives.  Photo By Tony Zayas The Associated Press

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Nov 19 | The dismembered body of 19-year-old college student Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado was discovered November 14th alongside a road near the interior town of Cayey. Lopez was widely known as a volunteer for organisations advocating HIV prevention and gay rights, and activists are planning remembrance vigils for him in cities including San Juan, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

The suspect, 26-year-old Juan Martinez-Matos, was arrested earlier this week and allegedly confessed to killing Lopez and mutilating his body. He was charged with first-degree murder and weapons violations and was admitted last night to jail in The Spoons, in Ponce, Puerto Rico after failure to pay a bail bond of $ 4 million that was imposed by judge Madeline Guayama.
Martinez-Matos met Lopez while looking for women Thursday night in an area known for prostitution according to prosecutor Jose Bermudez Santos. He said the case was submitted to Judge Guayama since the victim's body was found in Cayey located in that region of the judiciary. However, during the course of the investigation, it emerged that the murder occurred in Cidra, thus it was decided to move the case to the regional judicial circuit court of Caguas and the preliminary hearing will be held on December 7 at the judicial center there.

Santos said the suspect confessed to stabbing Lopez, who was dressed as a woman, after discovering he was a man. According to the prosecutor, what is also claimed by Martínez-Matos, is that they went to a room in his parents' house in the neighborhood Beatriz de Cidra, used cocaine and upon termination of the drug, Steven George demanded money for sex. "That's the version he (Martinez), stressed, " said Santos, "There is not a shred of evidence to support a claim of self defense."

Martínez-Matos, who is married with children, confessed to killing the victim with a stab wound to the neck. He then beheaded, dismembered him, and dumped the body in a spot where he tried to burn it .

"He has a deep-seated rage," Santos said in remarks reported by the local newspaper El Nuia.

LGBT Activists on the island are outraged that prosecutors have not yet decided whether or not to prosecute Martinez-Matos under the newly enacted Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Law passed by Congress & signed by President Obama last month.

"All the information we have is very clear that this is indeed a hate crime," said Pedro Julio Serrano, a Puerto Rico native who is a spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "A 2002 hate crime law in this Puerto Rico has not been applied to any cases involving sexual orientation or gender identity despite calls to use it more aggressively," he remarked.

A suspect convicted of a hate crime offence as defined by the 2002 law, as part of another crime , automatically faces the maximum penalty for the underlying crime. For murder, that would be life in prison.