Law enforcement stated they’d classified the deaths as a detest criminal activity following stays of two women are present in a poorly burned vehicles the other day.

Weekly following the systems of two transgender people happened to be found in a badly burned car in Puerto Rico, law enforcement mentioned Thursday which they had arrested two guys associated with the killings and had turned them up to the F.B.I.

The people, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, had been used into guardianship on Wednesday but I have not been recharged, in accordance with Capt. Teddy Morales, the main of criminal research the police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s east coast, in which the women’s remains were found on April 22.

He stated the F.B.I. had bought out the way it is and ended up being investigating Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.

“We become classifying it as a detest crime since they had been socializing making use of the subjects, and when they realized these people were transgender people, they chose to eliminate them,” Captain Morales stated on Thursday.

The authorities said these were awaiting autopsy brings about decide how the women was killed. Activists have identified the ladies as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two pals exactly who stayed in New York City. Her remains comprise discovered after an individual called 911 to document a burned vehicle under a bridge on a desolate street in Humacao, prior to 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales stated.

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon have been socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez regarding the evening before they were slain and are recorded using one associated with women’s social media account, chief Morales said.

He stated law enforcement had in addition tied up Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon on the killings through surveillance camera video footage and “scientific facts,” that he dropped to detail. Mr. Pagan Bonilla admitted to playing the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon transformed themselves in, he stated.

Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman your F.B.I.’s San Juan area office, dropped to talk about the arrests but stated the agency regularly collaborates with local, state and federal agencies.

“The agency was and will often be into violent behavior that could fall within federal legislation,” she said. “However, our very own plan was we really do not verify or refuse the presence of research, to protect the integrity of any possible investigative effort.”

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never straight away getting attained for discuss Thursday night, and it also had not been instantly obvious should they have solicitors.

In the event that men are recharged, it could represent a switching part of the control of criminal activities against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, with a disturbing history of physical violence against homosexual and transgender group, activists stated.

Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez were investigate the site the next and next transgender everyone slain in Puerto Rico in the last two months, activists mentioned. They certainly were also thought to be the 7th and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming visitors to being killed in the us this year, in line with the peoples legal rights venture.

In the past 15 several months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. people have already been killed in Puerto Rico, in accordance with Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay rights activist. Just about three on the deaths continue to be unsolved, he said.

“These arrests include a step in the proper movement, however these murders have to be prosecuted as dislike crimes,” Mr. Serrano stated. “We desire the government in order to complete the investigations during the various other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. group in the area and serve fairness for all of those.”

Ms. Velazquez stayed in Queens and Ms. Pelaez when you look at the Bronx. Both got not too long ago traveled to Puerto Rico, plus they were planning to fly back into ny later this period, according to nearest and dearest and activists.

Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, mentioned Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon comprise arrested after an area radio section posted imagery of those on Facebook and individuals began to name the facility to recognize all of them.

“We include super appreciative on the services the officials and the neighborhood put in discover just who performed this,” she stated on Thursday.

She said the photographs originated from two video clips that Ms. Pelaez had posted on her behalf Snapchat and fb account, which demonstrated the woman and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.

“we watched the clips, therefore appeared like they certainly were hanging out along as company,” she stated. “It appeared normal. There was sounds playing into the back ground. Every Person seemed fine.”

She stated the police got informed her families best that men were in national guardianship.

The killings came four weeks after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, is murdered in Moca, P.R., based on the Human liberties Campaign.

In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a popular figure on Puerto Rico social media marketing who had been transgender and homeless, was actually shot to death after a McDonald’s client reported that Ms. Negron got spied on the in the women’s area.

Ms. Negron’s last moments — presented for the headlights of a car amid a cackle of laughter — were posted on social networking, an undeniable fact that activists said underscored the impunity homophobic assailants feel whenever committing such crimes.