The friend of a Northern Virginia man who was killed last week claims he may have been targeted due to his sexual orientation.
Police found the body of 24-year-old Jose Escobar Menendez, of Winchester, on the roadway along Emerald Point Terrace, near Winding Road, in Sterling, Virginia, around 3:30 a.m. last Wednesday.
Authorities have not yet revealed the cause of death in the case.
“This remains a very active investigation, and at this time the motive is unclear,” Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, told theΒ Loudoun Times-Mirror. “There is no indication there is a threat to the community.”
No information on a possible suspect has been released by police at this time.Β
But a woman, going by the Twitter name @lesliecobenas, who describes herself as Menendez’s friend, says he was gay and that she fears he may have been the victim of a hate crime.
In a now-deleted tweet, she claimed that Menendez’s body was in “very bad shape,” but declined to say how he died.
“We know it was a homicide, but no one has any idea what his whereabouts were that night or with whom,β she said in the deleted tweet.
“He was murdered & we believe it was due to his sexuality…. We think he met up with someone off of a dating app.”
The woman told theΒ Times-MirrorΒ in an interview that Menendez was an “amazing friend.”
“He was so sweet — always happy and cheerful,” she said. “HeΒ was always that person to hype you up. He just wanted everyone to have a good time.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Menendez’s funeral costs, and had raised more than $12,000 as of Monday evening.
The organizer of the page, Ricky Alvarenga, says he is a cousin of Menendez and has asked for respect and privacy for the family.Β
“We are as a family completely devastated and broken and the last thing that we would ever expect was to have to be making accommodations for this tragedy,” he wrote.
“Which this is the reason I am fundraising to help out the most that we can during the time that was already devastating for us.
“Please, we appreciate any help and from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much. #JusticeForJose.”
Twelve students at Salisbury University in Maryland face hate crime charges for allegedly targeting a gay man on Grindr and luring him to an apartment where they viciously assaulted him.
Seven students associated with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and five others are accused of creating a fake profile on Grindr to lure the man -- whose age, name, and other identifying information is not being revealed at this time -- to an off-campus apartment.
The students reportedly posed as a 16-year-old boy -- the age of consent in Maryland -- and sought to arrange a meeting under "false pretenses," according to a press release posted to Facebook by the Salisbury Police Department.Β
A California man with neo-Nazi ties convicted of murdering a gay, Jewish University of Pennsylvania student has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Samuel Woodward, 27, was convicted in July for the 2018 fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein. He was sentenced last Friday in a Southern California courtroom.
Woodward stabbed the college sophomore, with whom he had attended high school, 28 times in the face and head and buried Bernstein's body in a shallow grave.Β
During sentencing, Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger said that evidence presented at trial showed Woodward had planned the murder. She refused to override the jury's findings that the crime had been motivated, in part, by Bernstein being gay. She denied Woodward probation, noting that he had not shown any signs of remorse for the crime, which she called a "true tragedy."
A South Carolina man has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a Black transgender woman with whom he was romantically involved.
Daqua Lameek Ritter was convicted on hate crime charges in February following a four-day trial for the murder of then-24-year-old Dime Doe, also known as Pebbles "LaDime" Doe, a Black transgender woman from Allendale, South Carolina.
Ritter's conviction was the first guilty verdict for violent acts committed against a transgender person under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Passed in 2009, the act expanded federal hate crime laws to include incidents of violence against people based on their gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability status.
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