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 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. Martínez reportedly said he killed López after he discovered he was a man. And his lawyers tried to insinuate in court yesterday the teenager had agreed to have sex in exchange for drugs. There is obviously nothing that can ever justify this horrendous murder, and Pedro Julio Serrano of Puerto Rico Para Tod@s made this point explicitly clear in a blog he posted earlier this morning.

“We cannot allow anyone to indict a victim who is no longer alive and can no longer defend himself,” he wrote. “We cannot forget there was a criminal who committed this hate crime: Juan Martínez Matos.”

Irregardless of whether López prostituted himself or took drugs, the fact remains a brutal crime took place. His family and friends have suffered a tremendous and entirely unnecessary loss. And they deserve nothing less than full justice under the law.