Law enforcement stated they had classified the deaths as a detest criminal activity following the stays of two lady had been within a severely burned vehicle the other day.

Each week after the body of two transgender women happened to be found in a severely burned auto in Puerto Rico, the authorities stated Thursday that they have arrested two males associated with the killings together with switched them to the F.B.I.

The boys, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19, comprise used into custody on Wednesday but have maybe not already been billed, based on Capt. Teddy Morales, the main of violent investigations the police in Humacao, on Puerto Rico’s eastern shore, the spot where the women’s remains comprise found on April 22.

The guy said the F.B.I. had taken over the actual situation and ended up being examining Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon for feasible civil rights violations.

“We include classifying it as a dislike criminal activity since they comprise interacting with all the subjects, as soon as they discovered these people were transgender females, they made a decision to eliminate them,” Captain Morales mentioned on Thursday.

The authorities mentioned these people were waiting for autopsy results to decide how the ladies was indeed slain. Activists have actually recognized the women as Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32, two company whom lived-in new york. Their particular stays happened to be located after someone known as 911 to report a burned vehicle under a bridge on a desolate highway in Humacao, right before 5 a.m. on April 22, master Morales stated.

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon were socializing with Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez from the night before they certainly were killed and comprise tape-recorded on a single in the women’s social media marketing accounts, chief Morales mentioned.

The guy said the authorities got in addition tied Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon on killings through surveillance camera video footage and “scientific evidence,” which he declined to outline. Mr. Pagan Bonilla confessed to taking part in the killings, and Mr. Diaz de Leon transformed himself in, the guy stated.

Limary Cruz-Rubio, a spokeswoman for your F.B.I.’s San Juan industry workplace, declined to discuss the arrests but stated the agency regularly collaborates with regional, state and federal firms.

“The agency is and can continually be interested in violent conduct that may fall within national jurisdiction,” she stated. “However, our rules are we really do not confirm or refuse the presence of research, to guard the stability of every possible investigative effort.”

Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon would never instantly be achieved for discuss Thursday nights, and it also was not instantly clear if they had attorneys.

When the men are recharged, it could represent a switching point in the handling of crimes against L.G.B.T.Q. people in Puerto Rico, which includes a disturbing reputation of violence against homosexual and transgender someone, activists mentioned.

Ms. Velazquez and Ms. Pelaez comprise the third and next transgender people murdered in Puerto Rico in the last 8 weeks, activists said. These were in addition considered the 7th and eighth transgender or gender-nonconforming individuals being murdered in the usa this current year, according to research by the individual legal rights venture.

Before 15 months, 10 L.G.B.T.Q. people have been slain in Puerto Rico, relating to Pedro Julio Serrano, a gay rights activist. All but three of this deaths remain unsolved, the guy said.

“These arrests is a step within the correct path, but these murders need to be prosecuted as detest crimes,” Mr. Serrano stated. “We desire government entities in order to complete the investigations during the various other seven murders of L.G.B.T.Q. everyone on the isle and offer fairness for many of those.”

Ms. Velazquez stayed in Queens and Ms. Pelaez inside the Bronx. Both got lately traveled to Puerto Rico, and additionally they are intending to travel back to ny later this thirty days, in accordance with relatives and activists.

Luz Melendez, 29, Ms. Pelaez’s relative, said Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon had been detained after a regional broadcast facility submitted pictures of those on Twitter and folks begun to call the station to determine them.

“We tend to be super appreciative with the work your officials while the society put in to acquire exactly who did this,” she said on Thursday.

She said the images originated two video clips that Ms. Pelaez had submitted on her behalf Snapchat and Facebook reports, which showed the lady and Ms. Velazquez interacting with Mr. Pagan Bonilla and Mr. Diaz de Leon.

“I saw the movies, therefore appeared like these people were hanging out collectively as buddies,” she mentioned. “It seemed typical. There is music playing from inside the credentials. Everyone felt fine.”

She stated the police have informed her group just that the boys comprise in federal guardianship.

The killings emerged four weeks after Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender people, ended up being murdered in Moca, P.R., according to the escort girl Meridian person liberties Campaign.

In March, Alexa Negron Luciano, a well-known figure on Puerto Rico social media marketing who was simply transgender and homeless, got recorded to death after a McDonald’s customer complained that Ms. Negron got spied on her behalf within the women’s space.

Ms. Negron’s final times — presented for the headlights of a motor vehicle amid a cackle of laughter — were uploaded on social media marketing, a fact that activists mentioned underscored the impunity homophobic attackers feeling when committing this type of crimes.