Jorge Diaz-Johnston.Photo: Tallahassee Police/Twitter
A statement from Tallahassee Police confirms that detectives are handling the death of Jorge Diaz-Johnston as a homicide.
Diaz-Johnston was last seen alive on Jan. 3. A missing persons alert was issued Jan. 8.
That same morning, Diaz-Johnston’s remains were discovered at the Springhill Landfill in Campbellton — more than an hour away from Tallahassee.
According to the statement, the body was found in a trash pile that had come from a public area at the landfill in Baker, which is located two hours from where Diaz-Johnston was last seen.
The body was formally identified on Wednesday.
According to theTallahassee Democrat, Diaz-Johnston was a plaintiff in a historic lawsuit that led to the legalization of same-sex marriages in Miami-Dade County.
The lawsuit, the paper reports, was initiated in 2014, when the victim and his husband, Don Diaz-Johnston, sued the county clerk’s office along with five other same-sex couples.
That year, a judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and a year later, Florida became the 36th state to allow gay couples to wed.
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“Jorge was a crucial part of this historic lawsuit that’s one of the biggest moments of the LGBTQ civil rights movement in Florida history,” Stratton Pollitzer, deputy director of Equality Florida, the state’s leading gay rights group,told the paper. “It’s incomprehensible to hear that one of our heroes has been taken from us.”
Diaz-Johnston was a recent doctoral student of religion at Florida State University. His brother, Manny Diaz, is the former mayor of Miami, and the new chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
Detectives urge anyone who may have information to call 850-891-4200, or make an anonymous tip toBig Bend Crime Stoppersat 850-574-TIPS.
source: people.com
