Overdoses of two men leaving Manhattan gay bars last spring found to be homicides
March 4, 2023, 10:08 a.m.
Two men who died of drug overdoses after leaving Manhattan gay bars last spring died by homicide, according to findings from New York City’s chief medical examiner.
Two men who died of drug overdoses after leaving Manhattan gay bars last spring died by homicide, according to findings from New York City’s chief medical examiner.
Julio Ramirez, a social worker from Queens, died from the effects of a concoction that included fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, lidocaine and ethanol, the medical examiner’s office said Friday. He was found dead in the back of a taxi cab in April shortly after leaving a gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen. Ramirez was 25.
A month later, John Umberger, a 33-year-old consultant from Washington, D.C., died after leaving another gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen. The medical examiner said Umberger died from the effects of a similar concoction that did not include heroin.
Both men had their bank accounts drained. The medical examiner determined their deaths to have occurred during drug-facilitated thefts.
The deaths of the two men heightened anxieties within the city’s gay community amid a monkeypox outbreak last year that disproportionately affected men who have sex with men.
Months after Ramirez and Umberger overdosed, the NYPD said in November they were investigating a series of robberies and assaults in Hell’s Kitchen that could potentially be linked to their deaths.