Puerto Rican tourist found dead in Laureles hotel, Medellín: scopolamine suspected
Gustavo Javier Rodríguez Meléndez, aged 53, was found lifeless in his room. Security cameras captured his last images alive on Saturday night.
Security cameras record final moments of Puerto Rican man killed in Laureles
Security cameras at a shop in the Laureles neighbourhood of Medellín recorded the final moments alive of Puerto Rican citizen Gustavo Javier Rodríguez Meléndez, aged 53, on the evening of Saturday 17 October. According to elcolombiano.com, the man was found dead inside his hotel room hours after that recording, apparently as a result of being administered a substance similar to scopolamine.
The images, known exclusively by Q'hubo and El Colombiano, show Rodríguez Meléndez entering the establishment at 9:44 p.m. to collect some keys he had left during a previous visit. After a brief interaction with the shop owner, the man left. This was the last known visual record of him alive.
According to accounts gathered by the outlet, after passing by the shop, the foreigner would have met with a friend at a commercial establishment in the area. From the following day there was no further contact with him.
Discovery of the body
On Monday morning, around 9:00 a.m., the driver who transported him during his visits to the city went to the hotel located at carrera 71A with circular 5, in Laureles, after receiving no response to his messages or those sent by the victim's wife from Puerto Rico. After insisting with the establishment's management, they managed to enter the room, where they found Rodríguez Meléndez's lifeless body. The room was in disorder and several valuable items belonging to the victim had disappeared.
Agents from the CTI of the Prosecutor's Office conducted a judicial inspection of the body and determined that the man was murdered, apparently through the administration of a substance with effects similar to those of scopolamine. The forensic work of the Institute of Legal Medicine will need to establish precisely what substance was administered to him and what the exact cause of death was.
Regular visits to Medellín
Rodríguez Meléndez had arrived in the city the previous Friday. According to the report, he regularly visited Medellín and had arranged several itineraries with the same driver for Sunday. At the time of publication, the authorities had not managed to identify the person who would have entered the room with him during the early hours of Sunday.
Four murders of foreigners in the Aburrá Valley
With this case, the authorities are counting four murders of non-Venezuelan foreigners in the Aburrá Valley, two of them occurring in the last month. The previous case was that of American citizen Jarals Marvin Soucy, aged 78, found wrapped in a bag in a residence in the municipality of Envigado.
Source: Google News CO — Crime