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00:00Say his name!
00:01Julio Ramirez!
00:02What happened to Julio?
00:04Was his death just an unfortunate accident?
00:06I wasn't buying that.
00:08Who were these people?
00:09How did this happen?
00:10He was supposed to call me back, and...
00:13Sorry.
00:17There was the very clear voice saying,
00:20Mom, you need to go get the people that did this.
00:23The first victim was a young social worker.
00:25Now we're hearing about a man visiting from Washington, DC.
00:28The possible connection sent a shockwave of fear
00:31through the gay community.
00:32It's terrifying.
00:33There will be future targets.
00:34I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
00:37The callousness and the blatant disregard for people
00:42was terrifying.
00:44It's sickening.
00:45And for what?
00:46The cool video on social media?
00:48The big question is,
00:50were these victims of homicides, and how do you prove it?
00:58New York City has long been a safe haven
01:23for the city's thriving gay community.
01:25But just as Pride Month was about to begin in 2022,
01:29something went very, very wrong.
01:31A string of mysterious deaths put the entire gay community on edge.
01:37Nightlife is a hallmark of this city,
01:40and now it felt like it had become a hunting ground.
01:43That was a very scary thought.
01:51In 2022, 25-year-old Julio Ramirez is the son of immigrants from El Salvador,
01:56and he was born and raised in Long Island.
01:58My brother Julio was seven years younger than me,
02:01and since he was a little baby,
02:03I would take care of him, and we'd do all kinds of things together.
02:07Since he was a little boy, he liked to dance, and he was always silly.
02:11He was just so vibrant.
02:13Julio enjoyed school.
02:15He put his best effort in everything that he did.
02:19He knew he wanted to go to college and gain a good career.
02:23Julio and I met during our freshman year at the University of Buffalo.
02:28One of the girls in the dorm introduced me to him,
02:31and that night I put him in my cell phone as Julio, mi mejor amigo,
02:35my best friend in Spanish, and we were just inseparable from then on.
02:39Julio was very outgoing, very sassy.
02:42Please don't hit my shirt.
02:44All right?
02:45I'm making it sad.
02:46And the most caring person ever.
02:47If I needed him, he'd be there.
02:49Julio, he actually first came out to me.
02:52I was the first person that knew.
02:54And I just was like, okay, that's cool.
02:58I was more happy that he trusted me that much,
03:02where he would share things like that with me.
03:04And I remember him telling my parents.
03:06And my mom just hugged him, and she said, okay, baby.
03:10In 2021, Julio graduates from the University of Buffalo
03:14with master's degrees in public health and social work.
03:17Soon after that, he relocates to New York City,
03:20where he takes a job as a psychiatric social worker.
03:23When he moved into his apartment in Brooklyn,
03:26he was excited to go out and make new memories.
03:29And he had made a ton of friends in the short time
03:32that he lived in the city.
03:34On April 20th, I spoke with him.
03:38He was telling me how he was at work,
03:41and he was going to stay late that night.
03:44And I said, all right, so I'll call you later.
03:47He said, yeah, all right, go for it.
03:49And that's the last thing I heard him say.
03:53Let's try and get him on his back on the chair.
04:06In downtown Manhattan, a uniformed officer gets flagged down
04:09on Stanton Street by a taxi cab driver.
04:12In the back of the cab, the uniformed guys find a 20- to 30-year-old male,
04:19unconscious, unresponsive.
04:21The uniformed officer's tried CPR to revive him.
04:24They call EMS to the scene.
04:25Yeah, be advised.
04:26A native male appears not breathing.
04:28He's starting CPR now.
04:29EMS transports this unidentified male to Beth Israel Hospital,
04:34where he's ultimately pronounced deceased.
04:38At the hospital, they found that he didn't have any identification on him.
04:41No cell phone, no wallet, no credit cards, nothing.
04:43So the case was taken as a John Doe investigation.
04:47I woke up on Thursday, April 21st, and I saw that I had the notification
05:04that Julio's location was turned off for me.
05:07We always shared our location with each other, just making sure that we were safe.
05:11And so I texted him, and he didn't say anything to me.
05:16And I figured his phone was turned off.
05:19Later that evening, my mom told me that she hadn't heard from him,
05:25which was strange because he called my mom every day.
05:28And she was getting a little worried.
05:31We talk all day, every day.
05:34And so by that night, I knew that something's wrong.
05:37And so I called Julio's mom, and she hadn't heard from him either.
05:40And she was just crying on the phone because she was so worried.
05:45And then his job called, saying that he didn't go into work.
05:51That's when things got very worrying.
05:56We had his friends in Brooklyn calling hospitals and the NYPD,
06:01and they were supposed to call me back.
06:03And the next.
06:12Sorry.
06:13After reaching out to multiple hospitals, Julio's friends learn that a deceased John Doe has been taken to Beth Israel Hospital.
06:29And authorities are asking for information about Julio's next of kin.
06:34On the 22nd, my dad got a call asking if he had a son named Julio Ramirez.
06:42And he said, yeah, that's my son.
06:44And it was a medical examiner calling to let him know that Julio was at the medical examiner's office, and he's dead.
06:51They said, you need to come identify his body.
06:56It was very abrupt.
06:59My dad called me, and when he told me, that was just very, like, unbelievable.
07:09Like, I can't even explain it.
07:12I can't even explain what, uh, how that felt.
07:19Julio's mother called, and she told me, he's dead.
07:24I was just screaming.
07:28I just kept saying, like, why, why, why?
07:30When we finally get a call from the police, we learned that Julio had been out the night of the 20th, going into the 21st.
07:40And, uh, around 3 a.m., he was found dead in a cab.
07:45They had spoke to the cab driver, who said that he picked him up with three other people from Hell's Kitchen.
07:53They were driving downtown.
07:55The three guys asked the cab driver to stop and let them out.
07:59And they just left my brother in there.
08:02The cab driver continued to drive, but, like, two blocks later, he flagged down the police officer because my brother was unresponsive.
08:10The police said that it was just a simple OD, that was it.
08:14I was definitely shocked when they talked about overdosing, and a lot of Julio's friends couldn't believe it either.
08:20When we talked to the police about it, they told us, sometimes you don't really know your family.
08:25But I wasn't buying that. You know, I knew my brother. We were very close.
08:31Who were these people? How did he OD? How did this happen?
08:35In order to determine the cause of death, the cops and medical examiner need the toxicology report back.
08:43The problem is, it really is not fast to give full toxicology report.
08:47You can get a preliminary one quite quickly, but, you know, to find out the exact dosage and exactly what he had in his system,
08:53it can take several months and even up to a year.
08:55So, in the weeks after Julio's death, all his family can do is wait for answers.
09:00Friday, May 27th, my son John Umberger was coming up to New York City from Washington for Memorial Day weekend
09:16because he was seeing friends from college.
09:19And he was going to stay in a townhouse that his company had been renovating on East 61st Street.
09:28Friday night, John was enjoying New York City nightlife, having dinner with friends,
09:34and then later, dancing at the Q, a gay club in the Hell's Kitchen area.
09:40While at the Q, he did send a text of him dancing and having a great time.
09:46Saturday morning around 9.15, he stopped sharing his location.
10:02I'd send a text to him saying, hey, how's it going?
10:06He didn't respond, but my text kept saying red.
10:11Monday the 30th, John was to get back to Washington, D.C.
10:17And I still had no word from him.
10:19And so that evening, I left a frantic message of, hey, I'm really getting concerned.
10:24Just please let me know you made it back to D.C.
10:29By Wednesday morning, June 1st, I was in panic mode.
10:35These are some of my favorite photos of John because they capture him at a given moment in his life.
10:51This little one from just before first grade just shows his mischievous little grin.
10:59And yet, it was just a sweetie pie.
11:01And I think if you look at all these pictures, that's what you consistently see.
11:06When John was 15, he shared with me that he was gay.
11:14And it was just beautiful.
11:16John Umberger graduated from Georgia Tech in 2015 and spent most of his career living in Washington, D.C., working in conservative politics.
11:25This was John's last dinner in D.C. before he left to come up to New York the next morning.
11:35And it was a happy time.
11:37John and I were very close.
11:40We probably talked to each other every other day, but he would always stay in touch with me.
11:46So by Wednesday, June 1st, it is now day six, and I have not heard a word from John.
11:54And I was horribly alarmed, which led to calling the New York Police Department.
12:02John's mother calls the police precinct closest to the townhouse and says,
12:06please go do a welfare check on my son.
12:08Shortly thereafter, I received a phone call informing me that John's body had been found inside the townhouse.
12:25I collapsed, um, in tears and horrifying, sobs, and my world stopped.
12:42Once Mr. Umberger was found deceased, the 19th precinct detective squads responded.
12:48But there was no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle.
12:53There was no signs of criminality that could be ascertained at that time.
12:58Later that afternoon, detectives called and indicated that John had died of a drug overdose.
13:08That did not make sense.
13:11There is no way he would have done that.
13:14I immediately told the police about the red flags with John's phone, text messages being read, but still no John.
13:23That is when I learned the phone is missing.
13:26His wallet was there, but all debit and credit cards, as well as his driver's license, were also missing.
13:34And in that moment, I realized something evil had caused the death of my son.
13:40Based on the level of decomposition, the medical examiner believes that John Umberger likely died in the early morning hours of May 28th.
13:49That's four days before his body was discovered.
13:52The medical examiner knew that this was a suspicious DOA, but they would have to determine the cause and manner of death based on the facts of the case and the toxicology report.
14:06Toxicology can take six months, but in 2022, we're coming out of COVID, so they had no idea when this toxicology would come back.
14:16The weekend after his body was found, seven of us came to New York to retrieve John's body and find out if we could get any indication of what had happened.
14:31I decided I would go to the morgue and sit with John by myself to have a moment with him.
14:46I laid across his body and said, I need you to tell me everything that you can, and I need to know what happened.
15:04And there was the very clear voice that only a mother can recognize from her child of saying, I didn't do this to myself and mom, you need to go get the people that did this to me.
15:17At that point, I made the decision we needed to show up at the 19th precinct.
15:24So that Sunday afternoon, seven of us walked in, requested to meet with the detective, and we began to present our knowledge of who John was and that on no planet would John have overdosed.
15:43And he stopped us and said, I do see your point.
15:48And he decided that maybe we were right and said that homicide detectives would be assigned to John's case.
15:59When we were assigned to the Umberger case, it was not considered a homicide, but because his cell phone, his credit cards and cash was missing.
16:08We started looking at John Umberger's credit report.
16:12I was able to determine what credit cards he had.
16:15And then I immediately placed a call to American Express.
16:20I asked, was there any activity between the night of May 27th and June 1st?
16:25They checked and they said there were transactions that were made, but we cannot release any further information without a subpoena.
16:32I suspected right off the bat that maybe he was out hanging out or he was with somebody, overdosed, and now somebody that he knew that didn't necessarily kill him was now having a spending spree.
16:45The detectives submit a subpoena for John Umberger's credit card history.
16:50While they await approval, a major gathering in Hell's Kitchen takes over the New York airwaves.
16:56Tonight, a gathering in Hell's Kitchen, one of the last places that Julio Ramirez was seen alive.
17:01About a month and a half after my brother died, we didn't know anything.
17:06We kept calling the police, trying to tell them, like, listen, something is wrong. Like, my brother didn't do drugs. Like, it wasn't an accidental overdose.
17:15And I felt like nobody was really listening.
17:19Julio had been at this gay bar in Hell's Kitchen.
17:22Video surveillance of Julio Ramirez leaving the bar with three unidentified men.
17:25Why did he not have his cell phone nor his wallet on him?
17:28Julio's father says, what did those people do? Who are these people?
17:32It was very frustrating, not knowing if we would ever find out what happened or who were these guys.
17:39But then shortly after Julio's death, we went to clean out his apartment and I got my hands on his computer.
17:45I opened a budgeting app and I saw all these different transactions and large amounts of money being transferred through Apple Pay and Zelle and cleaned out his bank account.
17:58Following his death, loved ones noticed more than $20,000 was transferred from his bank account.
18:03I called the detectives, but we didn't hear anything of the investigation.
18:07So, in June, his friends suggested that we should bring it to the media, we should bring awareness, we should make noise about it to get the cops to pay more attention.
18:17So, his friends put together a vigil.
18:21Say his name! Julio Ramirez!
18:24What exactly happened to Julio? Was he targeted or is his death just an unfortunate accident?
18:28It was amazing the amount of people that saw that Julio was a person who had people that loved him and he deserved justice.
18:37In early June, I was watching the local news and I saw that there was a vigil for an individual named Julio Ramirez who was found deceased in a cab.
18:50And I said to Detective Rose, hey, these are similar circumstances to the Umberger death.
18:58These were both gay men at nightclubs in Hell's Kitchen.
19:02We believe they both overdosed on a substance.
19:06Their phones were stolen and their cards used without authorization.
19:11It became apparent that it was the same M.O. in both cases.
19:21It was gay pride month of 2022.
19:24So the case got a lot of media, especially when public was made aware of the connection between the Umberger case and the Ramirez case.
19:33The first victim was a young social worker from Brooklyn.
19:37Now we're hearing about the death of a man visiting from Washington, D.C.
19:41As news starts to spread, bar owners and event planners are also stressing safety while out.
19:45The gay community felt this isn't just two random events.
19:50Either they were targeted or something's going on here.
19:53It's terrifying. I fear that there will be future targets.
19:56We need to speak up and we need to look out for each other.
19:59While the possible connection between the Umberger and Ramirez cases sends a shockwave of fear through the gay community,
20:05two days into their investigation, the subpoena comes through and detectives are able to review John Umberger's credit history.
20:11What they discover is that there are nearly $11,000 worth of charges racked up after his death.
20:17There were several transactions at some liquor stores, some retail purchases, but based on John Umberger's date of death,
20:25were able to determine that his last location where he legitimately used his credit card was the Q Club.
20:38Within an hour, we're down at the Q Club.
20:41And we reviewed surveillance video from the night of May 27th to May 28th.
20:46Homicide detectives Alex Aguro and Randy Rose find video footage of John at the nightclub.
20:52Everything seems normal. There's no violence, no conflicts.
20:55Then we started watching the video from outside on the sidewalk when he left.
20:59And we see two separate individuals, one looked like a male black, the other one looked like he could have been a male white, male Hispanic,
21:07actually watching John walking up north, away from the queue.
21:12So after that, we see the same two guys walking a block or so away, where they ultimately approach John.
21:19We then observed Mr. Umberger with these two unidentified individuals walk out of the field of view of the camera about five in the morning.
21:29With that, we go back to the office. We call the 19th precinct and we say, hey, did you do a canvas looking for any surveillance video in the vicinity of his residence?
21:41And the 19th squad had done a video canvas and they recovered some video.
21:45At about six in the morning, a red Dodge Durango pulls up and John gets out of the car with these two same males that we saw on the video in front of the queue.
21:56And they all go inside, all three of them, to John's townhouse building.
22:01About an hour later, the two unidentified individuals leave the townhouse, get back in this red Durango and leave the location.
22:11And we were like, okay, these are probably the last two guys that saw him alive.
22:17So we have to identify them.
22:20So we concentrate on that red Durango.
22:23Automated license plate readers are everywhere in New York City.
22:28They're at every major intersection.
22:29I was able to use the license plate readers to figure out that it had a Florida license plate that was registered to a rental car company in the Battery Park.
22:39I contacted the rental car company and they were able to provide me with a photocopy of the driver's license for the person that rented the car.
22:51That was Robert DeMayo, who looked really, really similar to one of the two people that we had seen on surveillance video.
23:02The rental car company was also able to provide video footage of the actual rental.
23:10And by luck, we see this guy renting the car wearing the same clothing that he was wearing in the videos on the night that he was with John Humberger.
23:21We started looking into Robert DeMayo and he had some prior arrests, nothing really crazy.
23:31With 34-year-old DeMayo identified, detectives dig deeper into John's financial transactions.
23:38In addition to fraudulent purchases at liquor and retail stores made after John's death, there are several direct transactions to a phone number.
23:46There were several transactions to the total of like $1,400 made from John's American Express card to a Jay Kwan Hamilton who lives in Brooklyn.
23:56Jay Kwan Hamilton matches the description of the person that we saw in the video with Robert DeMayo and John Humberger both outside the queue and in front of John's building.
24:10Jay Kwan Hamilton does have a criminal record.
24:13Theft, domestic battery, but nothing that screams murderer.
24:18Then Detective Rose makes a stunning revelation.
24:21I found financial transactions going to that same phone number belonging to Jay Kwan Hamilton from Julio Ramirez.
24:31Apparently, Jay Kwan Hamilton had conducted financial transactions with both deceased individuals' credit cards after they died.
24:39That's not a coincidence.
24:43The big question is, were they victims of homicides?
24:47And how do you prove it?
24:49How do you know that they didn't voluntarily ingest the unknown drugs that ultimately killed them?
24:54Because remember, there's still no determination via the medical examiner for cause and manner of death in both cases.
25:00So the only other way to determine this would be to find other victims, assuming that there were other victims who survived.
25:10And we were going to do that by following the money.
25:12Detectives Argero and Rose investigate the bank accounts of Jay Kwan Hamilton and Robert DeMayo, specifically looking at incoming funds in the past 12 months.
25:25We started looking at who funds came from to see if these folks were victims of crimes.
25:31Quite a few of them were.
25:33Quite a few of them reported going to a nightclub, going home with somebody passing out, waking up and then realizing property was missing.
25:40Cards were used or that their phones were stolen and used without authorization.
25:45Looking through the case files, I find some video from March of 2022 where Jay Kwan Hamilton is with an unidentified male talking to a guy outside a hotel for what seems like 30 seconds.
26:03And then they're wheeling this guy in completely unconscious, on a luggage cart, past the front desk, into the elevator, upstairs, into his hotel room.
26:19And then they come out, the two of them, a couple of minutes later, like nothing happened.
26:24Somehow they convinced the woman at the front desk that the man had simply drank too much.
26:28The whole thing is so incredibly brazen.
26:30Luckily, the guy on the luggage cart did not die.
26:33And when he calls the cops, he says that when he woke up, he saw his phones gone, his credit cards are gone, realized immediately that he had been robbed.
26:42But at that point, they had racked up all these charges on his credit card.
26:46As we're going through those records, we're finding that money is going from Robert DeMayo and Jay Kwan Hamilton's accounts to several other people profiting from all of these robberies.
26:58By following the paper trail, they discover that there's three other men involved, Jacob Barroso, Shane Hoskins, and Andre Butts.
27:05Based on financial transactions, about 15 other victims were tied to this crew.
27:13And without a doubt, they targeted gay males.
27:16In the spring of 2022, the crews believed to have stolen tens of thousands of dollars from their victims.
27:22So at this point, we have to, as expeditiously as possible, prove a murder case knowing that these people are out there and that this might happen again.
27:32So we were able to establish probable cause on Robert DeMayo for one of the non-fatal robberies.
27:39So we figured out that he lived in downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo.
27:42And we tried to track down Robert DeMayo, and the hope was that when that happened, he would be arrested and we would be able to take his phone as evidence for that non-fatal robbery case.
27:54And hopefully do a search warrant on it and learn a little bit more about how and why all these cases went down.
28:01By Independence Day of 2022, detectives catch a break.
28:10Fourth of July, I'm in my backyard barbecuing.
28:14And my phone rings.
28:16And I got a call telling me that Robert DeMayo was apprehended in the 84th precinct.
28:24And he was going to be out of custody in 24 hours.
28:29I looked at my wife and kids and I was like, yo, I gotta go to Brooklyn right now.
28:34And I left and got to the 84th precinct and sat down and chopped it up with Robert DeMayo for about a half an hour.
28:43And somehow during the interview, John's case did come up.
28:48It just led that direction.
28:50I wanted him to identify Jaquan.
28:52And I showed him a picture.
28:54And he goes, oh, yeah, I know that guy.
28:57I know him as Woopty.
28:58He wouldn't give me his legal name.
29:01He ends up telling me that he and Woopty were in the apartment with John.
29:07And that they had been partying.
29:09And at some point, he hears somebody snort something.
29:12And then Woopty comes out and says, yo, let's go.
29:17And they get up to leave.
29:18And he saw John conscious and alive and waving goodbye to him as they left.
29:24When DeMayo's phone was forensically looked at for the grand larceny, Detective Rose found evidence that proved Robert DeMayo's lying to his face.
29:39So I'm flipping through these pictures on DeMayo's cell phone.
29:42And I see what looks like the photos that the patrol officers took when they first found John in the apartment.
29:48And I click on it.
29:49And it's a video of the inside of John Umberger's apartment.
29:57Taken by Robert DeMayo with John Umberger dead on the bed.
30:06And my jaw just dropped.
30:10And I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
30:24These guys put themselves in this apartment and filmed it with this guy dead on the bed next to them.
30:33They just had a blatant disregard for the fact that they just killed somebody.
30:39That's a smoking gun.
30:41I knew that I had these guys dead to rights.
30:44But in order to approve a murder, you need the medical examiner to rule the cause of death a homicide.
30:54Because New York City has no cash bail, DeMayo can only be held for 24 hours on grand larceny charges before police have to release him.
31:02So DeMayo remains a free man.
31:04But then after several months, the final toxicology reports for both John Umberger and Julio Ramirez are completed.
31:12The results showed similar chemicals in their system.
31:16And amongst many were cocaine, fentanyl, and lidocaine.
31:21I've never seen lidocaine present in any overdose until this case.
31:26And it's what really linked the two toxicologies together.
31:31The lidocaine in itself won't necessarily cause death, but it, along with the fentanyl, slows your heart rate.
31:37It slows your breathing patterns.
31:38And in these particular cases, the combination was enough to slow their systems down to such a state that they just didn't wake up.
31:45The medical examiner said that the substances causing death were administered by another in the commission of a robbery, which then the medical examiner will now make the death certificate a homicide.
32:00Arrest warrants are issued for Jaquan Hamilton and Robert DeMayo for the murders of Julio Ramirez and John Umberger.
32:09While there are approximately 15 surviving robbery victims, at this time detectives only have enough to charge the men with robbery for two of those victims who choose to stay anonymous.
32:20Sometimes people don't report these things because they're embarrassed or they don't want their friends and family finding out about their orientation.
32:29So several of these victims didn't even make police reports.
32:32Arrest warrants are also issued for Jacob Oroso, who police believe was the third man in the cab with Julio the night he died, as well as for Shane Hoskins and Andre Butts, who received some of the funds linked to the robberies.
32:45Word spread and one by one, these perps slowly began to turn themselves in and Hamilton was still in the wind for a while, but by April 17th, all five suspects are in custody.
32:58These are deadly substances and it hurt a lot to know that somebody put that in my brother's body and then seeing their faces, it's like, wow, like, you are the worst kind of person.
33:14When you see the person who took the life of your child, you better believe there's a reaction.
33:21And it's one that is frightening.
33:24But anything that I sought to do hurts me and diminishes John's death.
33:31This is the first time the Manhattan DA's office was charging a murder case where a drug fentanyl was used as the weapon.
33:43This was a tough case and it took a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of dedication getting it ready for trial.
33:50Nearly two years after their arrest, the trial of Jaquan Hamilton, Robert DeMaio and Jacob Barrasso begins on January 22nd, 2025.
34:00Over the course of three weeks, the prosecution lays out their case.
34:03They use surveillance footage, financial records and the suspects own videos of the victims they targeted during the drug induced robberies.
34:11I'm trying to get money, man. Look, I'm trying to come up. Look, right there.
34:16We got lucky in the fact that these guys documented everything on their social media pages, from shopping sprees with the stolen credit cards, to stolen items that they bought, to the type of cars that they were driving around in, to their interactions with some of the non-fatal robbery victims.
34:33Bro, this is your fault. Look, it's right there. I turned the light on for you, man.
34:37Look, it's charging. Good. It's charging. Good.
34:39These were some very, very predatory and heinous guys.
34:42Oh, get the f*** up.
34:43And of course, there was the homicide of John Umberger.
34:48And the video footage of the death of Julio Ramirez.
34:54Seeing the body cam footage, that was very difficult.
34:59And also just knowing that it was for shoes, and going out to spas, and they just wanted to live this high life that they didn't earn.
35:09It was infuriating.
35:11I have to get these.
35:12These are only great.
35:14The defense concedes that their clients did rob the victims.
35:18But they argue that there's no evidence proving that they created the dangerous combination of drugs and gave them to the victims.
35:25I chose not, and I do not, wish to see the video footage.
35:32But it tells me pretty much all I need to know about who they are.
35:38They could have saved John, but they left his dead body there.
35:42And we don't need people like that amongst us.
35:47After four and a half hours of deliberation, the jury reaches a verdict.
35:54For me and so many others, there was so much prayer that there would be clarity in the jury's mind.
36:02And then hearing the jury's verdict, it was like an out-of-body experience.
36:09Good afternoon, some breaking news just into the newsroom.
36:20The three men accused of running a drugging and robbery scheme in the city have all been found guilty.
36:25It felt good to know that they were gonna get what they deserved.
36:29They were gonna pay for what they did.
36:31But he's still not here.
36:34And even my mom said something like,
36:36they're gonna spend their time in prison, but at least their mom can still come see them.
36:42You know, my boy is gone.
36:44The jury convicted three men who drugged and robbed people outside of Manhattan nightclubs.
36:50Two of them actually died.
36:52And these perpetrators are actually more conniving and heinous than the thug with the pistol.
36:58These folks used deception to hide their true intent,
37:02which was robbery of gay men who ultimately just ran into the wrong people.
37:08These guys don't see humanity.
37:11They did not see Julio and John as fellow men.
37:14They saw them as a means for them to get what they wanted.
37:17It's hard to comprehend.
37:19It's also, as a mother, just kind of sickening.
37:23All the work you do to raise a kid, all the love you pour into it.
37:27And to have them killed for what?
37:30To, you know, put a cool video on their social media?
37:34It really breaks your heart.
37:36On May 21st, 2025, Jaquan Hamilton and Robert DeMaio are sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
37:44Jacob Barrasso, the third perpetrator in Julio's death, is sentenced to 20 years to life.
37:50John's beautiful soul was taken from us so that tissues couldn't be bought.
38:00Justice is an elusive term.
38:03And when you think about justice for someone's death, there really is no justice.
38:10Perhaps John's death, Julio's death, may prevent other deaths.
38:15It doesn't matter whether you're gay or straight.
38:18Don't go off with strangers.
38:20There are bad people in our society, and we do have to be vigilant and be aware of it.
38:26John did more in 33 years than most people do in 66.
38:37And so we are very grateful for that.
38:41And he just was an adorable, fantastic human being.
38:46It's officially fall, y'all.
38:49And it was an honor and privilege to be his mother.
38:53We established the John Anthony Clary Umberger Foundation to help people in our communities
39:00and encourage people to be all they can and live who they are, to be healthy and happy,
39:06which was John's whole approach to life.
39:19Julio's death has been very hard on my parents.
39:22Especially my mom.
39:24He's very close with my mom.
39:26I mean, that was her youngest.
39:28That was her baby.
39:29My parents took us to El Salvador.
39:31And this is him riding in the back of a pickup truck over there.
39:35She's gotten better.
39:37I mean, it's been three years.
39:39But she'll never be the same, my mom.
39:43My mom.
39:44I come in every weekend, Saturday, Sunday, come in, bring flowers.
39:57Mom come to us and pray.
40:00Say, I bring coffee for you and for me.
40:03I bring two coffee.
40:04I sit here drinking.
40:06Make a laugh.
40:07Maybe, you know, good, happy, memory in my head.
40:13I don't know.
40:14It's not easy.
40:15It's not easy.
40:16But, yeah.
40:17That's what I do every weekend.
40:19If I could speak to Julio now, I would say to him how much we miss him and how he was the best brother, you know?
40:35Like, I couldn't be more thankful for my little brother.
40:41My brother was going to do so much good in this world.
40:45And even in that little bit of time that he had on this earth, he accomplished so much.
40:50He did so much.
40:52I want to be like him.
40:54He was a star.
40:56It looked like a hookup gone bad.
41:19This is some kind of sex apartment.
41:21They did swinger stuff.
41:23Did you ever do any sexual things in there?
41:25Yes.
41:26Eventually, we'll know the truth.
41:27So, why did you want to speak to us today?
41:29Basically, to give Mike his choice.
41:32Well, what do you believe happened that night?
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