Four weeks ago, Jorge Diaz-Johnston's tennis rackets were stolen from the basement of his Tallahassee home, followed three days later by his car. On January 8, garbage collectors discovered the body of America's gay marriage champion in a landfill in Baker, Florida. After a missing person report, the Tallahassee Police Department had been looking for the 54-year-old man for days. "We do not assume that this murder was an accidental act," said the police after the autopsy on Tuesday. How and when Diaz-Johnston died, however, remained open. The Tallahassee Police Department is investigating in all directions.
Diaz-Johnston, a brother of former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, rose to prominence in 2014 as an advocate for gay marriage. Along with his partner Don Johnston and five other same-sex couples, he sued the Miami-Dade County Registry Office for refusing them marriage licenses. A few months before the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in America, Diaz-Johnston fought for the right to marry his partner. A few weeks later, Miami-Dade legalized same-sex marriage, and then a federal court lifted Florida's ban on gay marriage.
After the landmark judgment, Diaz-Johnston walked down the aisle with his partner Johnston in March 2015. As the newspaper "Tallahassee Democrat" reported, he is said to have separated from his husband a few months ago. In early October, Diaz-Johnston moved into his own apartment on Alachua Avenue, enrolled in a religious studies program at Florida State University, and got a job at a law firm. He was last seen alive near the chancellery on the afternoon of January 3rd.
Neighbors recalled the car of one of the 54-year-old's roommates being parked in a secluded spot behind the house in the days following his disappearance.
Tallahassee police are now trying to reconstruct how Diaz-Johnston's body ended up at the Baker landfill, 150 miles away on the Alabama border -- and whether the theft of his car and tennis equipment had anything to do with the assassination of the gay leader.