Gay Domestic Violence Alleged in Dismemberment of N.J. Man

he boyfriend Francisco Gonzalez Fuentes and another man were charged in Gonzalez's murder & dismemberment in suburban New Jersey, allegedly the result of an argument.

The bizarre murder apparently was the result of a domestic argument between the deceased and Pedro Garcia, who, police allege, stabbed and then dismembered Fuentes with a kitchen knife after a party at their apartment in Cliffside Park.

As reported by The Record, the major newspaper for the northeastern suburbs that ring New York City, Wilfredo Sanchez, also of Cliffside Park, witnessed the attack and then helped Garcia dismember the body.

The murder allegedly occurred Saturday night, Jan. 8. Garbage bags containing fragments of the body were found in two separate locations in the town.

"Even before the arrest on Tuesday, Gonzalez's brothers and sisters had pegged Garcia as the prime suspect and recoiled at the cruelty of the Salvadoran immigrant's killing," The Record reported.

"In El Salvador, where there is so much violence, I've never heard of a death like this one,'' Gonzalez's older brother, Fermin Gonzalez, told the newspaper. "This is a horror. This has no name."

The deceased was a chef at a local cafe. The Record noted that family and neighbors said the couple had a volatile relationship. The paper also said that Gonzalez, who was several older than Garcia, was much more comfortable being out.

Garcia was also an immigrant but appeared rootless. He has a 6-year-old child with a former live-in girlfriend. Gonzalez's family claimed that Garcia was only using Gonzalez and that they pleaded with him to leave the relationship.

Cliffside Park lies just inland from the Hudson River, next to Edgewater, which fronts New York City. The town of 23,000 has sizable Armenian and Hispanic populations.

The murder is eerily similar to another murder and dismemberment that apparently resulted from a gay domestic dispute between two partners wide apart in age. As reported Renato Seabra, a 20-year-old Portuguese model, is being charged with killing and castrating prominent Portuguese gay journalist Carlos Castro in an upscale hotel in New York's Times Square.

That murder took place two days after the murder of Gonzalez.

The issue of gay domestic violence is a volatile one. Some believe that such cases are under-reported because of shame on the part of the abused. Whatever the reason, no one doubts that gay-on-gay domestic violence represents a very real problem.