Yesterday, the body of senior Nicaraguan diplomat Cesar Mercado was found inside his Bronx apartment. His driver, scheduled to take him to the U.N. General Assembly, found the 34-year-old with his throat slashed behind an open door. A neighbor told NY1, "[Wednesday night] I heard a lot of things on the floor, like 'boom, boom,' but I don't know what they were doing. I heard somebody banging on the wall and all that and somebody screaming."
The Daily News reports, "Furniture was overturned, but there were no signs of robbery or forced entry, suggesting that if the diplomat was murdered, he might have known his killer." Cops were looking into whether a tryst went bad, combing through Mercado's computer and phone records," while the Post comes out and says, "Investigators are probing the possibility that the killing was caused by a gay relationship gone wrong, police sources said." A neighbor said, "I saw him often with young men who looked like they were unsavory," and the Post adds, "A co-worker told cops Mercado was depressed, lost weight and had recently said he had tested positive for AIDS, the sources said. Detectives are exploring the possibility he was murdered by someone outraged after he told them of his diagnosis, according to the sources said."
According to the Wall Street Journal, "Detectives recovered two knives—a 12-inch steak knife found at the side of a blood-filled bathroom sink and a 4- to 6-inch paring knife found in the sink. Mr. Mercado had deep lacerations to the neck and stab wounds to the abdomen." The neck lacerations were so deep that he was nearly decapitated.
Danilo Rosales Diaz, Nicaragua's Permanent Representative at the U.N, told the WSJ, "He was a very friendly person—somebody who was very pleasant to work with. He will be very much missed by his colleagues," and said Mercado handled the needs of Nicaraguans in the tri-state area. The police, who have no suspects yet, are reviewing video, but the video cameras in the building's lobby haven't worked for years.
