Victim’s mother feels bittersweet excuse after murder decision in gay bar

When Linda Clary mourned her son’s body last June, she begged him for answers.

“I need to know. What do you want to tell me?” She remembered what she said at the time. “What do I need to do? What’s happened?”

To her, his answer was clear: “Mom, I didn’t volunteer, I didn’t commit suicide, I fought, and you have to fight for me,” she said.

Now, almost a year of uncertainty after her 33-year-old son John Amberger was found dead in a Manhattan townhouse after a night out in a gay bar, Clary is finally getting some answers.

Last week, the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that the mysterious death of her son and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker who died in a separate but very similar incident, was a “drug theft” homicide. “At least five drugs were found in their systems, including fentanyl, lidocaine and cocaine.

Both men were found dead last spring after visiting LGBT venues in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. Both had their bank accounts emptied after their deaths.

As for Clary, at least one official has finally admitted what she says she “knew from the start”: her son was the victim of a murder. Her frustration echoed that of several gay men who told NBC News they experienced similar incidents between December 2021 and October 2022, saying the medical examiner’s ruling on the murder reignited concerns that authorities had initially ignored their cases.

To the police, “it looked like John went to a club, got robbed, emptied his wallet from his credit card – but he still had his wallet and his phone – and he came home and did a bunch of drugs because he was so depressed what happened,” Clary said, referring to her first conversation with the NYPD. “That’s where it was like, ‘Sorry, that’s not my baby.’ I assure you, if that had happened, John would not have done it.”

Determined, she flew to New York from her home in Georgia on June 4, a week after her son’s death, to collect his body and get answers. And with the help of six family members and friends of her son, she traced his last hours to the information she could get through his bank transactions, his phone records, and whoever last saw him.

The story goes on

The next day, a group of seven people showed up at the 19th Precinct office to present what they had collected to the police.

“They looked at us like we were from outer space,” Clary said. “No one was interested in knowing the truth.”

She said the group met with the officers and presented their information. Two days later, she received a call from the homicide detective assigned to her son’s case, and has since felt confident in the department’s investigation, praising the detective for his “high professionalism” and “commitment to finding the truth.”

But in early November—five months after her son’s death—she became frustrated with how quickly the Manhattan District Attorney’s office got involved in her son’s case, and turned to the local media in hopes of applying pressure.

In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney’s office spokesman Doug Cohen said the investigation was “active” and “ongoing.”

Local reports in early November prompted more gay New Yorkers to come forward with similar messages. In mid-November, the NYPD confirmed they were investigating additional reports of major thefts at other local gay bars that resembled the Ramirez and Amberger cases. He also confirmed that he was investigating similar encounters that took place in non-LGBTQ bars.

Tyler Burt, 27, is among several gay men who told NBC News they had encounters similar to those that killed Ramirez and Amberger. After visiting a gay bar in Manhattan’s East Village in December 2021, he said, he woke up the next morning confused and with $15,000 worth of funds and items stolen from him.

Unable to fully remember what happened, he said that he believed one or more people used his unconscious face to unlock his phone and bank accounts using facial recognition technology. He also said that he believed some kind of drug was slipped into his drinks, causing him to pass out and pass out.

Burt said he reported the clash to police the day after the incident. He described the NYPD as at times indifferent and “unwilling” to do things like view security footage. He shared with NBC News a chain of emails he had with a detective on his case that showed several of his requests for updates went unanswered for days and weeks.

“It just didn’t feel like it was a priority at all,” he said. “I was the one who followed this guy over and over again and nothing worked out for me.”

He said he had not received an update on his case since January last year. However, in November, he received a call from the detective assigned to his case after he had previously spoken to NBC News. According to Bert, the detective scolded him for talking to the media, saying it could jeopardize their investigation.

The 51-year-old Manhattan resident, who asked not to be identified for fear of exposing himself to retaliation from those involved in his persecution, said that after a similar encounter at Hell’s Kitchen gay bar last July, the NYPD staged him a “little excuse”. He said he repeatedly made unanswered phone calls to the detective assigned to his case and came empty-handed when he turned up at the local office looking for answers.

“In the end, they told me to stop going there, that there was nothing more they could do,” he said.

Several of the men interviewed for this article also described their initial interactions with the NYPD as accusatory, as police repeatedly challenged them for their denials of illegal drug use and questioned their levels of alcohol consumption.

“I had the feeling that, you know, ‘maybe you shouldn’t have gone to a seedy gay bar,'” said one man who said he was robbed after visiting a gay leather bar in Chelsea in October. .

The man, a 48-year-old Manhattan resident, asked not to be identified for fear of exposing himself to retaliation from the perpetrators involved in his encounter. (He works for MSNBC, which, like NBC News, is owned by NBCUniversal.)

In a statement, an NYPD spokesman confirmed that his “Personal Crimes Unit and the Manhattan North and South Homicide Units, together with our partners at the New York County District Attorney’s Office, are investigating several incidents in which people have been victims of either looting or assault.” The spokesperson added that “some of the victims are members of the LGBTQIA+ community, however it is believed that not all of the victims.”

However, the spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the allegations made by Clary and Burt.

State Senator Brad Hoylman-Segal, whose district includes Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea neighborhoods, where many skirmishes have taken place, has criticized the NYPD for what he called “foot-tightening.”

“Unfortunately, those lives were discounted because they were gay men who were in nightclubs,” gay Hoylman-Segal said. “And for some reason, there seems to be a prejudice against taking these types of crimes as seriously as if it happened to someone else.”

The NYPD did not directly respond to questions regarding his remark.

New York City Councilman Eric Botcher, a gay man whose neighborhood also includes Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea, said in a statement that crime victims “deserve to be treated with the utmost respect,” regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Any actions contrary to this must be identified and corrected so that all New Yorkers feel safe and comfortable seeking help,” he said.

The NYPD’s work on the Amberger and Ramirez cases is far from over. It remains unclear whether any suspects have been identified or detained in connection with their deaths.

Clary returned to Georgia. Last month, she celebrated the birth of her first grandson, who was born five days before Amberger’s 34th birthday. She said the moment was bittersweet, adding that her son would be “the best uncle in the world.”

She hopes her son’s story will serve as “a reminder of the power of perseverance in the search for truth” and a warning to other gay people.

“All I wanted was that I wanted action and justice for John, but I didn’t get that and we wanted people to be safe,” Clary said through tears. “We don’t want anyone to be hurt as much as we are.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.

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