Jorge Diaz-Johnston, who brought a historic same-sex marriage lawsuit against Miami-Dade County in 2014, was found dead on January 8.
Tallahassee Police Department
The killing of a Florida gay-rights activist whose body was found at a local landfill was apparently not a "random" act of violence, Tallahassee police said on Tuesday.
Jorge Diaz-Johnston, one of the plaintiffs who brought a historic same-sex marriage lawsuit against Miami-Dade County in 2014 and the brother of a former Miami mayor, was discovered dead on January 8 at a garbage dump in Jackson County, authorities said.
The 54-year-old's body was found in trash that was collected earlier that morning by a garbage transportation company from a landfill in Okaloosa County, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.
"We don't believe it to be a random act, but we also don't believe it to be any sort of hate crime," Alicia Turner, a spokeswoman for the Tallahassee Police Department, told Insider.
Turner added: "We believe that what happened is going to be someone who [Diaz-Johnston] knew or someone who knew him."
The Tallahassee Police Department is investigating Diaz-Johnston's death as a homicide.
No arrests have yet been made.
Diaz-Johnston, a Tallahassee resident, was reported missing to police by his husband, Don Johnston, on January 7 — four days after Diaz-Johnston was last seen in Tallahassee, authorities said.
Turner told Insider that Diaz-Johnston and his husband — who were one of six couples to file the 2014 suit, successfully challenging Florida's same-sex marriage ban — were separated at the time of Diaz-Johnston's death.
Johnston has not been ruled out as a suspect in the case, Turner said.
"To call him a suspect is accurate in the sense that we're not ruling him out," Turner said of Johnston. "Everyone who we believe came in contact with [Diaz-Johnston] between the last time he was seen and when he was discovered is going to be considered a suspect until we get more evidence to rule people out."
Johnston posted about the death of his husband on Facebook on January 12, saying, "There are just no words."
"I can't stop crying as I try and write this," he wrote. "But he meant so much to all of you as he did to me. So I am fighting through the tears to share with you our loss of him."
Diaz-Johnston's brother, Manny Diaz, who served as mayor of Miami from 2001 to 2009, called his sibling "such a special gift to this world whose heart and legacy will continue to live on for generations to come."
"I am profoundly appreciative of the outpouring of support shown to me, my brother-in-law Don, and my family after the loss of my brother, Jorge Diaz-Johnston," Diaz said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, the police investigation into Diaz-Johnston's killing "is moving swiftly," Turner told Insider.
"We're hoping to continue moving forward and making an arrest at some point," Turner said.
