Gustavo Javier Rodríguez Meléndez, a 53-year-old Puerto Rican businessman and technology consultant, was found dead on October 19 in a tourist lodging in Medellín, Colombia, and had visited the city five times this year, according to Colombian authorities’ reports. He arrived in Colombia on Friday, October 16, and stayed in a short-term rental apartment in the Laureles neighborhood, where he had stayed before.
The next day he spent time with an acquaintance at several businesses. A security camera recorded him at 9:44 PM returning to one business to retrieve a wallet he had left behind. Concern began when relatives could not reach him on Sunday.
His partner contacted a driver who regularly transported him on his Medellín visits. The driver went to the lodging and, getting no response, asked for help. According to the preliminary report, Colombian police officers stepped in so the room could be checked, and they found the Puerto Rican man dead.
Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office preliminarily classified the case as a homicide after investigators found the room in disarray and some belongings missing. Among the hypotheses is a possible robbery involving scopolamine, a substance that can incapacitate a person. No Legal Medicine report confirming the cause of death has been released, and no arrests have been announced.