Family, friends and an entire community continue to grapple with the mysterious death of a young social worker who got into a taxi after a night out, only to be found unresponsive an hour later.
Julio Ramirez, 25, met up with a friend on April 20 for a night out in Hell’s Kitchen, a Manhattan neighborhood near Times Square in New York known for its lively restaurant and bar scene. Their last stop was the Ritz Bar and Lounge, a popular, multilevel gay venue in the heart of the neighborhood’s Restaurant Row, NBC News reported.
Surveillance footage from a nearby security camera shows Ramirez walking away from the venue with three unidentified men at 3:17 a.m., according to his brother, Carlos, who said he was briefed by investigators. The four men then entered a nearby taxi, a police source said, but Ramirez was alone in the backseat at 4:10 a.m. when the taxi driver approached a police officer 3 miles away in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood to say his passenger was unresponsive.
Despite efforts to save his life by the officer and the Emergency Medical Services team, Ramirez was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 4:49 a.m. on April 21, a police source said, adding that the initial cause of death was listed as a “possible drug overdose.” Ramirez’s official “cause and manner of death are pending further study,” according to the medical examiner, who told NBC News in an email that this could take “at least a few weeks.” Ramirez was initially identified as “John Doe,” his brother said, because neither his wallet nor phone were with him when he died.
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Now, more than a month later, Ramirez’s family and friends are left with more questions than answers as they try to piece together what happened in his final hours. (Read the full story at NBCNews.com.)
In hopes of continuing to shed light on Ramirez's mysterious death and in the search for answers, a candlelight vigil is scheduled in Hell's Kitchen for Wednesday evening.
"Left without progress in the mysterious disappearance and death of Julio Ramirez, the Hell’s Kitchen community is coming together to demand answers at a candlelight vigil and rally," W42ST.com, a website centered around events and news happening in Hell's kitchen, reports.
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The vigil will take place at 7:30pm, in front of the Ritz Bar and Lounge (369 W46th St between 8th and 9th Ave) where Ramirez was last seen alive.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
