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An international manhunt is underway in South and Central America for a Canadian man suspected of murdering a young Columbian mother he met on a dating app.
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According to Colombian cops, Jesse Gilbert Wiseman — originally from Nova Scotia — has been identified as the suspect in the killing of Laura Lopera, 20.
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Lopera’s body was discovered on Sunday inside a suitcase in a seven-room apartment that Wiseman rented in Medellin. Lopera had been listed as missing since Jan. 31, according to the Bogota City Paper.
She left behind a three-year-old daughter.
It’s believed that Wiseman, 50, fled to Guatemala last Friday. That was three days before Lopera’s remains were found by the landlord, who had noticed a foul odour.
When the landlord tried to reach Wiseman via WhatsApp, he reportedly told her he had to leave the country “due to an emergency” and that the stench was from “unattended garbage.” It’s believed Lopera died Feb. 4.
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The last person to see Lopera alive was reportedly a “public service driver” who dropped her off at the apartment where Wiseman was living.
Colombian investigators have now issued a blue Interpol circular.
According to cops, the pair hooked up on a dating app towards the end of 2023 and developed a romantic relationship.
Her brother, Juan Manuel, told Bogota City Paper the relationship “appeared to be normal.” Wiseman, he said, kept a low profile and met the dead woman’s mother only once at a restaurant for dinner.
But Manuel said that Wiseman’s “calm, serene, and reserved” demeanour may have concealed a “darker reality.”
Cops released to local media an audio clip of Wiseman verballing berating — and threatening — Lopera.
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He yells: “I am a f***ing angry with you now, you don’t listen to me (…) you must listen to me, come and let’s resolve everything, don’t talk to me through damn WhatsApp…”
Investigators believe the relationship between the Canadian and his young Colombian girlfriend was abusive.
“He has already been identified. He left the country yesterday. Thanks to the joint work between @FiscaliaCol and @PoliciaColombia @PoliciaMedellin, we hope that an arrest warrant will soon be issued and executed through an Interpol alert,” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez wrote on his official social media account.
Colombia has a reputation for sex tourism with wealthy men from the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere visiting the South American nation for sex. The exact nature of Wiseman and Lopera’s relationship is unknown.
But to locals, the slaying is an eerie reminder of a similar case.
Valentina Trespalacios’ body was also found in a suitcase, near Bogota’s International Airport, in January 2023 after she met an American man on dating app Tinder.
Suspect John Poulos fled Colombia hours after the murder and was arrested in Panama as he was boarding a flight to Istanbul. He is in custody in the La Picota, the country’s maximum security prison. If convicted, he faces 40 years in prison.
@HunterTOSun
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