Five indicted for death of trans man, deceased tortured

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ive people have been arrested and charged in New York in connection with the disappearance and death of a 24-year-old Minnesota transgender man who was reported missing earlier this week, officials said.

New York State Police reported that it launched a missing persons investigation for Sam Nordquist, 24, on Sunday after receiving a welfare check request from his family.

On Thursday, investigators discovered human remains, believed to be those of Nordquist, in a field in Yates County, New York. Yates County is about 50 miles south of Rochester.

The case is being investigated as a homicide, Lynnea Crane, spokesperson for the New York State Police, said at a Friday news conference. She added that evidence points to the fact that Nordquist was the "victim of a criminal act."

Capt. Kelly Swift with the New York State Police said at the news conference that they have not ruled out the possibility of this case being a hate crime.

"Our investigation has revealed a deeply disturbing pattern of abuse that ultimately resulted in Sam's tragic death," Swift said, noting Nordquist faced both "prolonged physical and psychological abuse at the hands of multiple individuals."

She called it "one of the most horrific crimes I have ever investigated" in her 20-year law enforcement career.

Police could not share details about the specific abuse Nordquist faced, citing the ongoing investigation.

Officials said they discovered that Nordquist had been staying at Patty's Lodge in Hopewell, New York, with one of the five suspects. Evidence uncovered during the investigation suggests that Nordquist "was subjected to ongoing physical abuse" between December 2024 and February 2025, police said.

Police identified the five suspects — all from New York — as Precious Arzuaga, 38; Jennifer A. Quijano, 30; Kyle Sage, 33; Patrick A. Goodwin, 30; and Emily Motyka, 19. All were charged with second degree murder with depraved indifference, according to the state police release.

All five suspects were arraigned and remanded to the Ontario County Jail on Friday.

James Ritts, District Attorney for Ontario County, said at the Friday news conference that the suspects are being held without bail. He noted that a date for a preliminary hearing has been set and that he expects "grand jury action very quickly."

It was not immediately clear if any of the suspects had legal representation. Crane, the spokesperson with the New York State Police, told NBC News she was unaware of the suspects' legal representatives. The Ontario County District Attorney's office did not immediately answer a request for that information on Saturday evening.

Police said they are still investigating the relationship between Nordquist and the suspects.

"Sam was subjected to repeated acts of violence and torture in a manner that ultimately led to his death," Swift said at the news conference. "His body was then transported in an attempt to conceal the crime."

According to the release from state police, Nordquist's body was "transported to Yates County, where the remains were disposed of."

The Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office will conduct an autopsy to determine cause and manner of death, police said.

According to the missing persons report, Nordquist had last been in touch with family at the end of January, and had traveled to New York from Minnesota in September of 2024.

Nordquist was last seen in early February. Investigators executed multiple search warrants at Patty's Lodge, according to police.

The investigation is active and ongoing, police said.

"The facts and the circumstances of this crime are beyond depraved. This is by far the worst homicide investigation that our office has ever been a part of," Ritts said Friday. "No human being should have to endure what Sam endured."

This is proof that elections have consequences. Trump emboldened the people who did this.

Okay, but how can we make it that the consequences only effect those people who voted for this? The rest of us shouldn't have to suffer for their ignorance/stupidity/depravity/whatever.

We can demand robust protections for the LGBTQ+ communities, require all places of worship to perform same-sex marriages (no opt-outs), criminalize hate speech, and harsher sentencing for people convicted of hate crimes.

New York authorities on Wednesday outlined an astonishing story of kidnap, torture and sexual assault in the killing of Sam Nordquist, a transgender man from Minnesota who was allegedly imprisoned in a small room of an upstate motel for a month before he died.
The indictment also alleges the forced participation of young children in the assault and torture.

The indictment came a day after Nordquist was laid to rest in his native Minnesota. The 24-year-old set out from Oakdale, Minnesota, to Ontario County, New York, in September to connect with a woman he’d met online. That woman, Precious Arzuaga, is one of seven people charged in the indictment with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, conspiracy and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

She and three others, Kyle Sage, Patrick Goodwin and Jennifer Quijano, were charged with aggravated sexual abuse. In addition, Arzuaga was charged with coercion for allegedly forcing children, 7 and 12, to take part in attacks on Nordquist. The seven are also charged with concealing Nordquist’s corpse, which they allegedly wrapped in plastic bags and dumped in a farmer’s field.

The gruesome details will likely grow as investigators piece together what happened in Room 22 of Patty’s Lodge in the town of Hopewell, New York, authorities said.

The indictment is “just a portion” of Nordquist's ordeal, Ontario County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Wolford said at a news conference, where she grew visibly upset as she discussed the charges. “It’s just what we know now,” Wolford said.

We’ll never know the answer why. Because what human beings could do what happened to Sam?" she said. "We'll never make sense of this case.”

The seven people charged — Arzuaga, 38; her son, Thomas Eaves, 21; Quijano, 30; Sage, 33; Goodwin, 30; Emily Motyka, 19; and Kimberly Sochia, 29 — all knew one another, some romantically, Wolford said. Records show that Goodwin, a registered sex offender, was staying in a nearby room at Patty’s at the time. Goodwin and Sage were both on parole from previous sexually related crimes. All seven ended up in Room 22 at Patty’s Lodge, where Nordquist was allegedly held captive, tortured and killed.

Over the last several weeks, LGBTQ advocates from around the country have urged authorities to not rule out the possibility that Nordquist's killing was a hate crime.

Wolford said prosecutors elected to charge the seven people with first-degree murder — and not hate crimes against a Black transgender man — because that is the heaviest penalty available to them under New York law. If found guilty, the seven defendants could spend life in prison without parole.

“A hate crime would make this charge about Sam’s gender or about Sam’s race, and it’s so much bigger,” Wolford said. “To limit us to a hate crime would be an injustice to Sam. Sam deserves to have his story told in its entirety.”

Wolford called the alleged coercion of the two young children to participate in Nordquist's torture "one of the more troubling parts" of the investigation. The children's involvement was not previously known.

“It’s heartbreaking. We have a 7-year-old and a 12-year-old who are also victims,” she said. “They may have been forced to participate, but their lives are forever changed by what they saw and endured in there.”

When asked if the children belong to Arzuaga and if they were now in state custody, Welford declined to comment.

Patty's Lodge is not being investigated for any wrongdoing, Wolford said. She added that there have not been any witnesses who reported Nordquist's captivity or torture to authorities while he was alive.

"This is a housing location," she said. "It looks like a motel, but these people do live there full time, so what happens in their home is not something that, necessarily, Patty’s Lodge is responsible for."