On November 21, 2019, the family of 22-year-old Miguelangelo Ismail Afzal grew concerned when he did not return to his Fourth Street residence in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His father had last heard from him in a phone call, during which Miguelangelo said he was on his way home after playing video games at the house of his friend, Luis Roman. The family reported him missing that same day, telling police that it was completely out of character for him to disappear without any explanation.
He had last been seen in the area of Barnum Avenue and Pembroke Street.
As the days turned into weeks, the investigation into Miguelangelo's disappearance began to point towards a grim conclusion, with detectives suspecting foul play. Their efforts, with assistance from the Connecticut State Police and the FBI, eventually led them to the abandoned Remington Arms property on Barnum Avenue. On December 8, 2019, more than two weeks after he was last seen, search teams, including a state police K-9 unit, discovered Miguelangelo's body in the basement of a vacant building on the property. An investigator from the medical examiner's office determined he had died from a gunshot wound to the back of his head, and the case was officially ruled a homicide. Police believed he had been killed around the time he was reported missing.
The investigation soon focused on the man Miguelangelo had spent his final hours with: his friend, Luis Roman. In the days after the body was found, Roman voluntarily went to the police department, offering to help with the investigation. However, he gave detectives three conflicting stories. Surveillance footage from the day of the disappearance showed Roman and Miguelangelo walking together toward the abandoned building where the young man's body would later be found. Before investigators could arrest him, Roman fled to a relative's home in Ohio.
In March 2021, the search for the suspect came to an end when Luis Roman, then 25, was arrested without incident in Lorain, Ohio, and extradited back to Connecticut to face a murder charge. During the trial, a relative from Ohio testified that Roman had confessed to the killing during a drinking session. The relative stated that Roman admitted to luring his friend to the abandoned building, making him kneel, and then executing him by shooting him in the back of the head. In November 2023, after a week-long trial and about a day of deliberation, a jury found Luis Roman guilty of murder. On January 17, 2024, a judge sentenced the 28-year-old to 58 years in prison for what the prosecutor described as the execution-style killing of his friend.
