Two Erie men found dead in Chicago hotel room - Part 2

Link to original thread.

The Instagram friend seems like an absolute douche nozzle.

What as Sheldon doing hanging around with those young guys in their social photos. Who wants to hang with a 45yo when you're 24?

I'll give you one guess, R3, one that might be relevant to this case.

the lack of any breaking news a week into this case is very strange. was it established they were found in one... or separate rooms?

If I were to pick a hotel in Chicago for an out of town tryst/chemsex-pig play weekend it wouldn’t be the Hyatt Regency. But if I was going to die in the midst of said weekend, probably a very good choice as far as keeping it hushed up. If a maid at a hot sheet motel on N Lincoln Ave had found them, it would have made the local news for sure.

Same room according to the article

Interesting how Declan’s surname changed from Lawson to Bingham In October 2013 according to his #nohomo mate’s Insta.

#fuckoffwithyournohomo

Ah luv ma dead gay son!

#toteshomo

For all the #nohomo on his little friend’s Insta, 99% of his posts have him draped over other “boys”.

The only female who appears is his mum.

#nohomo = don’t believe your lying eyes

A throwback post from the #nohomo friend's IG account:

"Bit of romance at Disney World"

There's no way these two weren't choking on each other's cocksleeves.

Do straight men grab each other at the waist for photos?

Not on ig. Can you post some screen captures?

Valentines.

#nohomo bro seems to have found a new boyfriend in Australia, a guy named Curtis. They're posing together in several pictures.

Including this one, and I ask you again: Does this seem like the pose of two straight men?

Or this?

Current boyfriend with ex.

The threesomes they must have had...

Colour me (not) surprised - Declan (Bingham’s / Lawson’s) Insta has been set to private.

Dad has been busy cleaning up!

This pic is interesting: #nohomo touching arms with the new bf, with a comment from Sheldon Van Deventer: "Looking good"

This is just so unsatisfactory! Tell us!

[quote]Valentines.

#nohomomyass

I see the whole #nohomo bullshit as bullshit. I was once in a ridiculous thing with a friend - similar jock culture to this - and we played up the whole “we’re so gay” angle because no one would think that we were if we were making jokes about it.

This was way before social media and as it turned out, everybody knew anyway.

Throwing this in here because I’m familiar with the whole private school Australian culture.

Not to take away from dear Declan, but his best friend Austin is a fucking HOT piece of meat.

And no, I don't believe they were lovers.

That childhood picture says it all. They were best friends who knew each other since they were very young.

It says something about their friendship, that it lasted over all these years.

However, I still believe that Declan was probably gay. And I don't think that even Austin knew.

Austin Ludwik's brother Joel was on Austin's Insta page, so I checked out Joel's Insta, as well.

He has nine really nice photos of Declan.

Declan seems to love being "man handled," based on some of those photos.

Oh, and the last photo in this series, is interesting. Joel has his hand on Declan's leg, and some other guy's crotch.

Is Aussie male culture always this homoerotic?

There's a whole "doth protest too much" thing about Austin and Declan's interactions as labeled on Instagram.

They doth joke too much about being homo - to throw off suspicions. As R23 said.

Damn, those Ludwik boys have some good genes.

Austin's brother Joel is gorgeous.

What straight 45-year-old man comments "Looking good" on a 24-year-old's shirtless brotastic Instagram post?

The late Sheldon Van Deventer's IG is now private, but in the profile photo, he looks like he was built like a shit brickhouse.

I think there was some intergenerational muscle worship going on between Sheldon and various soccer jocks.

[quote]Austin's brother Joel is gorgeous.

Is this the same Joel we hear so much about from his 60-year-old gay neighbor?

[quote] I think there was some intergenerational muscle worship going on between Sheldon and various soccer jocks.

Most interesting of all, he bagged his business partner's 24 year old son.

Imagine the SHOCK Declan's dad experienced, when he found the two of them in bed together.

Now that is some DRAMA!

R25 to answer your question - Aussie male culture always has been this homoerotic.

Always has been.

R31, I concur.

But sometimes homoeroticism crosses over into actual homosex.

All the better if the culture is homoerotic, to conceal it.

Sheldon doesn't come across as some raging stud to me. If anything he has dorky hanger-on vibes.

That Instagram profile photo looks like a middle age man having a crisis.

Maybe he was a divorcee trying to have thew kind of youth he never got to have the first time. We are here to find out if he "had" a youth named Declan.

In the fathers message on Facebook he says his son was loved by so many. Should we read that as the son was a whore?

It's very notable that no one is talking about Sheldon in any of these online tributes.

Is it safe to assume he's being blamed?

R35 here again. I’m going out on a limb here but I have a new theory as to what might have happened.

The father and his business partner slowly became secret lovers. The business partner was more of an open minded whore and eventually fucked the son as well, this eventually led to hot threesome sessions with father, son and business partner in various hotel rooms to cover their tracks.

That’s the background to the story, I’m still working on the cause of deaths. Before I start can I ask, was there a massage table found in the room, and maybe disco lights and a ghetto blaster?

R37, you should have stopped at R35, or perhaps before.

Check out the comments against this picture.

Mmmmmmm wank bank huh!!

This just reflects a bro culture where any kind of normal, healthy affection between males has to be accompanied by gay jokes. It's boring and it's fucked.

So Austin was 16 in the picture at R39?

Austin/R39.

Stop trying to make this thread about YOU, Mr. Fame Whore.

I think the father and business partner had a Cal and Derek thing going on when they were teens.

Declan wears a shirt in most of the group shirltess photos.

It was that lack of self confidence that Sheldon zeroed in on like a hawk.

That and the tears and vomit after Austin left.

Threesome with a father and son is so hot. Sheldon was a lucky bitch. I hope he made the father rim the son after he bred him.

Declan and Austin were the inspiration for this film.

[quot]There's no way these two weren't choking on each other's cocksleeves.

You obviously have a foreskin fetish. If they're white Americans, they're most likely cut. The majority of white males are still circumcised in this country.

Yeah, multiple comments about Declan's big cock on the Insta posts aren't relevant at all.....lol

Are you serious R49? I’m not on IG. Can you list some screen captures ?

Dumb lazy ass

What the fuck kind of a name is Declan?!?

How do you even pronounce it?

DECK-lin?

dee-KLAAAHHHN?

Declan is a boy name of Irish origin, and an anglicized form of the Gaelic name "Deaglán," which comprises two elements. “Deagh” means “good, excellent, or worthy,” and “lán” means “full.” Put together the name Declan means “full of goodness.”

How is it we already know what killed the Foo Fighters drummer, but nothing on this story???

R48, Declan was South African, and I assume that the muscle daddy was also Afrikaans with that last name. I think that means uncut.

Uncut and hung.

I love uncut guys, so that makes Declan even more desirable to me.

Unfortunately, he already had a sugar daddy.

Yeah, SA men are usually really well hung.

[quote] If I were to pick a hotel in Chicago for an out of town tryst/chemsex-pig play weekend it wouldn’t be the Hyatt Regency.

I think the Hyatt Regency on Wacker Drive is the largest hotel in Chicago -- hundreds of rooms. It is a likely destination to seek out escorts and drug connections. Hotel too big to allow for much scrutiny. Did female escorts provide them with bad drugs?

[quote]Did female escorts provide them with bad drugs?

It's sort of seems like you didn't even read the 658 replies before yours....

Ok, gurl, calm down. I just looked at the Instagram pics. . .so female escorts are out of the question. But I haven't read all the replies because 660 are too many and I am only interested in cause of death, which we still don't have.

bros share hoes.

The Hyatt on Wacker would definitely be the most central to the tourist section of town. It's also probably 70-80 percent foreign visitors on any given day.

I wrote CBS Chicago news tip line and asked them why they were not covering....no response.

There are many stations.....ABC, NBC, WGN......

No mention in any recent trip advisor reviews. The big conference at the Hyatt that weekend was a black sorority.

[quote] The Hyatt on Wacker

This name was made for Datalounge.

Assuming it's real.

So Declan was hung?!

This checks all the boxes of DL interest, we must get to the bottom of this!!

This story is quite EERIE.

It has to be drugs? Right? As hush hush as its been...If they were robbed and killed you think there would be some sort of "person of interest"...If they were just found dead with no drugs around and it was a mysterious death wouldn't they maybe have gotten some of the other guest out of there?

The CPD dispatch operator does say, "They have a subject unknown sick."

So maybe one of them got sick from whatever caused it first, with the other guy still having the presence of mind to call hotel staff to get help, and that's what resulted in them going to the room. Then, by the time help did arrive he went unconscious as well.

Thanks, R70. That's more information than we've gotten so far.

Unable to link it here, but there's a photo of Austin Ludwig and Declan on Austin's Facebook page, dated January 11, 2015. Declan commented with two red heart emojis.

[quote]normal, healthy affection between males

They ended up dead in the same hotel room.

Didn't the father call this "a tragic accident"?

[quote]Didn't the father call this "a tragic accident"?

That certainly sounds like something a father might call a drug-related death that wasn't an intentional suicide.

R71 That came up in the first thread when the info about the police dispatch was posted. I first mentioned what the dispatcher said in post #570 with the link to the audio put in post #574

Maybe they went out for sushi and the fugu wasn’t prepared properly.

[quote] Maybe they went out for sushi and the fugu wasn’t prepared properly.

They don't eat fish.

Hyatt Hotels are well known for private Bible meetings. Perhaps Declan was receiving the Word?

It's well established now that Austin and Declan's online dialogue for the past ten years has been Austin making gay jokes to explain the closeness of their friendship snd his own obsession with posting shirtless pics. Declan would mostly play along with this rather than instigate it. This must have been irritating for him. He seemed smart, Austin seems dumb as a plank.

But what a bod.

Is that bod enough to compensate for hearing "No Homo" repeated endlessly in a retarded voice for a decade?

I wonder if Declan moved to the US to get away from Austin, to make a break from something that wasn't going where he wanted it to?

The girlfriend replied in the tribuite post that "Declan cried for days" when Austin had to go back to Oz.

“Girlfriend”

I need to comfort Declan's daddy. And more specifically, Declan's dad and his double digit donger.

[quote] Friends are invited to call on Tuesday, March 29, 2022 from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Mary, Seat of Wisdom Chapel at Gannon University, 520 Peach Street, Erie, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial there at 6 pm. The Mass can be viewed live online at that time at [website below].

I assume DL is making plans to watch the livestream funeral together here?

It's an evening Mass. Please try to behave yourselves, and make sure to wear a suit and tie (or at least a formal kaftan with your best pearls).

It will be interesting to see if Austin makes the journey from Australia for the funeral or otherwise dials in remotely. I’m sure that he’ll have something to say.

I love bro! Forever! #nohomo

I suspect they are still investigating leads and don't want to tip off suspects. Often they will misdirect the public into thinking it was natural causes when they know it wasn't. They hope it lets the suspects guard down. More will come from this. Keep checking. Time always tells.

I see Sheldon got a COVID loan from the SBA for his other business last year. This is the one where Declan worked as a "Business Operations Specialist" (per Linkedin).

[quote] Tech-Excellence LLC is a limited liability company (LLC) located at 620 W 9th St in Erie, Pennsylvania that received a Coronavirus-related PPP loan from the SBA of $141,700.00 in March, 2021. The company has reported itself as a White male owned business, and employed at least five people during the applicable loan period.

Hmmm .. Did they have money to burn?

It has to be drugs but I am irked that we don't have more info.

Underpaid Senegalese housekeeping workers know more than we do now...

which DL lesbians will step up and take one for the team

Or maybe there's a lonely gay concierge at the downtown Hyatt Wacker who needs a little love

Maybe there were no drugs, but they somehow both managed to choke to death on each others cocks while 69ing.

If it's bros doing tainted cocaine with no sex element it's fucking boring. Some nudity would be great.

I just find it completely remarkable that this site is the only place the cause is being discussed.

In all the social media around this tragedy, no one is asking except one uncouth woman in the father's facebook thread. She was ignored.

The case was made for DL.

Isn't there anyone in Chicago who can just pop in for a drink and ask questions of the homosexual staff?

A little correction to the COVID money Sheldon got from R91. It appears that the total amount the SBA handed out was more than double that, as there's a small notation stating:

[quote] ALERT: There are 2 PPP loans for a total of $300,950 in our database for businesses with the name "Tech-Excellence LLC" in Erie, PA. This this is typically due to the same business receiving both first and second-draw loans, but may also include similarly named but unrelated businesses, multiple branches of the same business, mistaken multiple applications, or potential fraud.

The first one came in April 2020 for $159,250.

Any details on Sheldon's funeral? I wonder if anyone has organised one. What happens if they don't?

Paupers’s grave in a cardboard casket.

If he was a divorced single man with no adult kids or blood relatives in the country, and if friends have been alienated, that could happen.

[quote]I just find it completely remarkable that this site is the only place the cause is being discussed.

R96 needs to get out more. Everyone is discussing all angles of this story, including the cause. It's human nature, especially when there's eye-candy involved. Reddit is going wild on this case.

Where on Reddit is this being discussed? The Erie group is dead on it.

Yes, where else are they talking about this story?

R102 It doesn't appear that he's alienated from the (ex-) wife's family. Her sister put a pretty nice message up on FB with a photo saying, "You were more than a brother-in-law, you were my brother." .. Plus, there's his son to consider. .. I can't tell exactly how old he is from the mother's recent photo, but I think he looks like he's approaching adulthood or maybe even a little over. I'm guessing the boy's family on that side would all chip-in to do some kind of funeral, simply for the sake of the son.

None of the Reddit threads I saw on this looked to be quite as prolific as we are here.

Fire up the Ouija boards bitches. We need answers.

We solved the soft butch sous chef murder in DC...

and we can solve this

now let's get cracking!

Shit happens...

OK, I did not see that coming…

Halfway down Erie is listed as one of the affordable cities, and LGBTQ friendly??? Something must have really changed for that to be true. For the most parts only Philly and Pittsburgh are LGBTQ are friendly, and that’s still limited to certain areas of them???

I wouldn't exactly call Erie an LGBTQ+ mecca. It's the same as when I lived there in the 90s. Half of the town is crime filled and virtually uninhabitable. The other part is somewhat more affordable than big cities nearby. There's either one or two gay bars.....as there was in the 90s. And there's a decent theater scene there, plus events at various colleges. But go more than 20 minutes in literally any direction and you are in Trumper hell. Erie itself has a big Trumper element, too.

I wonder if we will ever get to know what really happened in the hotel room. It seems very strange that nothing has emerged so far.

I want to know who shot whose load in what holes.

Tonight, on a very special Poirot...

Belgian Blue Waffles?

Forget the hotel employees.

Get to the Erie Police Department.

They're going to have the "crime scene" photos and the details of what they found.

If anyone knows an officer there, try to dig for information.

They will have it.

Why would the Erie PD have anything. They died in Chicago

Then the Chicago police, you asshole R118.

Elevator cam.....let's see some of that .....who else was on the floor? Was there a secret kiss on the way to the room......drugs passed from pocket to pocket?

R120, or Buttplay….

Is everyone on this forum just grown into their couches? I honestly can't believe no one has gone to the hotel to ask questions. I'd do that if I were in town.

I’m in California r122.

It's really not hard to pop into the bar for a few drinks and ask a few questions of the gays.

Oh really? Why don't you drunk dial the bartender at The Zone and ask to speak to the HBIC and give us the full report.

Mon. $2.00 LaBatts from 8-12pm.

The fat queens who run the Zone barely know what's happening around their own cankles or with the Poors who patronize the Zone. They wouldn't know a thing about the more affluent side of Erie.

I couldn't imagine anyone who was "allegedly" deeply closeted going to a tacky local bar like that.

They wouldn't R127.

Rich folks in Pittsburgh and Erie would NEVER go to a bar. How common! They hit what I call the "garden party" circuit.

Declan might have gone to some of the other bars on State Street, but the bars in Erie are pretty aggressively working class, about half black, and filled with trans and/or drag queens.

Why did r117/119 feel so compelled to double down on his poor reading comprehension and own preternatural stupidity?

Note to self, don't die in a hotel room.

You have to be hot and hung when you die in a hotel, or at least be with someone hot and hung when you die, or it effectively didn't happen.

damn, bad coke all over the place, whats a ho to do....

It was those two brothers who attacked Jussie!

This is just the tip of the iceberg, even if it wasn’t what it appears (and how often is that the case 🙄) I see a bigger scandal on the horizon. Something about these South African/Australians” buying a spots center in Erie, PA and seemed off. This has been going on a couple years, local paper gives good press, and then vanish. I know the father/partner went to Gannon (real bastion of intellect) but economically it never made sense. The kid/partner might of just started a giant snowball, hence the hush hush.

R134 Can you elaborate?

Erie is known as an old Mafia town so nothing would surprise me - new generation organized crime, hiding behind respectable business fronts?

When are the coroner’s report and death certificate coming out?

No, usually something more banal. Utilizing grants that end up not going into the investment, hooking local banks and finance, breaking into the upper echelon of Erie (which has a surprising sliver of family money, including a billionaire, in isolated pockets) and is easier for outsiders to ingratiate than a larger city, then eventually jumping ship when it doesn't work. This isn't the first time big plans have been made that don't fit the local demographics and probably won't be the last. There have been a history of carpet bagger grifter's in it's history. Not stating this as fact, just opinion, but the whole concept seems out of place when there are 3 bigger cities that have these kinds of re-centers and it goes against the aging demographics of the population. Even if it's a 100% earnest project, this situation is bad. Excuse this extremely off color remark, but like they used to say in politics: "The only thing worse than being caught with a live girl, is a dead boy"

R137 I believe it's "The only thing worse than being caught with a dead girl, is being caught with a live boy".

Point being that being thought of being gay was more scandalising than being thought of as a possible murderer.

I caught my inversion on the saying right as I was hitting post. It's a sad situation, and in a Payton Place like Erie it's not going to be forgotten. Even if it's really not as appears, the optics are horrible. It just reenforces the "Rust Belt Twin Peaks" image the city already has.

There’s no mystery. 2 businessmen were saving PPP funds by sharing a hotel room on a business trip to Chicago. They then died in a tragic accident in their hotel room. Probably spilled coffee on the projector they were going to use for their PowerPoint presentation and were electrocuted.

[quote]When are the coroner’s report and death certificate coming out?

I've filed a lawsuit to keep their contents a secret.

I wouldn’t hold your breathe on that, and if there is one… I wouldn’t take it at face value. The bodies made it back to Erie pretty quickly, and the coroner there has a lot of “discretion” in regards to what he wants to see.

Doubt there’s a rush on a tox screen, if there even is one. Only chance is if anything prelim like blood was run in Chicago and somebody leaks the results, or if some hypothetical legal matters or the partner has a life insurance policy that contests the findings, and it’s forced into record.

If the cause of death were anything but drugs, we would have heard by now.

If this isn't truly a bizarre accident, my guess is a gradual turn against the business partner by the other family. You can already sense he's being pushed out of being a victim. When the initial grief is over, he'll probably take the fall because he corrupted the straight golden boy. You can see in the obituary how the word "Girlfriend" with her name got its own line right in viable view, instead of "special friend" that is used IF a dating partner that is not a fiancé is even mentioned usually under family. People often overcorrect the wheel and underestimate people's ability to sense something is off. The narrative is being set. The dead can't speak. "

[quote] When are the coroner’s report and death certificate coming out?

If they're doing toxicology (most likely), it could be weeks from now. And despite our duo's popularity on DL, these two aren't some kind of celebrities who might be pushed to the front of the line because of media interest. They're just two out-of-towners from Erie.

Recall, the infamous Chris Burrous case took seven weeks, and he was a bona fide local celebrity in Los Angeles. The only reason the public knew it was probably a drug overdose from the get-go is because the in the initial reporting by the Glendale PD, they let it be known that Good Samaritan Mr Fister had said that in his call to 911.

[quote] Recall, the infamous Chris Burrous case took seven weeks, and he was a bona fide local celebrity in Los Angeles.

So the coroner is still slicing and dicing the body after SEVEN weeks???

That's disgusting!

What about the rot? And the smell?

*blarf*

And does the family get the person's body back in pieces?

I believe there were EMTs there. [italic]They[/italic] would know something.

So there [italic]are[/italic] people that know something. They either are very ethical or might have been convinced to remain silent in some manner, I would think.

(I've read both threads, so I apologize if somehow I missed this comment by someone else earlier.)

R140's hypothesis is certainly more attractive and amusing than what almost certainly really happened (coke seasoned with a little 'surprise' fentanyl)

[quote] So the coroner is still slicing and dicing the body after SEVEN weeks???

No. Read the article from WebMD. It explains what's done. Basically, they take all the necessary samples from the corpse and release it. (The younger guy's funeral is today.)

R147

You're spot on on this. EMT's are human, and human nature they talk. Years ago somebody young passed away alone, in their room and it was recorded as a latent heart defect in their sleep. About a year later a group of us high school kids were at the beach and one of the EMT's not much older than us, who was also a life guard on duty, disclosed he was unable to revive a young person who was in a compromising position in-front of their computer and had heart attack. Wasn't hard to put 2+2 together and the incidentally revealed the person identity.

How did the foo fighters guy toxology reports get released 48 hours after he died yet not a peep on this case

The country he did in might have different rules r151

Or better drugs

R151 It was said to be "a preliminary report" after performing "an initial forensic examination.'." And he's like a celebrity with media interest.

There are probably 100 deaths of people actually from Cook County still waiting on toxicology who are in front of these two strangers from out of town.

Ugh.... I grew up in Erie. Substances were ubiquitous 20 years ago, but the shocking part to me was always the level of hard drugs and the people getting away with using them. We're not talking a case of your dad's beer and teens just smoking a joint after school. I wasn't a huge partier, athlete/ parents, but saw plenty up close from people you'd never expect. When I went to college, I couldn't believe how sheltered the kids were; 3 beers that first weekend and they were out of control. I used to get made fun of for being a teetotaler, but it was out of self-preservation. Unfortunately, no surprises with this incident.

Can we start a gofundme and hire a PI? I NEED ANSWERS!

They look the same age in that interview!! No way Bingham looks 24.

R157 That's Troy Bingham in the video. He's the younger victim's father. He's 53.

In the selfie they took, the expression of Declan was mentioned, but I believe that no one has highlighted how the folds on Sheldon's shirt indicate that he had his right arm raised: he had his hand resting on the back of the other. I think there is no need to add more.

Oh. I feel dumb.

It's time to accept that the lack of media interest means we may never know if they were fucking.

There is no orthodox reason that a young guy should share or even be in a room for more than is necessary at an appropriate hour with his father's business partner that has any explanation. Even being close family friends, I would find it suspicious. I have two nephews and a couple years ago they visited me on the coast and we went up to Carmel. They were 18/19 and I got separate rooms across from each other, to avoid any issues and I was in my 20's.

Say they were register under separate rooms, why was one in the other at such an early hour? The kid was just out of school, what skills did he have that he was such a vital necessity to the organization to go on a private business trip with an equity partner? His only job it appears to be playing soccer. I know I was essential to my CEO right out of business school because of all that time on the wrestling mat in college made me so invaluable that he needed me to stay in his room (no comments from the peanut gallery.)

I'd love to see the look on my dad's face if I called him up 10 years ago and said I was in a suite at the W with his newest junior partner on the company's dime. The father had to know they were together from the selfie they took? This is either an extreme case of willful denial on the fathers part, or as Principle Ed Rooney put's it Ferris Bueller: "Hmmm, so that's how it is in their family."

Everyone is different, but I've found a lot of South Africans (at least in the emigre community here in Australia) to be more socially conservative and or religious than the locals.

Look, it really seems likely it was a drug OD.

The only question is, was it them doing coke together as a couple of bros, up late and talking shit as they did lines, or was it something sexual involving drugs. To me that's the only thing that needs to be cleared up.

[quote] There is no orthodox reason that a young guy should share or even be in a room for more than is necessary at an appropriate hour with his father's business partner that has any explanation.

The older guy isn't just the father's business partner at the "Erie Sports Park" business.

The older guy has another small business in Erie called "Tech Excellence," and the younger guy who died is employed there as a "Business Operations Specialist" (per Linkedin).

So in effect. we have a employer-employee relationship.

From the pics online, it seemed Sheldon wanted to be one of the boys, hanging with a set younger than himself.

He didn't have a lot of Instagram followers.

Maybe he was a divorcee trying to build himself a new circle of friends, which can be hard in middle age.

Maybe he was having a mid life crisis and was trying to relive his youth.

Maybe he was gay.

Any of these reasons could explain why he was in that room with the young guy.

R164

No, that's not the only question. Other, innocent people's lives in a town that has lost enough jobs are going to be effected by what was a most likely preventable mess. You have to be very careful when you intermingle business with pleasure and try not to be thoughtless in any way that undermines your company. There are laws, ethics, rules, power dynamic questions, people's lives you impact through your employment of them be it in your facility or outside contractors , money question's, and some serious concerns of the judgement of the management. I believe they own another facility as well, so that will harm those people as well. There is a reason you are not seeing this on any other sites.

god damn these true crime cunts.

begone.

true crime gays are also no better.

R150 sorry if this was supposed to be more obvious but

in front of the computer.....jacking off and the heart gave out?

Do we know if the Erie Sports Center is financially solvent? Might this be a double murder by the boy’s father to get two big insurance payouts to keep the gym afloat? I think I saw up thread that they applied and maybe got a Covid-19 economic grant, so they must be needy? Follow the insurance money…

r165

I'm aware, I was just focusing on just the one aspect. I believe the kid purportedly co-founded it with the other guy so technically he would be in the same room with his dad business partner and his business partner as well.

I've tuned in the memorial service. It is a beautiful family. All snark aside, it is a very sad situation. Prayers to Declan and his family.

link please

R169

Yes, I was just trying to be as tactful as possible because it was a sad situation.

I can't bring myself to watch the service. Let us know if there are any clues or if Sheldon is mentioned.

r170

That would be the first thing an insurance accuracy would look at, so most likely no.

actuary

The soccer players are in their uniforms

r177

Not the way Firefox likes to revert its spelling, but yes, thank you.

R170 The two COVID loans (totaling $300K) were for Sheldon's "Tech Excellence" business - not the Erie Sports Park venture. Sheldon founded that business way back in 2004, and it has the same address as his residence. (The loan doc says < 5 employees).

And his Linkedin shows that during much of that time, he was also concurrently working two other sales jobs at companies called "Headsprout" and "Autoskill," leaving both of those jobs in January 2010. He was also Head Soccer Coach at Family First Park until June 2008. He'd been there for 11 years.

R171 Declan did not co-found Tech Excellence. That company's been around since 2004. He would have been 6-years old.

The priest seems to have a foot fetish?

R181

If you go over the multiple interviews, there is a lot of overlapping or contradictory statements made by the father. I believe it was in reference to the current incarnation since Declan graduated, or he could have just been boasting. Needless to say the address of the "company" is a house in a less than desirable part of Erie, Don't take anything on LinkedIn at face value, that is what get's so frustrating.

What is the priest doing?

R184

Transubstantiation

R184 In his sermon, he went on a rather lengthy tangent about the significance of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and Declan playing soccer with his talented feet.

Pervert!

Is there an open casket?

R188 No.

btw - Has anyone spotted blond Austin at this service?

r188

Not in a Catholic funeral mass.

R189 Austin wanted to go but found out that he couldn’t do a shirtless selfie in front of the coffin - #nohomo

These singers are dreadful.

Has Sheldon been mentioned at all? Any references or allusions to the manner of death?

This is more native control for Gannon, than it is actually for Declan. It's really sad. It's putting on a public face because all the people involved in whatever happened were also involved with the university. I'm sure there will be a more, private, memorial that is not publicly displayed with his intimate family and friends.

*narative

I work a block from the Hyatt Regency. You want I should start snooping around??

Please do. Just pop in for a drink and ask questions of the gays.

Yes. And I have a former neighbor, retired Chicago PD detective. He filled me in on Jussie, I'll ask him.

Cool R196.

Is his coffin draped in a rainbow flag?

Chasten Buttigieg is now taking to the lectern to give an oration.

Is there anyone shifty looking in the audience? Maybe sniffing loudly and acting vaguely erratic?

It was a nice touch how all the men would lean forward and present hole towards the casket.

Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way, less about any weird May/December romance and more about money. Some of the clinger comments about Sheldon seem spot on. He did get an overly large PPP loan for what his business purportedly did, enough money to have kept the boy he developed a fixation on around. Convinces his best friend/business partner to have his son join up while they are finishing the sports park. There's trust there, so it's a go. Kids no angel, but not bad either. Knows he's good looking and uses it to his advantage. Most young guys are opportunist, and he just got in over his head.

If Declan really had unresolved emotional issues with Austin he would also be vulnerable.

Well, that was quick.

On the home page of the Erie Sports Center, it (understandably) has a page-link to donate to the newly-established "Declan Bingham Scholarship Fund."

But under the "ABOUT US" tab, it's only about the father. The dead business partner is no more. He's not even mentioned as a co-founder.

Then they are definitely blaming Sheldon. And if it was drugs, that's a natural reaction I guess.

We know Sheldon played for Gannon with Declan's father 3 decades ago at Gannon, as well as was involved with the university soccer program himself and was not honored. I guess it's pretty safe to guess whatever happened was not kosher.

I'm not that familiar with Catholic funeral masses but there was very little about Declan and the only ones to speak at the service were the priests and university president. No family members' or friends' recollections, only the reference to his feet, his Australian/South African accent, and a letter he wrote to the president while in a Covid quarantine. It wasn't a tearful service. No mention of Sheldon. They aren't making a saint out of Declan either. It was an odd dynamic.

Fascinating development R206!

R209

Like I posted above, that's called catholic damage control. It was more for the University and not Declan because him, his father and Sheldon were all involved and they had to do something. There will be a private function for Declan I'm guessing.

Maybe the dad wanted them both out of the way

[quote] Maybe the dad wanted them both out of the way

I have been saying this from the very beginning.

There is no way the dad would have accepted his business partner and his son fucking around with each other.

No way.

He'd rather see them both dead.

I would bet money that the dad killed them both, and tried to frame it as a "tragic accident."

We keep going back to drugs... but what if it was something more unhinged? Declan went to Chicago and some kind of altercation happened and Sheldon snapped? Could be why this is so hush hush.

I think I’ve got it. They did drugs laced with Fentanyl and Declan died. Sheldon called down to the front desk hysterical. By the time hotel management and police arrived, Sheldon took his own life. Sheldon definitely wanted Declan, but Declan was too repressed to do anything about it.

R213 and he keeps the business and all the loot.

R215

As much as we want Declan batting for the team, why would he go with his shleppy, middle-age fathers best friend/business partner? His own father is better looking.

There is no way the father did it.

If Declan had any homosexual tendencies he wasn't repressed. He was all over Austin like a rash. It's more questionable whether he'd want to sleep with Sheldon without "encouragement" - the older man was nearly twice his age and not nearly as attractive. Big disparity in looks.

You are incredibly stupid, R217.

R220

You're rude. I simply meant I don't see daddy issues, and I don't see him being attracted to him. Something doesn't add up.

We all know that when there is a major disparity in either looks or age within a couple, there is usually money or "lifestyle" involved.

Yes, not always. But usually.

R222 Bingo

R213 R214 R215 Even if that's not what happened, something like that can become the "ripped from the (non-existent) headlines" treatment on a episode of "Law & Order."

As that show goes, the victims, Declan and Sheldon, will only be seen in the beginning. So one imagines that Dad and this #nohomo Austin character will play the main roles. Who else should we seen? Some other jocks? The ex-wife? Declan's "girlfriend."

Let the casting begin!

R222 And $300,000 worth of covid money could buy a lot of out-of-town weekends "on business."

R219

Or at all. Maybe he charmed his way for a long time and this Chicago trip was where Sheldon made his move. Declan rejected him, and seeing as Sheldon has lost a lot over the last couple years he snapped and something bad happened. Say he flipped out on Declan, kid falls and bashes his head. Sheldon freaks and downs some pills and the minibar. Some kind scenario in that realm.

R224

I say Ricky Schroder circa DC convoy two weeks ago as Sheldon.

They have known each other a long time, I don’t think money would necessarily have anything to do about an attraction between two healthy men.

Sometimes, the heart wants what the heart wants.

If you are broken hearted you can be vulnerable to overtures of kindness.

More like the hole wanted a big juicy Afrikaner boerwors.

R228

Yeah, I’m not seeing it here. By no means do I think Declan was a rent boy, but he was young, athletic, good looking. I see Declan being nice, maybe even enjoying the attention while turning a blind eye to things because of the job situation. Probably getting paid decently. Sheldon was interacting with people that were way below his peer group, hell below my peer group and I’m not that much older than Declan, and maybe miss read things and they went too far.

What would they even talk about?

R323

Soccer probably. It was all Declan knew and was Sheldon’s glory days.

I wonder if the sports centre will go under now.

I wonder if the police have searched Sheldon's phone. I'm sure it would be a gold mine.

They were both really into Toad The Wet Sprocket.

I want to know now.

R236

Mystery solved lol

Could it have been a murder-suicide?

Maybe Declan rejected Sheldon's advances, and Sheldon killed him.

Sheldon couldn't afford to have everyone knowing about him being in the closet and chasing after his business partner's son.

It seems plausible.

R236

You solved that mystery lol

R239

After Sheldon being erased from existence, seems to be entering the mix of possibilities. Would explain the “tragic accident”

No, it doesn't r239. The hotel room makes it completely implausible.

Wrong, R242.

They were on a business trip and sharing a room.

Maybe late in the night, after a few drinks, Sheldon came on to Declan.

Declan rejected Sheldon's advances.

Then Sheldon panicked, and in a "fight or flight" moment decided that he had to kill Declan, or risk being exposed as gay and coming on to his business partner's son.

When he realized what he had done, Sheldon then offed himself.

That would explain both of them dead in the same room, and also why Declan's family has been cold (regarding Sheldon).

I'll bet that Sheldon suffocated or shot Declan, and then either hung or shot himself.

Those are the details that are not being reported.

R242

Unless it wasn’t just one room at check in, and Sheldon went to Declan’s room or vice versa and something went wrong. We don’t have the facts.

R243

I thought suffocation was possible.

Also explains the odd timing that the hotel shows up at their room. We don’t know if it was house keeping, management or a swat team. We know they were only dead a few hours though, someone had to notify the outside. Maybe Sheldon in a breakdown.

Even in Chicago a murder-suicide on a hotel would make the news. Have any of you people posting wild conspiracies seen the selfie of these 2 and the look on Declan’s face. These 2 were fucking well before the trip to Chicago.

[quote] Even in Chicago a murder-suicide on a hotel would make the news.

Not if both the family AND Hyatt decided to keep the whole thing quiet, for the benefit of all.

[quote] Also explains the odd timing that the hotel shows up at their room.

That's why I'm leaning towards gunshot, rather than suffocation.

The gunshot would have alerted housekeeping, and the 7 a.m. discovery.

R247

We don’t know who instigated the picture or any of the inner dynamics.

Yeah, but he’d have to check a gun on the plane even to get it into Illinois and Declan would see the case most likely. Maybe if they drove.

All we know is the family dropped Sheldon after the first press release. Tells me they handy flown to Illinois yet and the police don’t usually release theories until in person.

It’s interesting that the first police quote says both men were pronounced dead at the scene. Mostly the police will say they were pronounced dead at a local hospital. So when they were discovered, they were really dead and there was no question-so either extreme violence or dead for several hours. They went straight to the morgue. There is nothing in the press on this at all. Weird.

With the recent Fentanyl wave that police quote seemed drug related, but this onion has a lot of layers.

If Declan’s family lawyered up, which they most likely did with the hush hush climate there is most likely something that Sheldon did wrong. Declan was an adult, Sheldon would have no culpability if he decided to willingly take drugs. They are probably going after assets including his half of the sports center.

If Declan’s family lawyered up, which they most likely did with the hush hush climate there is most likely something that Sheldon did wrong. Declan was an adult, Sheldon would have no culpability if he decided to willingly take drugs. They are probably going after assets including his half of the sports center.

Come again, R255/R256?

R257

The father and Sheldon have joint assets. Most likely they would go to Sheldon’s next of Kin, however, if the police indicated that Sheldon in someway caused Declan’s death, it’s going to get complicated quickly. If it were just drugs, they or their family representative could easily spin it and stop speculation. Their silence tells me it’s more complicated.

What if Shel just slipped Declan something so he can blow him but then he ODed? Then he decided to off himself with the same drugs in shame and panic.

They took no time to wipe Sheldon from existence. There is probably a team working on the business/legal end already. These things move extremely quickly, especially under these unusual circumstances.

That’s involuntary manslaughter. Maybe not that exact scenario, but I think it might be heading in that direction if it’s not just drugs.

Not only is his son dead, half his business is tied up in the estate of the person who was with him when he died. It’s a quagmire.

Dick, drugs, and death. The Declan Story.

Dick breath, too

Chicago Nancy Drews, you know what to do.

Media doesn’t report on suicides or ODs of non famous people. Maybe it was the kid OD’d after taking drugs with the partner. Maybe he fucked Declan while he was out of it. Realizing Declan was dead and the autopsy would show drugs, he knew his business and life were ruined. Perhaps he was overcome with grief? Regardless, he commits suicide in a way that makes noise

Wow, this is some story... I was engaged in the first thread but was a away a few days and came home to the #nohomo twist. That Austin is stunning...

Interesting to note that Austin says very nice things about Sheldon in his most recent IG tribute... which seems to negate r252 and r260's idea that Sheldon was out of favor.

But does Austin know exactly what happened? It's unclear.

Again, we have this wall of silence on social media among the friends and family. I wonder if they've been briefed or they're just too embarrassed to even allude to it.

Is Toad the Wet Sprocket some weird sexual stuff?

R266

I have a feeling this story will get picked up eventually. Too many of the details are just too murky at the moment. The father is learning a hard lesson; he was kind of a darling of the local press with redeveloping that eyesore of a sports center. He trusted the local paper (which is nationally owned) for damage control, clearly before he knew all the details as he mentioned his dead partner in the first article, and now the whole metro area and beyond knows. It never would have been anything more than a blurb If he just said NO COMMENT. Same thing happened with the Pizza bomber, a reporter just happened to be on interstate 90 when they closed it off for the bomb squad and picked it up nationally.

They haven’t lived in the area long, and I don’t think they get what’s coming. I’m sure they would move, but I imagine a lot of money is sunk in a business not a lot of people are in the market to buy. It sat for a decade the last time. They let Gannon take over the PR of the funeral under the guise of Declan’s best interest, which is a major eye roll if you read how many priests that molested boys in the Erie dioceses had connections to that place in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, making it mostly about university damage control. This all should have been private. Only luck he had was who controlled the hotel it happened at.

Listen, I’m sure Declan is not a total innocent in this, but it probably was a complex situation that included misplaced trust, a level of naivety, his job, and his family’s business wedged between a clearly emotionally off individual. I think sometimes kids that are so channeled into perfection in one area of life, like high performance athletics, miss out on the common sense skills others learn from trial and error.

R267

The family has closed ranks. I’m under the impression he’s a few paces behind and probably not reading datalounge, the only site that has any substantive dialogue about what happened.

I hope he doesn't read DL. This site is for gay men with a certain dark ands twisted sense of humour and would not translate well for someone working on their grief.

R272 Well, it’s trending on goggle when you type their names. I think some of bitchy/sexual humor that makes this site usually fun to read should be toned down in light of a young mans death, but it’s a free country. Maybe it will do some good by getting noticed by larger outlets. I find it funny how quickly we picked up on “this doesn’t seem normal” but then again most straight people have knowledge of pnp, rentboys, Grndr drug dealers or being kept in their repertoire.

Austin's Instagram is still set to public so he's not seeing what's written here. I doubt many people close to this case are aware of this site. These threads aren't being picked up by search engines. At least not searches for the men's names.

^don’t have knowledge

Umm….doing just that brought me here. Didn’t have to dig too hard.

What are people in Erie saying?

It’s # 3 on my browser, but people have different algorithms maybe/hopefully.

I'm in Australia and I've tried Google a number of times and it's not coming up.

My family is from there, I guess it went mostly unnoticed last week, but started to spread over the weekend. People feel bad for the family, as they should, but they aren’t ignorant to the subtext of the situation. People are more upset with the family being exploited by the paper. The story was poorly written, and just made people dig deeper.

My family is from there, I guess it went mostly unnoticed last week, but started to spread over the weekend. People feel bad for the family, as they should, but they aren’t ignorant to the subtext of the situation. People are more upset with the family being exploited by the paper. The story was poorly written, and just made people dig deeper.

Go Erie will be noticing all the traffic coming from here.

They'd be aware.

[quote] These threads aren't being picked up by search engines. At least not searches for the men's names.

I just did a simple google on the three words declan, sheldon, and chicago and this Datalounge thread was the sixth entry.

Puts them in a tricky spot. I’ve talked to multiple people that think them jumping the gun with the family before the bodies were back in town, and could even wrap their heads around the sensitive optics of the story and it’s ramifications. When you’re just told your son and business partner have died in the same space of time you have to be in shock. You’re living minuet by minuet and It’s hard to think clearly and logically.

Even when you died Oh, the press still hounded you All the papers had to say Was that Declan was found in the nude

Go Erie has already teased that cause of death is yet to be released so I assume they will follow up when it is. Unless the sports centre is a big advertiser.

Austin was in love with Declan despite all his #nohomo. He was in love, but not gay. What if Declan [italic]was[/italic] gay and in love with Austin, but could not admit it to Austin (or anyone else), and there was some psychological transference from Austin to Sheldon who [italic]was[/italic] also gay, in the closet, and available? Or at least open to experimenting.

Too convoluted to be plausible?

Then again, it's possible Austin and his #nohomo doth protest too much. But that's a separate issue, because I think the fabulous and thirsty Austin might have a problem with Sheldon if Declan, the love of his life, was getting porked by someone else that was less fabulous than Austin.

That's a little convoluted, too.

I should go back to bed.

It's hard to believe someone that obsessed with their own bare chest doesn't appreciate male aesthetics on some level.

They’ll be favorable to the family, the damage is already done. You have to contain a narrative from the start. Another outlet with bigger resources and connections could easily dive in. Too many people in Chicago were there to keep a lid on everything.

R285 Declan was a Roman candle in the wind, our Erie Rose.

So, did the father stand up at the funeral and say “I love my dead Gay son?”

[quote]You’re living minuet by minuet and It’s hard to think clearly and logically.

Especially while dancing.

I, for one, prefer the quadrille!

I’m with r259.

Sometimes the easiest explanation is the correct one. Sheldon wanted to seduce Declan and slipped something (like GHB) into both their drinks so that a) Sheldon could get some liquid courage and b) Declan would acquiesce. Then before you know it both are asleep, then dead. With the one who got the stronger dose passing out first.

R294 The only problem with that theory is it presumes they had never fooled around before. I don’t know.

I am starting to get the feeling that the reason the media isn’t covering this story is because they don’t want to out these two men. It might not have been the biggest deal ten years ago, but with everybody being so sensitive, I bet it’s a calculated decision to not report on it.

R259

That’s not the easiest explanation if you know the type of people you’re dealing with here. What was he planning on doing the supposed date rape that he planned didn’t get deadly? Tell the guy it was all a dream? GHB is a messy affair for people who know what they’re doing with it, and almost unheard of outside major cities and the pnp crowd. A 45 year old man that coached boys soccer until 2008 in Erie, PA isn’t going for club drugs..

I say physical, interpersonal violence would be the easiest cause of accidental death.

^if the supposed

If it’s not just some real freak accident, and everything was above board in that hotel room, I say Sheldon probably being out of town and alone with Declan made a move too far and something bad happened. Maybe he read the signs wrong, and bashed the guy or smothered him and hung himself out of guilt. Something sad like that. Declan probably thought of the guy as harmless so when something went down he was off his guard. Parents aren’t dumb, if something had been going on between him in Sheldon the father would have squashed it out a long time ago. By all accounts they were very close.

I know love is blind blah blah blah, but there are decent looking gay athletes at Gannon, outside of some weird power dynamic hold I don’t think Declan would be attracted to Sheldon. That’s even if he was gay, which is moot because he’s dead, I think he was probably very sheltered and maybe a little immature because of his extreme soccer training and the high level of involvement his dad had in his life to get him there. Kids like that don’t get a chance to socialize like the average teenager.

r298

I can see that. Looks like Declan's life was dedicated to soccer up until just last year when he graduated. Even then, it was to work for his dad's best friend/business partner so it's not.as if.he really branched out. The statistics on violence and assault away correlate high with people you know and trust.

Too much being made of housekeeping at 7 am. That's probably the beginning of their shift and if there isn't a "Do Not Disturb" tag, they're quite willing to knock at that hour. Lots of hotel guests leave early in the am to make flights.

R300

It's yet to be confirmed if it was house keeping, and most hotel's its after breakfast 9:00-10:00 A.M. for occupied rooms. Business travel account for around 65% of short term accommodations in the U.S. so it's usually after working hours in the the lower 48; resorts excluded. My old roommate was a hospitality major, I only remember the answer because I regretted even asking the question when it wasn't just the time lol.

R301: Veteran business traveler here----housekeeping gets going early. I've also had to change alarms from 5:00 to something more civilized many times. If the place is packed, they need to have rooms turned over for the next big meeting. If it isn't---commonplace now, there's a skeleton crew and an unpredictable number of rooms turning over everyday.

It may have been housekeeping it maybe wasn't, this was one of the less clear parts of the article. Unless the bodies were in obvious view, if they see people in the room, they usually close the door as to not interrupt. This is why reporting needs to be backed by better fact checking. Maybe they saw something off and notified the staff, but however it went down this was executed in a super contained manner. The time frame is so tight to the time of death, it seems that someone was notified on the outside. Maybe Declan messaged his parents late at night sounding weird or saying something was wrong and they got ahold of the hotel early in the morning.

The real question should be when they got into the room to determine how many hours they were alive. Time of death is not an exact science, but we know they were close together according to the EMT's. I just think if it was a hypothetical OD with two people, they would have started using much earlier in the night and their times of death would have been way before 6:00 A.M. if the drugs were laced. The tight timeline seems closer to a foul play scenario.

I haven't seen answered, when were they scheduled to check out? Maybe they were scheduled for an early checkout hence visit by housekeeping. Reading between the lines, this was not the first out of town trip for Sheldon and Declan. Whatever they were doing, they had done before. Why do people assume Sheldon was the aggressor? Could have been Declan. Families always rally behind family members even after wrongdoing. Sheldon didn't have the family network to defend him. The Binghams made the wrong choice in excluding Sheldon from any references. That has raised the most suspicion for me. If Sheldon was clearly the perpetrator, family would have said, Declan was the victim of an aggressor, those references have been absent. A lot of the music at the service was about acceptance and forgiveness, is this alluding to forgiving Declan? I don't understand the priest/student bonding but clearly a few of the priests at the service were gay and there was a lot of touching between the male athletes going on, maybe that is a team sports male bonding thing, but this is a crowd that doesn't recoil at male to male contact. No one has said it yet, the younger brother is even hotter than Declan.

When that KTLA reporter died in a Burbank motel room with another guy the news was all over it until the truth was revealed... we need more answers here!

r304

No they are doing exactly what they are probably being legally advised to do. Sheldon's estate most likely still owns half of the Bingham's company. It's a complex matter. It is not for them to say Sheldon did anything, that has to be determined legally through the proper channels, which will take time because Sheldon is dead. Seeing as the father did mention him initially, I would conclude that whatever was discovered was most likely not in Sheldon's favor. He was his boss, and was the business partner of his father/his fathers best friend. I'd say that's a pretty big breach of trust if anything improper was going on. That service is irrelevant, the university made all the arrangements for it. in fact it was rather off putting because they've had a couple, current, athletes over the years die on campus and never had done anything like that before.

Maybe this was a Kyle Beach situation that went too far.

Maybe they had a 7am wake up call and when no one answered housekeeping was sent up and that’s when they were discovered?

MAYBE ALIENS SUCKED THE LIFE FORCE OUT OF THEM???!!!!!!

Who will play the shy immigrant housekeeping personnel forced to look in on them at 7:00AM in the TV movie of the week, and will they illicit a Lady Diana death scream upon opening the door and discovering the bodies? And did their real life counterpart get hazard pay, sent home early and access to free therapy because she’s seen some things a woman’s ain’t supposed to see?

The hotel is in their hometown, right?

Please respect my privacy at this time. Thank you.

No, r311... the hotel was in Chicago. They were from Erie, PA.

Hello Austin... and Joe!

Could the Wrigelyville Cumpdump have a detective series where he solves crimes, getting information covertly while getting plowed? He could solve the crime.

Has it been said why they were in Chicago? Had they posted the trip on their social media?

I think it was that big Gay Mr. Leather event.

R316

No, and the lack of details are what’s feeding over 600 posts in two threads now. We have no idea why a 24 year old guy was alone, let alone ended up deceased, with his 45 year old boss in Chicago.

Apparently Declan worked for Sheldon who was also Declan’s father’s business partner in renovating a run down sports park in Erie, Pennsylvania along with being best friends and soccer teammates at a 2nd tier Catholic college there as well.

Initially Declan’s father said his son and business partner died in Chicago in some type of tragic accident, then by the weekend the business partner was no longer being mentioned by the family, nor was he part of the funeral yesterday held at the same Catholic university all three of the above men attended and continued to be involved in its soccer program. Just a very convoluted, bizarre situation.

[quote] I think it was that big Gay Mr. Leather event.

You're the third or fourth person to float this theory, but that event is in MAY.

The Wrigleyville Cumdump can't take time off from his meth smoking and dirty load collecting to take the case.

While we wait, some M/M fiction to occupy us ..lol!

[quote] You’re living minuet by minuet and It’s hard to think clearly and logically.

I completely understand. It's so stately and glamorous and breathtaking it's hard not to be swept up in romantic hysteria. The costumes alone...*swoon*

We certainly shouldn't expect a logical explanation until the end of the Ball season.

If Austin is straight, he's got the best taste in men of any straight man ever.

Aside from his no homo bro Dec, his Insta feed is a sausagefest.

Guess Sheldon isn’t even getting his own obituary. Just ones created by bots.

Anybody have a Reddit link on these guys?

It looks somebody or something has wiped all the European/AU media comments sections. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a clean online sweep of a somebody with minor notoriety. It takes a lot of effort to turn off the comment section in the dailymail. Megan Markel couldn’t even have that done lol.

Please ignore all the facts, and just listen to my words and accept them as the truth.

I think we shroud call Declan by his childhood nickname, “Tigger”

How long has Declan been dead?

Is he rotten yet?

R327

Do we know he’s really dead, or was he bait to off the business partner? Didn’t see a body in that casket.

Yeah, there's something very unusual with the almost complete blackout of information.

I wonder why Declan went by a different last name years back? Is he Troys step son?

Declan... I am your father.

If Sheldon had 800k to spend last fall on a sports park, why did he need a 300kPPP loan, and how did these guys get 1.6 million dollars cash between them. Look up their local address’s in the white pages. Most importantly who is getting Sheldon’s 800k now that he’s dead?

Best quotes from the times:

"These guys are so committed and are such good businessmen. If I had money to invest I would be throwing it at them," Catalde said.

"They have more money that they can put into the facility up there," he continued. "They will make that facility into something that we could not."

You couldn’t make this stuff up lol.

[quote] why did he need a 300kPPP loan...

Because if there is a revenue stream, you exploit it. All the wealthy kids I new at school were on food stamps, because they qualified. Same reason that the wealthy plant three avocado trees and declare themselves a farm. This was the big complaint about PPP loans. They were going to companies that really did not need them.

But the issue is, Sheldon was never wealthy. He worked as a soccer coach until 35 with various menial clerical jobs between had about 90k in Realestate in a borderline neighborhood , and a small business that he ran out of that house since 2004 that never made even close yearly or every other year to the 300k ppp loan he took out which needed to be based somewhere believable to your actual payroll. Plus he was coming off a divorce where it appears he had to buy his ex-wife out of the house, and divide assets. So it begs to question where the capital came from? Not quite the avocado crowd. I wonder if things stated coming down on him recently.

R332 The $300K PPP loan was for his totally separate business, Tech Excellence. .. And just because he may have other assets, doesn't mean they wouldn't give him a loan for that business.

I know one multi-millionaire in Beverly Hills who got a PPP loan for something that I don't consider a bona fide business. .. This guy owns a large, vacant estate. Whenever he can, he rents it out to occasional tenants (by the month) or to people who want it for a big party, or film studios, and for some other event. .. His "business" with this estate was down during COVID, so he applied for a PPP loan, saying he needed it to pay things like the property tax, maintenance, and the property's caretaker (his own son). Personally, he has all kinds of assets of his own that would have allowed him to pay for these things, but he went for the PPP money instead and got it.

The information blackout could mean the police suspect foul play.

My theory ----

The two did drugs, and Declan OD'd. Sheldon awakes and discovers his young BF has died. Sheldon reacts badly, heads into the bathroom and turns on hot water in the tub. Sheldon slits his wrists or neck.

Water overflows and seeps into the hotel room below that was noticed by the downstairs guest who phones the front desk.

Housekeeping is dispatched at 7am and finds a dead 23yo and a bloody mess in the bathroom.

It's more likely that both did drugs from the same bad batch at the same time.

[quote] The information blackout could mean the police suspect foul play.

It could also just mean that the police are waiting on toxicology. And if the scene suggested that they're the only ones involved, then there's not much else to do in the interim, since they're both dead.

Yes, I get your point, I know people who utilized it that way, and in a place like Beverly Hills you could find a lot of creative ways to spread that cash to comply with their legitimate rules, but that isn’t the case here. His separate business “Tech Excellence” in Erie, Pennsylvania never made a lot of money, didn’t have enough existing payroll prior or the out going expenses to justify that amount of a loan. Do you know how hard it is to spend 300k in Erie? A lot of people are getting in trouble now for fudging their numbers. They are far harder on a guy like him bucking the system, especially if he misappropriated those funds than the wealthy guy in your scenario who could legally work the system because he was already had expenses to utilize the PPP.

He didn’t have any family, his wife left him, he had to remortgage the same house to buy his wife out, student loans- I just don’t see him having 650-800k sitting around to blow on a sports complex that’s failed several times in the past. Some isn’t adding up here. You don’t go in on a million dollar project in October and die under suspicious circumstances by March. I think things go deeper than they appear.

If you look at the Cook County Medical Examiner site and apply the filters on the right to the right info (Male/Chicago/White/ 03/18/20-03/19/20), it says the cause of death is still pending. Cases # ME2022-04120 (Declan) and 04121 (Sheldon). Since it's still pending, I'm going with drug overdose.

Nice work Nancy Drew / R341!

I'm just going to pick up my friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne

and take a ride in my roadster over to the Hyatt Wacker

And we'll eat out every muff in that place if we have to - until we get the truth

Instead of 03/18/2022-03/19/2022, you can just put in 03/19/2022-03/19/2022, for the dates. Sorry about that

R340 Well, he got two loans: one in 2020, and the other a year later in 2021 - coming in at around $150K a piece.

If he said it was to meet payroll for the <5 employee figure that's listed with the loans, then $150K divided up per year to keep a few people working wouldn't seem all that suspicious on the surface. The question might be did he really have anyone else working in this business besides Declan and himself?

R341, nice work, finally something concrete though incomplete

R338 is correct. That is the simplest and most likely explanation. You bitches are all acting like you are Barbara Cartland.

R340

Considering he took in the low end of 5 figures prior, unless he gave internships, I would say he didn’t have the revenue to pay more than himself.

R341 When I looked at that ME website the other day, one thing I noticed is that it lists TWO DIFFERENT HOTEL ROOMS in the address columns.

The one for the 45-year old white male is: 151 E. WACKER DRIVE (HYATT REGENCY CHICAGO) #2331

While the one for the 24-year old white male is: 151 E. WACKER DRIVE (HYATT REGENCY CHICAGO) #2231

Possible typo? .. Or two rooms? .. Or perhaps this was one of those "bi-level" suites that some Hyatt's offer that are connected via a circular staircase, because those room numbers would suggest that the one room is directly on top of the other. (How appropriate!)

I can’t read this whole thread.

They were fucking, right?

They took something, but it wasnt unintentional. Im keeping my money on the theory that they were star crossed lovers who would rather die together than be separated to avoid the pain it would bring to the family and business.

R347

😂

R349

Looks like a typo

A couple weirdos repeatedly post their perversions on this thread.

It seems so obvious. They BOTH just slipped in the shower and hit their heads, went to bed thinking nothing was wrong, and both died in their sleep. Happens all the time.

two rooms

#nohomo

Just noticed that Declan’s Insta is set to private. Was it always? I thought that I had browsed through it.

And apologies if this has been dealt with upthread or in Part 1.

R357 I looked the same day the first thread was posted on 3/22, and it was private then.

^Links to photos on it worked just fine when I looked (and I am VERY late to this party), and I flipped to some other photos on it too, that had not been linked on DL, I remember clearly. I did not see this thread until 3/27.

^On the other hand, perhaps oopsie, I might well have been looking at Austin's IG...mea culpa, I'll go Oh Dear myself; or take an overdose of fentanyl.

Anyone else think Austin would be extremely confused by all the traffic his IG has been getting?

R361

Um, I think you're missing a key part of social media. We're not always dealing with smart people. It may occur to him that the traffic has maybe something to do with his dead #nohomo BFF, but more likely he thinks he's spectacular and people are finally noticing.

See "thirst."

R349

Oh boy, looking at the Hyatt floor plan map #2231 and #2331 may be different rooms. The plot may thicken.

So they got the room # info from an interview with staff.

R364 The police were told to meet with hotel security when they got there, so the room number(s) of the "unknown sick" plus all of their check-in info would have been provided as part of the record. And the EMS units performing the resus would have recorded what room(s) they going to and where the bodies were being taken from prior to transport to the M.E. CSI was more than likely there as well. Photos. Prints. Semen samples?

R360 I'm sure that was it, because I also happen to be the poster who originally put the link to Austin's IG up when there was nothing to find at Declan's private page. And understandably confusing, since Austin features his #nohomo bromo soooooooo much. ;-)

[quote] and will they illicit a Lady Diana death scream

Oh, dear!

The only way Austin’s IG could be any gayer is if Aaron Schock made an appearance

Can someone post some of his more interesting or suggestive pictures?

R369 Well, here's the bathtub shot.

His caption was: Just a couple of guys enjoying a bath together 💦 #nohomo #preseason #fullhomo

r365

What do you think the implications of the bodies being in separate rooms means?

I kind of like this one, where Austin is showing off his new beachwear - a fashionable top and bottom watermelon ensemble.

And of course, his "Bit of Romance" photo from Disney World.

Two virile men cut down in the prime of masculinity.

To think of all those thousands and thousands of loads that could have been dumped in willing holes or splashed on eager faces—squandered.

The heart breaks.

Perhaps they passed the Dyatlov Pass before they passed?

I was thinking maybe it had something to do with money. Something involving the PPP money and Declan knew Sheldon had cooked the numbers (number of employees, etc.) and now that was coming back to haunt him. Dec got cold feet and wanted to do the right thing and return the money since he was probably in on it. Sheldon of course wanted to keep it, they fought, and fatal damage was done. A similar situation, except perhaps the cold hearted father actually wanted Sheldon out of the sports center since he wasn't capable of putting in very much capital to begin with, but he thought the idea of kicking Sheldon out of the scheme would sound better coming from Declan since they were so close. Same result- a fatal fight.

HOWEVER,

After R341 's find, and the possibility they were indeed in separate rooms, cause of death pending on both, and the term "unknown sick" which means one was possibly still alive, however close to death. "Unknown Sick" called down to housekeeping early because their services were required (vomit). Housekeeping went up, and at some point the decision was made to call 911. Whomever of the two (Dec or Shel) was Mr. "Unknown Sick" mentioned his traveling partner in another room, either to housekeeping, EMS, or both. When checking on said traveling partner in his separate room, they find him already dead. "Unknown Sick" died in his hotel room when EMS failed to save him. The cause? Some kind of toxically fucked up drugs.

Either Sheldon or Declan (I'm thinking Sheldon) acquired the drugs in Erie or Chicago. Either way, it was laced with something fatal (fentanyl?). During the course of the night, while out partying, or just as they split to go to their separate rooms, one shared the drugs with the other, and led to the above scenario the next morning, and the pending cause of death. The father has dropped all mention of his business partner because he knew the partner was into drugs and caused his son's death. It would also be a cause of shame for the university, hence no ceremony for Sheldon. Maybe Sheldon had an ongoing problem which caused his wife to leave him.

There you have it. It may not have the gay spice we were all hoping for, but it seems probable.

Something tells me Declan was "Unknown Sick".

W&W for R377's posted by.

I WANT to read this thread, but if it's filled with the usual DL "In the closet" bullshit that's for some reason ONLY applied to mysteries involving attractive white men, I'll pass.

R376

After the corners website was posted earlier today, I went to look at the other drug deaths. Everything is listed since late 2019/early 2020 as COMBINED FENTANYL. Starting with dope, now its mixed in EVERYTHING with an average of 2 autopsies a day listed under accidental deaths in the last 3 months in cook county, and that's only the men.. Where as there was only a dozen coke od's in all of 2021. With summer around the corner, this is getting very scary very quickly.

I laughed till I cried

If fentanyl is so damn poisonous, why are all the dealers lacing coke with it? Is it all intentional manslaughter? They MUST know they're killing off their customer base? I wouldn't think that drug dealers would be THAT stupid. I have the strong sense that fentanyl OD is exactly what happened here, and I am sure the kid's family blames Sheldon for giving it to him.

Just because they had two rooms doesn't mean they died in different rooms. LE maybe checked the second room for evidence. Austin seemed more than a friend. He traveled with the family. On a Facebook post, one woman said "and your son's friend can visit any time".

I don't get gay from those Austin photos. The selfconscious jokes, I get.

We need some bearking news on this case stat.

It's almost as good as the two Canadian runaways!

Look again, r384

Could it have been bad seafood? Maybe they were daring and had that sushi with blowfish in it?

It was bad seafood

They picked up a sailor and he murdered them

bad seafood: they picked up the wrong hooker.

I know this may be a naive thing to say, but what are the odds they were actually blowing coke? One 24 year old athlete, one middle-aged man who runs an athletic center, from Erie, PA, doing coke on a business trip to Chicago? It’s not totally implausible but I feel like they wouldn’t even know where to find coke much less do too much and wind up killings themselves.

R382

I think it's the kingpins attempt at changing the market. Heroin is a lot more expensive to produce and not nearly as powerful as Fentanyl. With everything that's going on in the Middle East, it's hard to get black tar into into the rest of the world. They are moving dope addicts over to something that is way more powerful, and is a much cheaper with a way bigger profit margin. If people die, that's just collateral damage in the drug wars. It's really scary shit.

r390

People will never lose the capacity to cease to surprise you lol. My guess is the kid at-last was just vacation dabbling. A when in Rome kind of thing that just went horribly wrong..

People do things on vacation, they don't do at home. They are probably relatively cosmopolitan for Erie, PA and cocaine is one of those drugs that's a hardy perennial in terms of always being around even when it isn't "fashionable".

Are you alluding to fisting?

Someone needs to write a Capote-esque non-fiction novel about this.

I suggest they call it IN COLD CUM.

r395

That might be a little lofty, this feels more like a made for TV movie circa 1996. Tori Spelling could of played Declan's girlfriend.

Oh... Declan's beloved is in the realm of a Tori Spelling?

Andrew Shue for Declan, he’s already got the soccer moves down pat!

If that Kelly guy from Teen Wolf were younger...

and in a nursing home.

Its one thing to do drugs...but to do them with your fathers business partner ? Come on.

Re: Sheldon's money, I'm sure that the $800,000 that he put up for the sports park was borrowed.

Looking at Sheldon's home address in Erie, there's a woman named "Laikin Jessica Kelly" listed there as a resident.

From her Facebook page, it appears that she and Sheldon have been in a relationship for at least two years.. There are photos of them as a couple going back to 2019, and expressions of sympathy from friends over her loss support this. Her cover photo of them below:

continued ...

continued ...

Also, Laikin is involved with Sheldon's "memorial service and celebration of life" and put an announcement up on FB yesterday indicating that the services are forthcoming. It kind of sounds like she might be planning to hold something at the nearby "events venue" where she works. She is the Commercial Property Manager at "Bear Ridge Destination" just over the border from Erie, in Clymer, NY. From photos, it appears that Sheldon may have frequented the place.

That guy in that photo just up above sure doesn't look like he's anywhere near 45 years old...

Declan's father's original statement about this referred to the 2 deaths as a "tragic accident," so I'm sticking to the notion that the guys were sharing some poisoned cocaine. It's just too commonplace an occurrence nowadays for that not to be what happened. The report on Go Erie says the 2 were found unresponsive in the hotel room(s?) and died after they were found, so I'm guessing attempts to revive them did not succeed. Seems uncomplicated enough to me. The kid's parents blame the older guy, Sheldon, and so he's been cut from their lives for bringing about the son's death. Simple.

Too bad Shannon Dougherty is too old to spit out Brenda Walsh's 2 lines in the movie of this tragic event.

"You don't KNOW him, Declan!

"How could he DO that!

"

Dad doesn't want to talk about it because:

1. The son is dead and talking to the press solves nothing, and only exposes the family's grief to pointless public meddling; and

2. He himself is feeling deeply guilty and believes that his own business partner ended up causing his son's death. If Dad hadn't gotten mixed up with Sheldon, this would not have happened. He's angry at Sheldon and himself.

So, will this secrecy on how people die unexpectedly be the new normal? These guys aren’t even famous or have that kind of power and it’s covered up.

Please r408...Hundreds of thousands of people die unexpectedly every year...Do you hear about those ?

Forgot Reason No. 3: dying of a coke overdose because it was laced with fentanyl is a pretty smarmy way to go, so it's no wonder they don't want to talk about it. If everybody thought the kid was a star athlete, straight-arrow guy, how can they pass this around for sympathy?

R407 I thought the same thing. In private, the dad is probably cursing the day he got so intrinsically involved with Sheldon.

“In Cold Spooge”

Surely.

I agree with everything R405 said. Also, Sheldon wasn’t a bad-looking guy.

R405 Well, like I wrote, the woman in the photo works at Bear Ridge Destination, and one of the things they do there is host weddings. They have in-house vendors that couples can use for all the services required for their wedding, including photography. And since that photo was taken at the resort in front of the tee-pee they have on the property, it was more than likely something professionally done by one of her co-workers, so everyone's going to look good .. lol.

This is the first personal photo she put up of Sheldon, on March 21, two days after his death.

The caption reads, "I love you so much honey. I wish I could wake up from this nightmare."

Forgot to mention, white pages type info indicates that the girlfriend is only 25. .. Yep, that would go along with the idea that Sheldon liked to hang with people two decades younger than him..lol

She's also on tiktok. .. Not very much, but he's featured in a few of her videos, including one (rather ironically) of them in a Vegas hotel room just a little over a year ago.

I guess we can't link to tiktok any more ??? .. Here's a copy of the video via streamable (her caption).

[quote] Also, Laikin is involved with Sheldon's "memorial service and celebration of life" and put an announcement up on FB yesterday indicating that the services are forthcoming.

It's incredible she can commit to such an endeavor... what, with the baby and all. I know every perv on this thread is still counting and drooling for all the babies Sheldon wasted on Dec's hole.

I checked out Facebook for Van Deventers living in Queensland, which is where Declan and family lived before moving to the USA.

One of them - Roarke Vandeventer - is Facebook friends with Declan. I can’t see the relationship between Roarke and Sheldon, though.

Also was browsing Laikin’s Facebook and there’s a message about a month old to Declan’s mum so not just Sheldon was close to the Binghams. Nothing from Mrs Bingham back to Laikin about her (Laikin’s) loss, though.

If they really OD'd, wouldn't their families be suspicious of the circumstances. Why were they seemed they're so quick to say it's an accident the next day? I would've wait for an investigation first before anything else.

Were they in one hotel room or two?

They were in seperate hotes across town from each other, Rose.

Adding to R418's message ...

Tracey van Deventer (Reynolds) in Queensland responded to Troy Bingham's original FB message announcing the two deaths. In doing so, she used the salutation "Dearest Troy" saying how they shared his pain, and how she and "Clive" are there for him.

From her message to Troy, I believe her husband is "Clive van Deventer,"and he's been been re-posting the tributes to Declan from Australian soccer clubs on his Linkedin page.

Tracy also followed Declan on FB and donated to his birthday fundraising drive for St. Jude's in 2021. Declan replied to her with a personal thank you using the nickname "Trace."

Tracy and Declan's mom are also friends on FB.

People are saying both you vicious cunt.

Perhaps they were re-enacting the Michael Hutchence Story?

Considering the many apparently previous close ties between the two families it really shines a light on the lack of public communications between them now.

Jesus, you don't od on purpose.

A casual look through the available online information about fentanyl poisoning in Chicago indicates that the rates of it have not been declining in the past 2 years. People just don't seem to understand what they might be fooling with. Cops have gone to the hospital just from getting he stuff on their hands, it's that strong.

I can't believe the old, unattractive guy at R415 was banging two hot male and female twenty-somethings.

Damn.

He was less than average in looks.

Looks like Declan and Austin would both have smooth, tight holes.

Sheldon also had an address in Clymer NY.

My grandmother used to have a house in Clymer. I never knew it was such a swinging place (she also had a house in Erie).

Isn't cocaine the kind of drug one uses with another person? That is why I guess they were in the same room. And I wouldn't assume that the 24 year old didn't score the drugs.

I have no concrete proof, but I'm guessing that both Austin and Declan were both bottoms.

Note the hairy arms, but the smooth legs and nether regions.

It means they shaved down below for when they both bottomed.

Maybe Sheldon did them both at the same time?

He must be hung, to get two hot 20-somethings.

The pic from Las Vegas shows Sheldon's really big feet.

Oh FFS R431 I’m an elder gay and even I know that shaving or waxing body hair is pretty much de rigueur for men these days, especially millennials and whoever follows them.

It means zip.

R430 If you're referring to the address associated with Sheldon in Clymer that's located at "1879 Pekin Rd." then that's the same address for the business that his girlfriend works for known as "Bear Ridge Destinations." They have some "luxury houses" at the site that they lease for special events on the property.

Guys don’t go for hung. They go for hot. You look like any of those and you’re getting laid if you want.

Anyone else starting to feel more sorry for this guy as picture is getting painted a little better? It was fun in the beginning to laugh at the #nohomo shirtless, Aussie pics and speculate about his personal life. However, the truth is actually looking kind of sad. I know Erie better than i’d like to admit. Growing up in those big, catholic families that were always in your business, going to parochial school with the kids of the kids your parents went to school with. Man it was stifling.

If you were smart you started planning on getting out as high school started. Declan spent his formative years in Erie, at Gannon non-the-less; that’s not a great period in life to pick up certain aspects of the local culture. Seems like he probably could have done better on his own. Not really looking like he had adults that were always focused on his best interests seeing how it’s all ending. Not saying he is not his own person, but that intense soccer for so much of your young life, then to die a year out in the world? Talk about shitty luck.. Seems like a real faustian pact was made, Declan got to live it up then after college jet around on the company dime for a bit, but Sheldon just latched on to his life up till the end. I know it’s probably more complicated and grey than that, but he was the supposed adult When you know someone all their life, you should really feel a bit of duty to look out for them. Don’t any of you guys have younger family members you’ve looked out for at one point or another? I’m guessing Declan was far from a saint, and could have been a total tool for all I know, but what a long, sordid way down. Wouldn't wish that fate on people I dislike the most.

My goodness…!

Clearly, this guy cares about this case.

He made a whole youtube video about it.

Is he a Datalounger?

R438 Look at all the videos on his channel. It's all click bait crap.

One thing we know for sure. Sheldon had a HUGE dick. That's why these young men were falling for him.

Or a business credit card with a HUGE limit.

Sheldon's cringeworthy get up in the TikTok Vegas video is pure classic midlife crisis. That and the hanging with 25yos paints quite a picture.

R416, there is something off-putting about middle age Australian men in general.

R 443 Has watched too many episodes of Kath & Kim

Here's Sheldons house,

It's well kept, but the area is sliding. That was once a well of block around 100 years ago, but a lot were turned into rentals then college apartments for Gannon. It's almost like he got stuck in college hanging our with 20 somethings and everything. Makes me doubt the whole cash purchase of the sports center majorly. It's hardly worth any equity from when he bought it 18 years ago..

r436 My kid brother is his age, I keep reminding myself that when I want to say something mean.

r440

Or defrauded the PPP program by about 6 times what he made in.a year, then hired his special friend.

I'm not convinced sex was part of this. Looks like Sheldon wanted to be one of the (24yo) boys, not shag them.

Could have been partying but no play.

R448

I concur with arrested development.

His relationship with Declan was like he was trying to relive his glory days as one of the boys. I sent my aunt the link to this, it cracked her up. They want ro Gannon together when it was a really small school, and her best girlfriend went on.A date with him.... if you could call it that. He brought two other soccer players, and barely talked to he the whole night. Just weird. She was in my aunts wedding maybe 15 years later, and even then was the kind of women who woke up stunning..

Does she think he was gay?

She said he was at time callow and still appears to be.. It's a possibility, but it could be a host of screwed up things there is something wrong there regardless.I guess he broke down sobbing out of nowhere in a science lab her sophomore year. Just out of nowhere.

Best guess is a lot of his issues came from being a try hard. Like he was painfully bullied as a kid and kind of never left that place. Those were all the first hand accounts I have that I know are trustworthy.My aunt is a very straight shooter.

Big feet or no big feet, that Tiktok vid sure is depressing, considering that's a 45-year-old man. Yeah, he's definitely (should be "definately", I guess) living in the past, 45 and going on 26.

A lot of divorced middle aged men act this way.

R454

😖imagine what the cops found on that phone? Supposedly, they are going to look through his house, but I don't know which agency.

a lot of gay ma men act this way.

This is going to be on the Forensic Files.

I'm just shocked that a closeted queermo like Sheldon, could bag two twenty somethings. One male, one female.

What in the fuck was his secret?

Grooming?

Whether there was sex involved or not, his possible appeal to younger friends seems pretty obvious. He was eager to please them and apparently had the means to do so.

How did he not set the parents of these kids off? Look what it took for Declan's dad to see the light. That poor guy will never be the same.

It reminds me mr of all those parents that let their kids stay at Michael Jackson's house. Not saying he's a pedo, but the way he get's trusted so easily is baffling.

The world is full of these middle-aged guys who want to hang and party with the college-aged kids. My new next door neighbor is one of them. He's 45 and has a rock band with college-somethings. He's handsome, nice personality, but pretty wasted-looking, up close.

I would've rather eaten shit than partied with a 45yo at age 24.

r464

One turn on that merry-go-round was enough for me, there is a time to pass the torch. You have NOTHING in common with these people. This is going to sound awful, but my best friend is a good looking guy about 9 years older than me and he still keeps falling into the 22 y/o honey pot. if I had a dime for every time he said "But he's rally mature for his age" '

Sheldon was obviously a creeper.

Now the bigger question still remains.

How did he and Declan both end up dead?

I'm thinking Declan called him a dork (you know, like in that "killer" cheerleader movie with Kellie Martin where she kills Tori Spelling), and when Declan tried to exit the room, Sheldon killed him.

Lol. "Death of a Cheerleader."

But instead of a cheerleader, it should be "Death of a Soccer Player."

Sheldon just wanted to be part of the group!

Tori Spelling really is an essential part of this story.

Or Sheldon got left our of the Grndr group ar the Hyatt and a hell was to be paid.

^all

I think we've cracked the case!

Where is the TikTok video?

TikTok video is at r416

That video at r438 is awful... who can even understand that guy?

1 bathroom???? The horror!!! (r445)

Four bedrooms but only one bathroom? The horror!

(The preview says no photos, but you do see the exterior.)

Boy, that Sheldon’s nothing to write home about.

r476 Twinsies!

DL often exaggerates about looks. That said, Sheldon was legitimately unattractive.

Was there Twinks on Top porn playing in the room when they were found?

[quote] It’s not totally implausible but I feel like they wouldn’t even know where to find coke much less do too much and wind up killings themselves.

In Chicago?! He'd probably been before and knew how to score. Very easy in Chicago.

4 hours? You’re lagging.

[quote] What in the fuck was his secret?

Here's one of the "recommendations" from Sheldon's Linkedin page. It sounds like he was quite the salesman.

[quote] “Sheldon is a consummate sales professional. He possesses superior social and sales skills that draw others to him and he has the characteristics of a leader. Sheldon was always the person I could go to for advice on difficult business situations and he always left me with great solutions to resolve the issue. Sheldon was the number one Sales person in our company. He brought me on one of his sales calls where I watched him do a demonstration, on that day it was easy to see why he was the number one sales rep. He is smooth, knows his product well, and he can think on his feet. Sheldon would be an asset to any organization in need of a committed sales professional.”

Sheldon was an AWG Queermo using his Covid money to lure in hot young guys, and wine them and dine them.

He got rejected and then couldn't handle the rejection, and so he killed Declan.

End of story.

THREAD CLOSED.

Thought I hit pay dirt when someone who previously stayed in room 2231 posted photos...but the dipshit only included the room number/door and another one of the hallway outside. Plus, it's an old photo, so the number of beds could have changed.

Just last year 3 stand up comics in LA died from snorting cocaine laced with Fentanyl. The were simply partying after performing. There was a fourth comic who survived. He's the one that called 911 after he came to and found his friends dead.

^I got the facts wrong except the cocaine part. But that shit is dangerous!

If it turns out to be that, then you'd think the much-publicized case involving the West Point cadet-football players partying in Florida JUST NINE DAYS EARLIER would have given them pause.

I think it was on DL at the time in fall 2019 where there were multiple deaths in Pittsburgh when an after party group were snorting cocaine that was laced with fentanyl.

Maybe don't do cocaine???

Alien anal probes gone terribly wrong?

The most boring explanation is the most likely one.

Mid-life crisis middle aged man trying to impress young friend(s) by flashing cash and partying. Some coke is bought from a street dealer unknown to them who maybe specialises in selling poor quality drugs to out-of-towners who he will never see again.

The men go back to a room, snort the coke, it's heavily tainted with something, and they die without anyone being able to raise the alarm.

There was probably no sex or seduction involved. Just a couple of bros who were killed by bad coke.

I wonder what these 2 South Africans thought of the thousands of light skinned black women at their hotel for the Alpha Kappa Alpha convention at the Hyatt that weekend.

R484 that recommendation was from when he was selling Electrolux Vacuum Dealers door to door.

Cleaners.....CLeaners.....JHC.....must be the vodka.

The snot green awnings on Sheldon's house conclusively say heterosexual, provincial dork.

But in the Southern Hemisphere they say urbane gay sophisticate.

Poor kid. Declan looks deliriously gay in photos. I hope his death was not due to gay shame or stigma. In this case, I hope it was drug use.

Me thinks it was The AIDS!!!

I wonder what Austin was telling us when he commented on the pic of them in the bathtub together “#nohomo #preseason #fullhomo”. Kind of like that t-shirt that says “I’m not gay but my boyfriend is”

Could it be Blood Diamond related?

[quote] Could it be Blood Diamond related?

The blood was coming out of his... whatever.

R501 you don’t know many douchebros do you?

Maybe it was actually murder.

They insulted the cute little room service waiter with a #nohomo joke the evening before, so the twink snuck back into the room after they went out that night and put rat poison from the Hyatt kitchen traps inside their automatic coffee maker that was set for 6:30AM.

Just ten months ago ....

The mexican drug cartels are pushing their low quality street drugs in the US since weed is now legal and they've lost billions to legit farming operations.

That guys knows he might get blowback for posting "#nohomo," so he added "#fullhomo." The overall intent is to diffuse perceptions of gayness while demonstrating that he's not a bigot.

No, R508 he’s just a dumb bogan who thinks that pretending to be gay is funny.

Trust me on this.

Doesn’t mean that he’s not on the dl but he’s not intelligent enough to demonstrate that he’s not a bigot.

Could it all somehow tie into the series finale of Ozarks?

Cause of death still listed as pending. How long does it usually take?

If there's an autopsy or an "investigation" (basically questioning someone's associates), it can take a couple months to work its way into the record. Depends how efficient the coroner's office is--in LA County an investigation might be done in a week or two but not get into a record for 2 mos. During COVID with many more deaths (directly or indirectly related to the pandemics), it probably takes longer.

Drug testing for the cops is usually weeks behind, it's a very high volume industry.

Which man went up into the man?

R511 The rapper who went by the name Juice WRLD died in Chicago on December 8, 2020, and the Cook County M.E. didn't publish the results until January 22, 2021. So that was about 6 1/2 weeks. And there were media outlets waiting on those results.

The article about toxicology from WebMD posted above at R145 says "4-6 weeks is average," and that's when things are normal (no COVID backlog).

The rapper

[quote] Could it be Blood Diamond related?

The almond company?

[quote] that is what get's so frustrating.

Oh, dear!

[quote] but the way he get's trusted so easily is baffling.

Oh, DEAR!

Looking a little more into Sheldon's (former) relationships uncovers two additional in-laws who are mourning his passing.

Just like the sister-in-law referenced up above in R106, this other SIL expresses love for Shelson and still refers to him as her "brother-in-law."

Her message on FB the day after his death reads:

[quote] Devastated, I can’t think of any other descriptive. We lost Sheldon, our brother-in-law this weekend, please shoot our family some positive thoughts and prayers, especially Robert 🖤

She included 11 family photos of Sheldon and changed her FB cover photo to the same one her sister did of Sheldon and his son (her nephew).

The father-in-law also re-posted those same 11 photos with the message, "Devastating loss. Pray for Robert who lost his father..." I'm guessing that "Robert" is Sheldon's teenage son (previously referred to as "Elviss" when he was a boy). It looks like this son is now around 16 - 17-years old as he's listed as "Class of 2023" for a prior track and field event.

I now think this is just as boring party-bro OD.

The O'Reilly men?

Anyone else starting to think this is the first cases of an older man with a younger guy, caught dead together (or in close proximity) under suspicious circumstances, where high levels of male grooming and shirtless pics aplenty turned out not to be gay? I don't think the family helped. Whatever is going on in the background that the narrative "your son and business partner died together in a hotel under a cloud of mystery" was the best option, can't be great. I wonder if someone if the their sphere tried to leak the car crash story earlier on, and it just made things worse by drawing attention to the point they had to put out an even more bizarre statement. Needless to say, this was not handled well.

The car crash stories that I saw were ALL written by people who (literally) could not write English. They were so ungrammatical that they seemed to have been written by people whose first language was Russian or Chinese...This story is not the least bit mysterious to me. The kid's father characterized it at the outset as an "accident." They KNOW what happened. The 2 guys were out of town on business, and shared some kind of drug that had fentanyl in it, and it killed both of them. It will take weeks for the toxicology lab report to be competed, and hence the cops' silence about it; there is NOTHING more to say. That's all there is to this. The cops are not acting like there is the slightest hint of any other criminality involved.

^And let's say, for the sake of argument, that the 2 of them WERE fucking around, were maybe even in bed together at the time they passed out (highly unlikely, in and of itself). If the report shows they died of fentanyl poisoning, that's ALL the public is going to hear about this. The coroner is not going to say that the 2 guys were in bed fucking when they passed out...LOL.

Could lube and fentanyl cause a deadly reaction like bleach and ammonia?

^Interesting. Perhaps they spontaneously combusted. Does anyone know, was the Fire Department called to the scene?

Yeah.... hence the first time a story that this outwardly gay in appearance is not actually gay at all. Was not disagreeing with you. The car crash actually started in some Australian sports pages, then a couple lines in one of their papers, people must of been searching for more details which caused it to get picked by the bots. The quoted newspaper story is unusual, you never get the family on record that close to the incident with print. It's usually a stand alone with the police facts, and family couldn't be reached for comment on the bottom. It was poorly handled. It will take a long time to play out, but I think a completely avoidable, sad pair of deaths has shed light on a lot of things that probably would have gone unnoticed otherwise. Locally people just found out Gannon University's business school, is the listed address for Declan's father, Troy's, consulting business. Seeing as they don't pay property tax under exemption, why a company that's goal is presumably to make money, and unrelated to the school is listed as the address of record has raised some questions.

[quote] ^Interesting. Perhaps they spontaneously combusted. Does anyone know, was the Fire Department called to the scene?

Maybe they died in a grease fire?

Heatstroke!

It wasn't heat they were stroking

The only reason I'm not buying the drug story is that they didn't say anything about an overdose in the original report. If they procured drugs, however they did it, wouldn't they have found some on one of them or somewhere in the room? And if we're thinking fentanyl-laced cocaine, so they went somewhere, each did a line of coke, then made it back to one of their rooms in enough time keel over dead?

You'd think such a weird and potentially salacious story would garner more attention.

Murder-suicide? The word "tragic" is pretty loaded. It seems to me it has to be something more than bad drugs.

Why?

r528, either that or poisonous gases.

Was Ina Garten in the room R534?

r530

News or official report?

Tragic ACCIDENT. Not too many accidents can kill two (and only two) people inside a hotel.

OD.

Usually in a big urban hotel there is a front desk worker or doorman or shuttle driver who knows where to obtain drugs or hookers.

Will Smith busted down the door and slapped them both silly!!! It was MURDER!

“People must of”, R526?

R540

A few Aussie sports blogs, and one of the papers had blurbs about a car accident and head trauma a couple hours before the stuff in broken English. It's reasonable to say that a rather obscure, college soccer player getting in an accident didn't come out of thin air online considering how little is even known now. It would have been 7-10 P.M. depending where they originated there time. It was another day before it became a local story. Any notice of trouble would only of come from someone with inner access at that point. If you've ever been far away when someone close got hurt or died in an accident, you get a lot of conflicting information. It could have gone through the digital grapevine super quickly. Then picked up speed over the night. Only a theory, but bots wouldn't just randomly pick those details. They were probably aggregated from searches, tweets, FB, etc.

Looks like you’re having a rough time with English too.

[quote] depending where they originated there time.

Huh?

[quote]would only of come from someone

Oh, DEAR!

r542

Yup, AirPods dictate text isn't always accurate. It's my cross to bare.

[quote] Usually in a big urban hotel there is a front desk worker or doorman or shuttle driver who knows where to obtain drugs or hookers.

They could also have brought the drugs with them from apparently drug-trafficking central, Erie, PA. noted up at R506.

r544

It's a possibility. However, If they bought them locally it would have been through some sort of connection. It's too small a city to risk selling deadly product to regular clients, or friends of clients. It's more of a hub with the lake to Canada, easier to get past coast guard than boarder patrol, or East/West on I90 and South on I79.

This local article was published in early March.

"recent explosion of drug overdoses"

Did anyone get sodomized?

r576

Yeah, that's part of the crackdown. They're going after dealers in OD death cases too. If they were purchased in Erie, it would be reasonable to say they have a chance of tracking down some kind of lead. If found it won't be a quiet matter. It would be a major tough on crime show case.

[quote] boarder patrol

Are these the people who ensure your boarder pays rent?

Well, let’s talk to him and find out what he knows

WOW, If a drug dealer ever went psycho, he/she could kill dozens of their customers.

This story is fizzling out.

No new leads.

And most of you are buying the drug angle.

I'm not. It was a closeted gay romance gone bad.

I don't care what anyone else says.

There's no reason for a man pushing 50 to be hanging out and sleeping with his business partner's 24 year old son in the same room, unless something sexual is going on.

You know it, and I know it.

Anyone who denies this, is .... in denial.

[quote]And most of you are buying the drug angle. I'm not. It was a closeted gay romance gone bad. I don't care what anyone else says.

Thanks for weighing in, Barbara Cartland.

Isn't there evidence they had two rooms? They apparently died in the same room, which would imply social drug taking. But if they were on a sex vacation surely they'd book in the same room.

R554 Yes. The Cook County Medical Examiner's intake information shows a different room number for each guy. Refer to R349.

[quote] It's too small a city to risk selling deadly product to regular clients

Most of the time, the retail-level drug dealer doesn’t control the contamination of his product.

Where is the quality control, the FDA if you will, of the street drug trade?

[quote] Isn't there evidence they had two rooms?

[quote]R554 Yes. The Cook County Medical Examiner's intake information shows a different room number for each guy.

I’m more inclined to believe that as a typo. If it wasn’t, they had the exact same room location one floor apart, which is rare when you’re making reservations for two rooms. Usually they’re either adjoining, near each other or, at the least, on the same floor.

That would be one helluva coincidence to get the room right above.

They got the rooms with the spiral staircase

I love my dead cocaine-sniffing comedian friends!

[quote] That would be one helluva coincidence to get the room right above.

The desk clerk knew that one was the top, and one was the bottom.

So he assigned their rooms accordingly.

But what if he got the positions wrong? Oh, how embarrassing for him.

Drug Death and Gay Lovers aren't mutually exclusive. They could have been fucking and died while "partying."

^Of course, Wilbur. But we are never going to hear about any part of it except "accidental drug OD." That's it. Not a word about whether they were sucking and fucking right when it happened, unless someone gets a scoop from the hotel gays.

Information becomes public knowledge all the time. Don't lose hope, Fern.

Such an odd time of day for the incident.

Police responding to the "Unknown Sick" dispatch at 6:56AM, with the M.E. showing incident time as 7:10AM (probably when EMS started working on them), with time of death occurring 50 minutes later at 8:01AM.

Time of death occure or was called at 8:01? I don't think it's odd that they were discovered at that time, likely by Housekeeping.

*occured

All these "true crime" threads are the same, long echo chambers of the same ideas brought up, discussed, dropped and then recycled by people who seemingly haven't bothered reading what has been said (more than once) before. They're all like wind tunnels.

R567 The police dispatch indicates "sick" not "dead." .. And the original report from GoErie says:

[quote] "According to police, at about 6:59 a.m. Saturday, "Two victims, a 45-year-old male and a 24-year-old male were discovered unresponsive by hotel staff. Lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful and both victims were pronounced on scene."

So it sounds like some kind of resus was performed. If the emergency responders were used Naloxone, then that might fit, as they have to wait a certain amount of time between the injections.

r570 Hi, Websleuth Frau. I take it you mean resuscitation and not resus like the fucking monkey. But you live off of your "in the know" sounding lingo.

Go away.

If golden boy Declan hadlooked like Jared Fogle, there wouldn’t be 1200 replies on the subject

R571 I take it you mean "Rhesus" and not "resus." Rhesus is the monkey.

And "resus" is a pretty standard, shortened version for "resuscitation" (especially in the UK).

Sorry, if that offends you.

I think what R571 is trying to say, is that you are a total douche bag for using the abbreviation "resus," rather than just saying resuscitation or resuscitate.

R574 I don't need the aggro over simply using a commonly-used term in my locale.

I'm sure you know what "aggro" stands for in the UK as well.

Take away the speculation and you have a middle aged guy who never grew-up and was hanging out with younger guys. he lived in the local college town neighborhood (that kind of real estate often is a good investment but more as a rental). We probably won't know anything further that's concrete until there's a death certificate, which will take awhile.

Surprise Fent - anal.

Popper overdose?

Do people take fentanyl up the butt, is that like those vodka soaked tampons?

Murder-Suicide.

The end.

No death scene photos yet?

If it was an OD they would have used Narcan to revive them. Likely, they’d were already dead. I think some of you are getting caught up on some things said by the medics on scene, but this is 99% an OD and if they were still alive Narcan would have 100% saved them.

[quote] No death scene photos yet?

Here you go.

[quote]Surprise Fent - anal.

Great name for a Gay porno.

Sheldon is the better looking now because he's still on ice.

Will a third thread on this topic be necessary, or has this story fizzled out?

^pffft!

[quote] Sheldon is the better looking now because he's still on ice.

I'm thinking since there's plans for a "memorial service and celebration of his life" in the works, he's probably been cremated.

Cremated before even a funeral?

A memorial service is basically a funeral with no casket present because the body has been cremated. They are sometimes held a couple of weeks after the person has died.

I bet he was balls-deep in the other guy and that room stank of man sex!

Will Mike White adapt this story for his new season of White Lotus, but setting it in Capri?

If it were even thought to be a murder-suicide, the police would have been involved and an investigation opened which would have been public. The local news would have reported on it.

99% certain this is a weekend romp gone awry, ended by OD by bad batch. They were both stone cold dead when discovered, hence no chance of resuscitation. Families were notified, the hotel room cleaned, bodies returned home and all washed away. Clearly interested parties in Chicago - the hotel management, and families of the deceased - got PD and local coroner to stay as quiet as possible about it all.

Double suicide.

Yes, by fentanyl-laced cocaine.

If a guy dies with his dick in another man, will it go into rigor mortis and get stuck there?

Only slightly off-topic, I wonder how many of us have unwittingly stayed in hotel rooms where someone had died.

"Model" Christy Giles' cause of death has just been released in LA, some 5 months after it happened. Toxicology found 4 drugs in her system, including fentanyl and rohipnol. Five months delay in these results for this case. The girls' "dates" that night are facing some serious charges, certainly at least manslaughter.

Are we done yet?

New thread.

What do the Chicago police say? This happened two weeks ago.