week; all involved are serving lengthy prison sentences. December 21, 1988 – Transgender performer Venus Xtravaganza, featured in the documentary film Paris is Burning, was found strangled under a Manhattan hotel bed. The autopsy established that she had been killed four days earlier. No suspects have ever been named. April 19, 1989 – Central Park jogger Trisha Meili is violently raped and beaten while jogging in Central Park. The crime is attributed to a group of young men who were practicing an activity the police called "wilding", with five of these teens convicted and jailed. In 2002, after the five had completed their sentences, Matias Reyes – a convicted rapist and murderer serving a life sentence for other crimes – confessed to the crime, after which DNA evidence proved the five teens innocent. August 23, 1989 – Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old black student, is set upon and murdered by a white mob in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. 1990s March 7, 1990 – Twelve-year-old Haitian immigrant David Opont is mugged and set on fire by a 14-year-old assailant, who remained anonymous because he was tried as a minor. The attack created an outpouring of support throughout the city for Opont who eventually recovered from his burns. March 8, 1990 – The first of the copycat Zodiac Killer Heriberto Seda's eight shooting victims is wounded in an attack in Brooklyn. Between 1990 and 1993, Seda wounds five and kills three in his serial attacks. He is captured in 1996 and convicted in 1998. March 25, 1990 – Arson at the illegally operated Happyland Social Club at 1959 Southern Boulevard in the East Tremont section of the Bronx kills 87 people unable to escape the packed dance club, the city's deadliest act of arson ever. Cuban refugee Julio González, who was angry about having been ejected from the club, is arrested, tried and convicted of murder and arson, making the crime also the deadliest to result from a single person's actions in the city's history. González, sentenced to 25 years to life, died in prison in 2016. September 2, 1990 – Utah tourist Brian Watkins is stabbed to death in the Seventh Avenue – 53rd Street station by a gang of youths. Watkins was visiting New York with his family to attend the US Open Tennis tournament in Queens when he was killed defending his family from a gang of muggers. The