Gay Florist Brutal Death in Chelsea } 2 Suspects Sought

 A 57-year-old Manhattan florist was killed earlier this month and onetime has now popped the suspects. The man is believed to have let these lowlifes into his home of his own accord, in hopes of a hookup. Instead they knocked him off.

Detectives have named two suspects in the brutal slaying of a Chelsea floral designer during a gay tryst gone awry, police sources said yesterday.

Ex-con Edwin Faulkner, 30, and suspected cohort Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera, 26, allegedly bound John Laubach’s hands with duct tape, covered his mouth with tape and tied him to a bedpost in his West 22nd Street apartment March 2.

Laubach’s exact cause of death is still unclear, but he was found with a towel over his face.

Laubach had been known to bring young men to his pad, and there were no indications of forced entry into his home, which was ransacked. Faulkner and Martinez-Herrera fled with the victim’s laptop and credit cards, sources said.

“He hired them for a little bit of money to take care of him. Somewhere along the line, they decided to kill him and rob him,” said a law-enforcement source.

This past weekend, detectives received information that one of the suspects was holed up in a building on University Avenue in The Bronx, sources said.

Detectives interviewed several residents who identified Faulkner as the wanted man after seeing his mug shot.

Investigators also found video of Faulkner walking past a nearby building carrying a small briefcase that they believe contained Laubach’s laptop, sources said.

They ran Faulkner’s criminal record, which revealed seven prior arrests, including busts for drug possession and burglary, sources said.

He also served almost three years in state prison for attempted grand larceny, records show.

Martinez-Herrera had several past run-ins with the law in Florida, including a “maryjane” arrest and a traffic violation, sources said.

In 2010, he was arrested there for a gunpoint robbery, but the charges were later dropped, sources added.