An MS-13 chief is on trial in Virginia for his position in a half-dozen grotesque murders during the last 5 years, together with one by which he and his gang shot a younger waitress within the face so many instances that her corpse was unrecognizable.
Federal prosecutors say Elmer Alas Candray, a 27-year-old native of El Salvador, turned one of many busiest killers in Virginia as he rose by the ranks of the savage gang, which is thought for its horrific violence, based on the Washington Publish.
However now, he’s dealing with the music in federal court docket in Alexandria, the place he’s accused of homicide, racketeering conspiracy and firearms fees stemming from the six killings, which left 5 corpses in ritzy Fairfax County, Virginia, and one other in Massachusetts, the outlet mentioned.
Prosecutors say the homicide case — which might imprison Alas Candray for all times if he’s convicted — is the most important they’ve taken to trial in a number of years.
Sarcastically, it might be his personal folks that do him in.
Of the eight different gang members indicted final yr for the slayings, seven pleaded responsible — and 5 plan to testify in opposition to Alas Candray, the one one who allegedly participated in all six killings between 2018 and 2022, the outlet mentioned.
In court docket, Assistant US Legal professional Megan Braun listed the case particulars whereas photographs of the victims’ brutalized our bodies flashed throughout the TV screens.
In a single case, Alas Candray’s crew obtained indignant that folks had been consuming, smoking and promoting medicine in a small patch of woods behind a shopping mall about 10 minutes east of Dulles Worldwide Airport, which they thought of their turf.
The nefarious exercise was bringing cops round — so one evening in 2019, they despatched a message by killing the primary particular person they noticed in these woods: 24-year-old Jose Guillen Mejia.
The gangbangers left his bullet-riddled physique laying amid a cluster of beer bottles and bullet casings, one detective testified.
The next yr, Alas Candray and three others lured Iris Ponce Garcia, a 19-year-old waitress who’d smack-talked MS-13 in a social media video, into the identical woods and murdered her.
“They shot Iris 16 instances, primarily within the face, leaving her unrecognizable,” Braun advised the court docket.
They killed Rene Pineda Sanchez, 27, two years later in the identical place, just because he frolicked in these woods, the Washington Publish mentioned.
Gang members beat the person so badly {that a} health worker mentioned he regarded just like the sufferer of a automotive wreck, with ruptured inside organs and a crushed cranium that they caved in with a rock.
And in 2022 they clipped one in every of their very own, beating 42-year-old Francisco Avelar Rivera (referred to as “Papalito”) to loss of life with a baseball bat and stabbing him a number of instances in Seneca Regional Park in Nice Falls, Braun added.
The person was referred to as a heavy drinker who’d inflate his rank throughout the gang, she mentioned.
That was sufficient.
“They minimize off his head. They minimize off his fingers. They minimize off his arms. They minimize off his legs,” Braun mentioned.
“They buried Papalito’s stays within the woods, the place they had been undiscovered for greater than a yr.”
The main points observe contemplating the gang’s popularity for practically unmatched brutality, by which its hundreds of members typically depend on weapons and machete to do their bloody dealings.
Alas Candray has additionally been accused of collaborating within the 2021 gangland assassination of rival Santos Antonio Trejo Lemus, in addition to the 2018 killing of Kevin Abarca-Choto, 18, in New Bedford, Mass., over unpaid money owed, the Washington Publish mentioned.
Regardless of this, Andrew Stewart, Alas Candray’s protection lawyer, mentioned prosecutors don’t have the proof they should convict him of the crimes.
“These grotesque photographs don’t present that Mr. Alas Candray is responsible of those offenses,” Stewart mentioned in his opening assertion this week.
He additionally claimed the 5 flipped gang members are solely making an attempt to shift blame “to serve their very own self-interest,” the outlet added.
In the meantime, prosecutors say they discovered a kill record — which included Pineda Sanchez’s identify — on Alas Candray’s telephone.
In addition they picked up a handgun linked to the shootings after they raided his Manassas, Virginia dwelling — in addition to two revolvers, two machetes, a baseball bat, knives and ammunition, Braun mentioned.
MS-13 has hundreds of members in El Salvador, the place its actions are directed from leaders contained in the nation’s prisons, the outlet mentioned.
Though authorities in northern Virginia have convicted dozens of alleged gangbangers for killings, drug offers and human trafficking, their presence within the Capitol area persists.
Alas Candray’s trial will probably final a number of weeks.
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