Two MS-13 Gang Members From Northern Virginia Sentenced to Life in Prison for 2013 Murders

WOODBRIDGE, VA — Two men were sentenced Thursday to life in prison for their roles in two murders and one attempted murder in 2013 and 2014 in Northern Virginia.

Jose Lopez Torres, 26, of Falls Church, and Jesus Alejandro Chavez, 25, of Alexandria, were members of the street gang La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and were convicted in May.

According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Torres and others drove to Gar-Field High School in Woodbridge on Oct. 1, 2013, to murder a fellow gang member.

However, one of the gang members in the car had not only alerted police to the murder plot, he also made recorded phone calls and wore a body wire to a meeting where the gang members, including Pedro Anthony Romero Cruz, who participated from prison on a contraband cell phone, planned the murder. The gang members’ vehicle was under surveillance that night, the victim had been warned to not be at school, and the informant was wearing a body wire.

Then, on Oct. 7, 2013, Torres, Omar DeJesus Castillo, Juan Carlos Marquez Ayala, Araely Santiago Villanueva, Jose Del Cid, and three others murdered fellow gang member Nelson Omar Quintanilla Trujillo.

The gang believed Trujillo was a snitch, and so the gang members lured him to Holmes Run Park in Falls Church, and brutally killed him by stabbing him with knives and slashing him with a machete.

When they were done they buried Trujillo in a shallow grave. Several gang members returned a short time later and, with the assistance of Alvin Gaitan Benitez, reburied the body of Trujillo.

Also, according to court records and evidence presented at trial, on June 19, 2014 Chavez and others murdered Julio Urrutia.

Several gang members including Chavez, who had been released from prison eight days earlier, were out looking for rival gang members when they approached a group of young men, flashed their gang signs, and challenged them about their gang affiliation.

During the exchange Chavez pulled out a gun and shot Urrutia in the neck at point blank range.

Mary Ann Barton contributed to this report.

Image: Shutterstock