A gang leader MS-13 accused of senseless violence that left four random civilians dead in 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Melvin Canales Saldañaalso known as “Demente,” was a second-rank leader in a group of the MS-13 gang with a presence in northern Virginia. Five years ago he participated in various acts of violence when, finding no rivals to shoot, he ordered bloodshed, authorities said.
“At first glance, the murders committed following the defendant’s order appear to be the stuff of urban legend,” prosecutors John Blanchard and Matthew Hoff said in court papers.
“The members of the gang formed hunting groups and They killed anyone unlucky enough to cross their path.“, they added.
However, the defendant’s attorney said she would appeal her client’s conviction, arguing that his subordinates claimed the slain victims were gang rivals when they were not, all so they could rise in the group’s ranks, The Associated Press reported.
In spring 2019, Canales ordered mid-level members to fulfill their duties as killing rival gang members more aggressivelyprosecutors said. Until that point, members focused primarily on trafficking cocaine between New York and Virginia.
MS-13 members responded by patrolling in Virginia and Maryland looking for rival gang members, but got no results, according to prosecutors. When that happened, they instead attacked random civilians so they could increase their status within the gang.
The indictment refers to four murders committed in Prince William County over three months, between June and September 2019.
“They were individuals chosen at random.”
In August of that year, members of the gang attacked Eric Tate while traveling to an apartment complex to meet a woman; She bled to death in the street. The next month, Antonio Smith He was returning home from a store when he was shot six times and killed. Court documents indicate that Smith asked his killers why they were shooting him.
Three other MS-13 members, including the gang’s American leader, Marvin Menjivar Gutiérrezparticipated in the murders of Milton Bertram López and Jairo Geremeas Mayorga. Their bodies were found in a wooded area in Prince William County, Virginia, in June 2019.
The arrests of 12 people in October 2020 decimated the gang, but the bloodshed put the community on edge, acting Prince William County Police Chief Jarad Phelps said at a news conference.
“They were murdered in cold blood for no apparent reason.. “They were individuals chosen at random,” Phelps said at the time.
Prosecutors say Canales joined the gang when he was 14 or 15 while living in El Salvador and arrived illegally in the United States in 2016 to evade arrest warrants in that country.
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