Thread: MS-13 linked to slaying

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006 ... 006/216127

MS-13 linked to slaying
August 23, 2006 12:50 am

By KEITH EPPS

Two members of the notorious gang MS-13 have been charged in connection with the slaying of a woman found dead in Stafford County on July 22, police said.

The body of Shannah Marie Angeles, 21, of Palatine, Ill., near Chicago was found in the woods off Joshua Road near its intersection with Mountain View Road.

Angeles, who lived in Wisconsin before moving to Illinois, was shot in the head and body with a .38-caliber handgun.

At a press conference yesterday announcing the charges, Sheriff Charles Jett said police believe Angeles was killed simply because the MS-13 suspects believed her to be a member of a rival gang.

Jett said police have not verified that Angeles was, in fact, a gang member.

Jose Santos Portillo-Chicas, 31, was arrested Saturday at a townhouse in Woodbridge, Jett said. The gun used to kill Angeles was also recovered there, Jett said.

Portillo-Chicas, also known as "Little Blue," is being held without bond in the Rappahannock Regional Jail.

Police yesterday were still looking for 17-year-old Henry "Droopy" Mejivar, also a Woodbridge resident. Jett said he is believed to be hiding in the Northern Virginia area.

Both suspects are charged with first-degree murder, abduction by force, willful participation in a criminal act as a member of a street gang, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and committing a felony while acting as a mob. They are also charged with several conspiracy charges.

Jett said the investigation is ongoing and more arrests are possible.

According to Jett, Angeles left Illinois about the middle of last month to visit an acquaintance in the Washington area. She stayed at a motel in Northern Virginia until her funds ran low.

Jett said she then asked for help from a person she had recently met, and that person gave her a temporary home in Alexandria. Jett would not say if the person was a man or a woman.

The person Angeles was staying with introduced her to Portillo-Chicas and Mejivar. After determining her to be a rival gang member, Jett said, the suspects abducted Angeles at gunpoint and drove her to a remote area in northwest Stafford.

Jett said Angeles was then forced into the woods and executed. He said one of the suspects had previously visited the area where the slaying occurred.

Jett would not say what information led lead investigator Joe McDermott to the suspects. But by 1 a.m. Saturday, detectives from the Prince William Police gang unit had tracked Portillo-Chicas to a home in the 2700 block of Brier Pond Circle in Woodbridge.

Stafford detectives were contacted and placed Portillo-Chicas under arrest.

"Our sympathy goes out to the family and friends of Ms. Angeles," Jett said. "We hope that the progress we've made in this case will help bring them some peace and reassurance that her killers will be brought to justice."

Jett credited federal authorities and other local police agencies with assisting in the investigation.

MS-13 stands for Mara Salvatrucha. The El Salvadoran street gang started in Los Angeles during the 1980s and has since expanded to the East Coast.

A regional task force was formed in the Fredericksburg area last year to investigate gang, drug and terror-related crime. Members of the task force, which includes detectives from state police, Fredericksburg, King George, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties, say the area has had a gang presence for at least a decade but it hasn't yet become the problem it is in other areas.

However, Jett said, the Angeles slaying is another reminder that "we are not immune to this type of gang activity."

Angeles had two children. Jett said they are currently with their paternal grandmother in Mexico. Much of Angeles' family still lives in Wisconsin.



To reach KEITH EPPS:540/374-5404
Email: kepps@freelancestar.com

Does anyone have a number of murders commited by Ms-13 in Virginia? It seemed like a weekly occurence either a killing or maiming when I lived there.