Prosecutor: Illegal aliens chopped farmers
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Thursday, March 12, 2009 1:26 AM EDT
By ARTEMIS COUGHLAN


MOUNT HOLLY — If it weren’t for a cell phone that was left at the murder scene, police may have never been able to find the two brothers allegedly linked the vicious machete murders of two horse farm workers a couple weeks ago.

Arrested in Houston, Texas, on March 6 were brothers Carlos Reyes, 41, and Cesar Reyes, 38, both illegal aliens from Honduras. They are being held on federal detainers in a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Houston.

Carlos Reyes was charged with murder and Cesar Reyes was charged with being a material witness, said Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi.

The Reyes brothers worked with the two victims, Alex Aguilar, 29, and Marcial Morales-Meldonado, 48, also illegals from Honduras, at the Sterling Chase Horse Farm in Springfield Township, a 118-acre thoroughbred horse breeding farm, for the last three or four years, the prosecutor said.

On Feb. 28, a farm employee discovered the hacked bodies of the two men lying face down in the dirt next to the trailer the four men lived in, Bernardi said.

“It was a grizzly crime scene and the victims were mutilated with a machete. Their death was due to sharp force trauma,â€