Alleged teen hitman charged with murder in Mexico

By Morgan Lee
February 9, 2011 at 4:29 p.m.

CUERNAVACA, Mexico — A San Diego-born boy accused of working as a hitman for a drug cartel in central Mexico was formally charged on Wednesday in the killings of four men whose headless bodies were found in August dangling from a highway bridge, prosecutors announced.


- Marco Antionio Diaz Sierra

Edgar Lugo Jimenez, nicknamed "El Ponchis," had been wanted since October. He was arrested at an airport in central Morelos state as he tried to board a plane to Tijuana.
Edgar Jimenez Lugo, 14, will be tried in juvenile court for homicide, participation in organized crime, drug possession and carrying a firearm reserved for the exclusive use of Mexico’s armed forces.

The thin, curly haired boy and a 19-year-old sister were arrested Dec. 2 as they prepared to board a flight from Cuernavaca to Tijuana and eventually reach their mother’s home in San Diego. A second sister was arrested after driving them to the airport.

As a 14-year-old, Edgar faces a maximum sentence of three years in juvenile detention, where he would receive psychological counseling and resume an education that ended in the second grade, juvenile court Judge Armando Prieto said.

Last fall, Mexico’s army began searching for a boy assassin nicknamed “El Ponchisâ€