ALEXANDRIA, Va. (DC News Now) — On Monday, a federal jury convicted a Salvadorian man – and member of the MS-13 gang – on charges involving murder, murder conspiracies and participation in the gang’s criminal enterprise.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) said 27-year-old Elmer De Jesus Alas Candray was first linked to a murder that happened on Aug. 25, 2018. He reportedly met other MS-13 members in Massachusetts to murder a man identified as K.A.C.
MS-13 leadership in El Salvador believed K.A.C. had betrayed the gang.
After eating dinner with him that night, the group beat and strangled K.A.C. to death before dismembering his body and burying him in a wooded area near New Bedford.
Alas Candray and other members were promoted in the MS-13 ranks, the USAO noted.
About a year later, in June 2019, Alas Candray and others conspired to murder people who gathered to drink in a wooded area in the clique’s perceived territory in Reston, Va.
On June 23, he and a few others murdered a man identified as J.L.G.M., “shooting him and slashing him with a machete” in the Hunters Woods area.
On Sept. 17, 2020, Alas Candray and others lured a young woman identified as I.J.P.G. to Colts Neck Road in Reston, planning to kill her because they believed she was associated with a rival gang. The four co-conspirators took turns shooting her, mostly in the face.
In March 2021, the group believed a man identified as S.A.T.L. was a member of a rival gang. On March 11, Alas Candray and other MS-13 associates watched S.A.T.L. in Fairfax County, waiting for an opportunity to kill him.
Alas Candray later went to an apartment complex in Reston and fatally shot S.A.T.L.
On May 30, 2022, Alas Candray and co-conspirators went to the Lerner Springs at Reston Apartment Homes to patrol the clique’s perceived territory. They encountered a man identified as R.A.P.S. by kicking him and dropping a large rock on his head, the USAO continued.
Less than a month later, on June 18, the group picked up another person identified as F.R.A.R. from Reston and drove him to Seneca Regional Park in Fairfax County. Alas Candray and his associates believed he disrespected MS-13 and “violated its rules.”
They beat him with a baseball bat and stabbed him. They buried F.R.A.R.’s dismembered body.
Using coded language, Alas Candray later told a relative to relay a message to other Uniones Locos Salvatrucha (ULS) clique members, telling them to get rid of ammunition and warning them that law enforcement had pictures of them. The relative relayed the message on Aug. 18, 2022.
Alas Candray was convicted of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise, five counts of conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, five counts of murder in aid of racketeering and three counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence causing death.
He will be sentenced on Jan. 30, 2025, where he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison for each of the five murders.
