MS-13 gang leader sentenced after orchestrating a series of gruesome murders—including the murder of woman who was shot 16 times in the face for criticizing the gang on social media.

An MS-13 gang leader in Virginia will spend the rest of his life in prison for a string of murders, including a 19-year-old woman shot 16 times in the face after she disparaged the gang on social media.

Elmer De Jesus Alas Candray, 27, was sentenced on Thursday to six concurrent life prison sentences and additional terms of years following his conviction on charges relating to his participation in the gang’s criminal enterprise, including six murders and additional murder conspiracies, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release... Continue reading here ▶

“These deaths speak volumes about the defendant,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Braun said at the hearing Thursday, the Washington Post reported. “He gangs up on his victims, he shoots them in the back, and he defiles their corpses.”

Defense attorney Andrew Stewart said Alas Candray had grown up in El Salvador amid gang violence, the Post reported.

“Growing up in a city or neighborhood that is controlled by MS-13 is anything but normal,” he said.

As Law&Crime has reported, the bloody crime spree dates back to 2018. A gang associate was killed after a dinner one night, beaten and strangled with a belt, and his body cut up with knives in a bathtub before his remains were placed in trash bags and buried in the woods in New Bedford, Massachusetts. One co-defendant stayed behind and cleaned the bathroom with bleach. Those who participated in the killing were promoted up the ranks in the gang, court documents said.

The man’s remains haven’t been found.

Another victim was shot and hacked with a machete in May 2019 while on a walking trail, an area the gang claimed as their turf, court documents said.

In September 2020, Iris Janet Ponce Garcia was lured to her death in the woods. She had disparaged the gang on social media, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Braun told the court, “They shot Iris 16 times, primarily in the face, leaving her unrecognizable,” the Post’s Salvador Rizzo reported.

In March 2021, a 40-year-old victim was ambushed in the entryway of his apartment. In June 2022, a 27-year-old man was shot, and the gang had dropped at least one large rock on his head, court documents said.

In 2022, Alas Candray and others stabbed and beat with a baseball bat a fellow gang member, 42, for inflating his rank in the gang and buried his remains in the woods, where authorities found them more than a year later.

“They cut off his head. They cut off his hands. They cut off his arms. They cut off his legs,” Braun said.

MS-13 — or La Mara Salvatrucha — is made up primarily of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from El Salvador, with members operating across the U.S., officials said.