This month’s fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old was carried out by members of a clique affiliated with MS-13 after the reputed gang leader questioned the victim’s loyalty, Prince George’s County prosecutors allege.
An arrest warrant details the events leading up to Jose Ordonez-Zometa and four others allegedly killing Jacson Pineda-Chicas, whose burning body was found March 9 in Stafford County, Virginia.
The victim had been stabbed 100 times.
According to prosecutors, the victim had traveled with Jonathan Castillo-Rivera, 20, of Annandale, Virginia; 18-year-old Kevin Rodriguez-Flores; 16-year-old Christian Martinez-Ramirez, of Falls Church; and 25-year-old Jose Hernandez-Garcia to Ordonez-Zometa’s home in Landover Hills, Maryland, for a gang meeting on March 8.
During that meeting, Ordonez-Zometa allegedly questioned the victim’s loyalty, then ordered the four (along with another unidentified suspect) to assault and drag Pineda-Chicas into the home’s basement.
Ordonez-Zometa, prosecutors said, then “ordered all of the co-defendants to repeatedly stab and cut” the victim. “The co-defendants proceeded to stab and slash the decedent numerous times,” the document said.
Ordonez-Zometa later ordered the suspects to clean the crime scene and dispose of the body, prosecutors said. The Falls Church high schooler’s body was found the next day near the intersection of River Road and Kings Highway.
Last week, the victim’s mother told NBC Washington that her son had been forced to join the gang before they fled El Salvador, and that they had threatened his family.
“He had to take knives to defend himself, and screwdrivers,” she told NBC Washington. “He had razors and he told me, ‘Mom, I’m going to defend myself with them, but it’s not going to be enough.'”
Four of the five allegedly involved — Ordonez-Zometa, Castillo-Rivera, Rodriguez-Flores and Martinez-Ramirez — later confessed, investigators said. And a search of the residence in the 7000 block of Varnum Street turned up blood stains in the house.
All five of the suspects face first-degree murder charges.
