The defendants committed a series of brutal gang-related murders in 2017. Each faces mandatory life prison terms.
Warning: This story has some disturbing descriptions. Four members of the MS-13 street gang were convicted this week in three grisly murders, including a dismemberment, carried out in the Angeles National Forest in 2017.
A federal jury found Angel Amadeo Guzman, 31, and Fernando Garcia Parada, 28, both of Panorama City; Edgard Velasquez, 43, of Reseda; and Jose Jonathan Castillo, 34, of Los Angeles guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and violent crimes in aid of racketeering through murder, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Prosecutors said the killings were tied to Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a transnational gang that maintains a presence in Los Angeles through smaller groups, or cliques, including in the San Fernando Valley and around MacArthur Park.
In one case, prosecutors said, Velasquez authorized the killing of a man accused of painting the graffiti of a rival gang. Guzman, Garcia, and others kidnapped and strangled him, and drove him to the Angeles National Forest, where he was killed with machetes. Later, his killers dismembered him, carving out his heart and throwing his body parts into a canyon.
A month later, Guzman and co-conspirators killed another victim, whom they suspected of cooperating with law enforcement, and who had fled El Salvador. One conspirator used a teenage girl’s Facebook account to catfish him, and he was lured to the forest and killed. The third victim, described by prosecutors as an associate of the gang, was accused of overstating his status within MS-13.
In June 2017, he was taken to the forest, stabbed and “hacked to death,” according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release. The defendants remain in federal custody and are scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 20. Each faces at least one mandatory sentence of life in prison, prosecutors said. Federal authorities said the broader investigation has led to more than 30 convictions.
Five additional MS-13 members were convicted in November 2025 in a separate trial involving six gang-related killings.
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