Another member of the gang MS-13 will serve decades in prison for participating in multiple murders, including ones in Reston.
Henry Leonel Barrera Ayala, 26, was sentenced by a federal judge to 50 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced yesterday (Thursday).
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Barrera Ayala was involved in the murder of one person in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and two people killed in Reston between 2018 and 2020:
According to court documents, on Aug. 25, 2018, Henry Leonel Barrera Ayala, aka Cusuco, Centinela, and Lil Player, 26, Elmer De Jesus Alas Candray, 27, and other members of MS-13’s Uniones Locos Salvatrucha (ULS) clique met in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to murder an associate of MS-13’s Directos Locos Salvatrucha clique, identified in court records as K.A.C. MS-13 leadership in El Salvador had approved the murder because they believed K.A.C. had betrayed MS-13. That evening, they met K.A.C. at the residence of an MS-13 member in New Bedford. After the group ate dinner together, Barrera Ayala and several co-conspirators beat and strangled K.A.C. to death. The co-conspirators then dismembered K.A.C.’s body, placed his remains in trash bags, and buried the remains in a wooded area near New Bedford.
In June 2019, Barrera Ayala, Alas Candray, and other ULS members conspired to murder individuals who frequently gathered to drink in a wooded area in the clique’s perceived territory in Reston. On June 23, 2019, Barrera Ayala, Alas Candray and other ULS members armed themselves with a 9mm firearm, a .45 caliber firearm, and two machetes and traveled to the Hunters Woods area of Reston. The group murdered an individual, identified as J.L.G.M., shooting him and slashing him with a machete.
On Sept. 17, 2020, Barrera Ayala, Alas Candray, and others devised a plan to lure a young woman, identified as I.J.P.G., to Colts Neck Road in Reston under false pretenses and kill her because they believed she was associated with a rival gang and had disparaged MS-13 on social media. Barrera Ayala exchanged messages with I.J.P.G. via Snapchat, pretending to be a member of MS-13’s rival gang. Barrera Ayala and a co-conspirator later picked up I.J.P.G. from her home and drove her to Colts Neck Road, where Alas Candray and another MS-13 member were waiting for them. The four co-conspirators killed I.J.P.G. by taking turns shooting her, primarily in the face.
The Justice Department says Barrera Ayala also helped distribute marijuana and cocaine, sending the profits across state lines and to Central American countries to support MS-13, which has roots in the Salvadorean community that settled in Los Angeles, California, after fleeing civil war in the 1980s.
Another man, 27-year-old Elmer De Jesus Alas Candray, was sentenced to six life terms in prison on Jan. 30 after being convicted in October for six murders, including the three involving Barrera Ayala.
