A Reston man was released from the custody of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday (Dec. 17) less than 24 hours before allegedly killing another man, police said.
After a nearly two-hour manhunt, 23-year-old Marvin Fernando Morales-Ortez was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with one count of second degree murder — a felony that carries a maximum of 40 years in prison.
He has also been charged with using a firearm while committing a felony.
Fairfax County police had responded to a residence in the 12300 block of Fan Shell Court around midday Wednesday after receiving reports of gunfire.
Upon arriving, they found the body of a 40-year-old man with gunshot wounds. He has been identified by police as Marvin Ernesto Morales.
After a preliminary investigation, Morales-Ortez was identified as the suspect. He was apprehended not far from the crime scene, according to a press release.
🚨Suspect in custody!🚨
Officers took the suspect into custody and recovered a firearm on scene. Detectives continue to investigate. Available updates will be posted on our blog https://t.co/PBMfNnSkey pic.twitter.com/rleSl9twhe
— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) December 17, 2025
According to the Fairfax County Police Department, officers had been searching for Morales-Ortez earlier in the day after an emergency custody order was issued by a magistrate.
Those orders are commonly used when “there exists a substantial likelihood that, as a result of mental illness, the person will … cause serious physical harm to himself or others as evidenced by recent behavior.”
An emergency custody order, however, is only valid for eight hours under Virginia law. Morales-Ortez was not located in that time, and the order expired before he could be detained.
According to online court records, Morales-Ortez had previously been charged with six different crimes, though the charges were later dropped in each case.
Among other cases, he was arrested in June 2020 as a 17-year-old for the June 23, 2019 murder of Jose Lorenzo Guillen Mejia, a 24-year-old Reston resident whose body was found on the footpath behind Hunters Wood Plaza.
After more than a year in jail, Morales-Ortez was ultimately released from custody and the charges against him were dropped in 2021 when “it became clear that he was ultimately not the perpetrator,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office spokesperson Laura Birnbaum says.
An MS-13 gang member — Elmer de Jesus Alas Candray — was later convicted in the murder of Guillen Mejia and other individuals last year. He was given multiple life sentences by a federal judge on Jan. 30 of this year.
Most recently, Morales-Ortez was arrested on Sept. 14 on charges of malicious wounding and brandishing for an incident that occurred two days earlier, online court records show. The charges were dropped on Dec. 15 — the day before this week’s fatal shooting — because prosecutors had “insufficient evidence to move forward” with the case, according to Birnbaum.
“The victim told police that they had moved out of the country and would not be coming to court to cooperate in proceedings, regardless of timing,” she told FFXnow. “Sadly, without the victim’s necessary testimony, we could not move forward.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told WJLA that it had sought to detain Morales-Ortez prior to the incident, claiming that he’s a native of El Salvador illegally residing in the United States.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office told FFXnow that, without a court-issued warrant, the jail had no grounds to keep him in custody, but ICE could’ve picked Morales-Ortez up upon his release.
“There was an informal detainer not a judicial warrant,” the sheriff’s office said. “ICE is always free to arrest an inmate on an informal detainer, which was issued on Sept. 14. ICE did not have a judicial warrant, which is required to hold the person.”
In keeping with the county’s overall policies, the Sheriff’s Office, led by Stacey Kincaid, doesn’t cooperate with immigration officials except when required by law or court order.
Morales-Ortez will next appear in Fairfax County General District Court on March 11 for a preliminary hearing, according to online court records. There, a judge will determine if there is probable cause to send the case to a grand jury.
