MS-13 Gang Murders Two

On 13 September 2016, two teenage girls were murdered in a residential neighborhood near an Elementary school.

The two girls, sixteen-year-old Kayla Cuevas, and fifteen-year-old Nisa Mickens were best friends from Brentwood, New York.

The MS-13 gang was started by Central American immigrants from El Salvador in Los Angeles in the 1980s. The gang is believed to be responsible for 25 killings in New York over the past two years.

Enrique Portillo, Alexi Saenz, and Jairo Saenz (members of the MS-13 gang) laughed and joked around with each other as prosecutors in New York said they were waiting to hear from the U.S. Justice Department if they will receive the death penalty.

Mickens was killed the day right before her 16th birthday.

Mickens’ body was found on a street in Brentwood, while Cuevas body was found beaten up in a wooded backyard a day later. Friends and family of the girls say that they were lifelong friends who shared an interest in basketball.

“The Saenz brothers wanted to kill Cuevas after she called the gang out at school and on a social media sites,” U.S. attorney Robert L. Capers said.

Officials say that Mickens was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and that the girls were beaten with a baseball bat and hacked to death with a machete.

“I’ve never even heard of the MS-13 gang, but they do scare me. A border wall will not curb the gang because of social media; they would still be able to thrive and recruit people,” English teacher Mrs. Sarah Wilkinson said.

“I have heard of the MS-13 gang, and they would scare me if I lived in Reading.  T hey are evil. A border wall would not curb the gang because they will find a way to get in anyway because they are determined,” English teacher Ms. Debra Mahnken said.