MS-13 gang members found guilty of killing 3 people -- dismembering one -- in Angeles National Forest

Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times on Jun 5, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — Four members of the gang MS-13 were found guilty Thursday of murdering three people in the Angeles National Forest, including one victim whose body was dismembered and then thrown down a canyon, according to authorities.

Angel Amadeo Guzman, 31, of Panorama City; Fernando Garcia Parada, 28, of Panorama City; Edgard Velasquez, 43, of Reseda; and Jose Jonathan Castillo, 34, of Koreatown were found guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and violent crimes in aid of racketeering through murder, according to a news release from the U.S. district attorney’s office in the Central District of California.

They are scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 20 and each face one or more mandatory life sentences in federal prison.

MS-13, a gang born in Los Angeles that has since expanded to El Salvador and other Central American countries, requires its members to commit homicides and other violence in order to rise in its ranks, according to the release. In March 2017, one of the victims painted graffiti of a rival gang and Velasquez allegedly authorized that the graffiti vandal be killed.

Guzman and Garcia, among others, allegedly kidnapped and strangled the victim before driving him to the Angeles National Forest, where the victim was attacked with machetes. The victim’s body was dismembered and thrown into the canyon.

In April 2017, Guzman and the others allegedly killed another victim, who had previously fled El Salvador, where the MS-13 gang suspected the victim had cooperated with law enforcement, according to the release. One of the gang members allegedly used the Facebook account of a teenage girl to lure the victim to the Angeles National Forest. The victim was then killed.

In June 2017, Castillo, Garcia and other co-conspirators killed another person, an associate of MS-13 who overstated his position in the gang, according to the release. The victim was allegedly stabbed to death in the Angeles National Forest.

In November, five MS-13 members were convicted of committing six murders and are scheduled to be sentenced in the coming months, according to the release. Federal prosecutors said they have secured more than 30 convictions in this case so far.

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