A terrifying New York killing involved an MS-13 gangster who attacked high school girls with a bat and slashed them with a machete. On Wednesday, Alexi Saenz, 29, entered a guilty plea to counts of racketeering in connection with eight murders.
This includes the vicious 2016 murders of 15-year-old Nisa Mickens and 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, who were viciously murdered as they strolled through their Long Island suburban neighborhood.
Saenz made his plea without saying much. In a statement that his attorney read aloud, Saenz acknowledged that he had ordered or approved the murders of those he considered to be his competitors or those who had disregarded or disagreed with members of his gang.
“Violent criminal” and MS-13 gang member sought for murder after “hiding out in New York”
Cuevas and Mickens, longtime friends and classmates at Brentwood High School, were among the fatalities; they were killed by a group of young men and teenage boys who had been following them in a car using a machete and a baseball bat.
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Kayla’s father, Freddy Cuevas, voiced his displeasure outside the court that the death penalty had been dropped. “He’s an animal,” he declared. He is cruel. Insofar as the families are concerned, maybe justice will be delivered quickly and we can move on from this.”
Nisa’s mother Elizabeth Alvarado continued, saying, “All I want is for my daughter to be at peace. She will never be at ease, no matter how much time we spend together. She will be relieved when it’s all over at the end of the day.”
Sadly, Evelyn Rodriguez, Kayla Cuevas’ mother, passed away in 2018. After her daughter passed away, Evelyn became an anti-gang campaigner. During a dispute over a monument for her daughter, Rodriguez was hit by an automobile.
During President Donald Trump’s presidency, the deaths of three high school kids raised awareness of MS-13 gang violence across the country. During his repeated travels to Long Island, the Republican has advocated for the death penalty for Saenz and other murder suspects, blaming loose immigration laws for the rise in gang activity and violence. Cuevas’ mother Evelyn Rodriguez attended President Trump’s 2018 State of the Union speech as a guest.
In addition, doubts regarding whether Long Island police had taken sufficient action to combat the threat posed by gangs infiltrating nearby high schools were highlighted by the girls’ tragic deaths. Many young Hispanic people had been inexplicably disappearing in Brentwood, a modest neighborhood roughly 40 miles from New York City, during the course of 2016.
Following Kayla and Nisa’s killings, police discovered the bodies of three other teenagers who had vanished some months earlier; they were ages 15, 18, and 19.
Saenz said that although he wasn’t present when Kayla and Nisa died, he had spoken over the phone with other gang members about the attack in the lead-up. Saenz’s hands, according to prosecutor Breon Peace, are “drenched in blood.”
As part of his plea agreement, Saenz acknowledged his participation in six further homicides and three attempted murders. When he is sentenced in January, he might spend 40–70 years behind bars.
The victim’s father, George Johnson, voiced his displeasure with Saenz’s behavior in court, saying, “He should die in there.” It seems as though he was eager to move on from this.”