Third gang member linked to girl’s death
A third member of the transnational MS-13 gang — who was convicted recently by an Ohio federal court — has been linked to the 2017murder of a15-year-oldHouston girl whose death was widely speculated to be part of a satanic ritual.
Police found the body of the teen, Genesis Cornejo-Alvarado, on the side of a road in the 8900 block of Sharpcrest in Chinatown. She had been shot in the head and chest.
According to court records and federal prosecutors, 30-year-old Jose Salvador Gonzalez-Campos, also known as “Danger,” directed Houston MS-13 gang members Miguel Angel Alvarez-Flores and Diego Alexander Hernandez-Rivera to execute the girl because
she had been dating a member of a rival gang.
Alvarez-Flores, Hernandez-Rivera and a person identified as Cornejo-Alvarado’s boyfriend told the teen that they were going to buy marijuana when they took her to the street where they would kill her, according to federal prosecutors.
It was widely reported in 2017 that authorities believed a satanic ritual was a factor in Cornejo-Alvarado’s death. While searching the apartment of Alvarez-Flores and Hernandez-Rivera, police found an altar to Santa Muerte, the Mexican folk saint of death that has been prominently tied to the criminal syndicate, according to federal court records.
A police investigator, while grilling Alvarez-Flores — whose nickname was “Diabolico” — on the death, focused on what the altar meant, according to a Houston Police Department report shared in federal documents.
But investigators also stated in court records following the 2017 arrests that Cornejo-Alvarado had been dating amember of the rival 18th Street gang — also a transnational syndicate. Both gangs were founded in Los Angeles.
“For that transgression, MS-13 sentenced her to death,” federal prosecutors said in sentencing paperwork against Gonzalez-Campos.
“In short, Mr. Gonzalez-Campos ordered fellow MS-13 members living 1,500 miles away to kill a teenage girl because he believed the victim was ‘dirty’ and ‘ruined’ from a relationship with a rival gang member and therefore did not deserve to live,” federal prosecutors continued.
Gonzalez-Campos was sentenced to more than 39 years in federal prison for directing Cornejo-Alvarado’s death and for two murders in the Columbus, Ohio, area.
In translated interviews with Alvarez-Flores and Hernandez-Rivera nearly two weeks after the teen girl’s death, investigators asked them in detail about the Santa Muerte altar.
An investigator said “he heard the real reason why Genesis … was killed” and that itwas to offer her soul to the folk deity.
Alvarez-Flores denied that Cornejo-Alvarado was sacrificed or that he prayed to the devil. He said he looked to Santa Muerte for a never-ending source of marijuana and for protection “against the law.” Alvarez-Flores also denied killing the girl.
During the same interview, Alvarez-Flores said a rumor surfaced that Cornejo-Alvarado was dating a rival gang member and that Gonzalez-Campos found out. He told investigators that Gonzalez-Campos ordered her execution, while Hernandez-Rivera admitted to Alvarez-Flores passing downthat order, according to federal court documents.
Attorneys for Alvarez-Flores and Hernandez-Rivera, who are awaiting trial on murder charges, have not returned requests for comment.
After repeated delays, Alvarez-Flores is expected to go to trial in October, according to court records. Harris County District Attorney’s Office spokesman John Donnelly attributed the delays to the coronavirus pandemic. The trial for Hernandez-Rivera, who was briefly deemed incompetent and at one point sent to a mental hospital, is slated to begin in November.