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MS-13 gang leader pleads guilty to eight brutal murders, including two teens honored by Trump in SOTU speech

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MS-13 gang leader pleads guilty to eight brutal murders, including two teens honored by Trump in SOTU speech

A high-ranking MS-13 gang member pleaded guilty Wednesday to his involvement in eight brutal murders in New York, including the killings of two high school girls who were beaten with bats and hacked with a machete in 2016.

The slain high-school pals, Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, were honored along with their parents by former President Trump in his 2018 State of the Union speech, during which he called for stricter border controls.

Alexi Saenz, 29, said little as he entered his guilty plea to racketeering charges in federal court in Central Islip on Long Island – a far cry from his court appearance in 2018, where he reportedly smiled and joked with two other suspects in front of the girls’ families.

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A high-ranking MS-13 gang member pleaded guilty Wednesday to his involvement in eight brutal murders in New York, including the horrific killings of two high school girls who were beaten with bats and hacked with a machete in 2016.  (U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, left; police handout, top right; Win McNamee, Getty, bottom right.)

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Saenz also admitted to his role in three other attempted murders and to arson, firearms offenses, and drug trafficking – the proceeds of which went toward buying firearms, more drugs and providing contributions to the wider MS-13 gang.

He faces 40 to 70 years in prison when he is sentenced, with prosecutors previously withdrawing their intent to seek the death penalty in the case.

The gruesome slew of murders in 2016 and 2017 shocked the Long Island community and underscored how deeply embedded the gang’s operations and murderous capabilities had become in the area.

Kayla’s father, Freddy Cuevas, said outside of court that he was disappointed that the death penalty had been taken off the table.

“He’s an animal. He’s inhumane,” Cuevas said of Saenz. “Hopefully, justice will be served soon, and we can put this all behind us, as far as the families are concerned.”

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The two teenage girls were slaughtered in a residential neighborhood near an elementary school on Sept. 13, 2016 – the day before Mickens’ 16th birthday. Her body was found on a tree-lined street in Brentwood, and Cuevas’ beaten body turned up in the wooded backyard of a nearby home a day later.

The two teens had been lifelong friends. Their family and friends said they had been inseparable and shared an interest in basketball.

REPUTED MS-13 DEFENDANTS LAUGH, SMILE AS SLAIN TEEN’S FAMILY GLARES

MS-13 gang member Alexi Saenz is escorted by FBI agents in Central Islip, N.Y., after being taken into custody.  (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, File)

In the months leading up to the murders, Cuevas was involved in a series of disputes with members and associates of MS-13 – a violent gang started by Central American immigrants, mainly from El Salvador, in Los Angeles in the 1980s, but has since expanded with devastating results. 

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Saenz, also known as “Blasty” and “Big Homie,” was the leader of an MS-13 group operating in Brentwood and Central Islip known as Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside. Charges are still pending against his brother, Jairo Saenz, who prosecutors say was second in command in the local gang.

According to prosecutors, the disputes escalated when Cuevas and several friends were involved in an altercation with MS-13 members at Brentwood High School. After that incident, the MS-13 members vowed to seek revenge against Cueva and were granted permission to kill them by Saenz.

Several MS-13 members then chased down and attacked both Cuevas and Mickens, wielding baseball bats and a machete, and striking each of the girls numerous times in their heads and bodies, while Alexi Saenz’s car drove around watching for police. 

After the murders, the group retreated to Saenz’s home in Central Islip, where they changed clothes and hid the weapons.

Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said that the gang has now been “decimated” in Long Island.

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“To say that Alexi Saenz’s hands are drenched in blood does not begin to describe the multiple killings and extreme mayhem he personally directed and committed in the span of one year in Suffolk County,” Peace said.

The horrific slaying of the pair garnered national attention, and the girls’ and their parents were honored by former President Trump at his State of the Union address in 2018.

“These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown,” Trump said while calling for tighter border controls. “Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter our country as illegal, unaccompanied, alien minors and wound up in Kayla and Nisa’s high school.”

The Republican had called for the death penalty for Saenz and others arrested in the killings and blamed the violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies as he made several visits to Long Island.

As well as Cuevas and Mickens, Saenz admitted his role in the killing of six other people, including 15-year-old Javier Castillo, who was befriended by members of the gang, driven 30 miles away to Freeport, and then fatally attacked with a machete in an isolated marsh as he was believed to have been a member of the 18th Street gang, one of MS-13’s principal rivals. His buried body was discovered a year later in 2017.

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Another victim, Oscar Acosta, 19, who was also thought to be an 18th Street gang member, was discovered dead in a wooded area near some railroad tracks, days after Cuevas and Mickens had died. He had disappeared nearly five months earlier after he left his Brentwood home to play soccer.

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Kayla Cuevas, 16, and her friend Nisa Mickens, 15, were killed by MS-13 members in Brentwood, N.Y., in September 2016.  (AP)

Older victims included Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, 29, who was killed by a gunman inside a Central Islip deli in early 2017; Dewann Stacks, 34, who was ambushed and beaten to death as he walked along a road in Brentwood near a wooded area that was sometimes used as a gang meeting spot; Marcus Bohannon, 27, who was shot in 2016; and Michael Johnson, who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Brentwood in 2016. Saenz’s crew suspected that all of the victims were part of rival gangs.

In the wake of her daughter’s death, Cuevas’ mother became an anti-gang activist after her daughter’s death, but she was tragically killed in 2018 after she was fatally struck by a car during a dispute over a memorial marking the second anniversary of her daughter’s death. The driver, Annmarie Drago, pleaded guilty in 2024 to negligent homicide.

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Since 2010, indictments charging MS-13 members with carrying out more than 70 murders in the Eastern District of New York have been made, resulting in the convictions of dozens of MS-13 leaders and members in connection with those murders, prosecutors said. 

Fox News’ Benjamin Brown and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Boston, MA

When did Southie get richy-rich? – The Boston Globe

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When did Southie get richy-rich? – The Boston Globe


Write to us at startingpoint@globe.com. To subscribe, sign up here.


Born and raised in Southie, Heather Foley has seen her neighborhood morph over the past three decades of scrubbing, renovation, and new construction for higher-income new arrivals.

But even Foley was surprised to discover that her South Boston, where kids once went to the corner to buy milk and cigarettes for parents, has emerged with the city’s second-highest average income, even ahead of Charlestown and Beacon Hill.

Her first thought?: “I gotta start being nicer to my neighbors if that’s the kind of money they’re making.”

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What’s a household?

Decades ago, when “Good Will Hunting” was filmed in the neighborhood and Southie was known as a working-class area, there were more kids around and maybe just a single breadwinner in some homes.

Since then, Southie saw more two-earner households, fewer kids, and spiffier rental units where three or four roommates could contribute to a “household.” The changes, along with spillover from the adjacent, pricier Seaport, or South Boston waterfront, are factors in Census data showing more than 40 percent of Southie households earn more than $200,000 a year.

Staying put

Foley, 46, a photo shoot producer, considers herself lucky. She didn’t move out to the South Shore like many neighborhood longtimers. She’s living in a family home on a block with residents — oldtimers and newer arrivals — who aren’t flipping properties for big bucks.

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Another blessing, particularly valuable this winter? She has a driveway.

As a kid, she went to church and school at Gate of Heaven, St. Brigid, and St. Peter, and jokes that she’s “so sad I didn’t buy a three-decker with my First Communion money, because I probably could have.”

Waves of gentrification

She remembers the earlier waves of newcomers, when glassy sports bars like Stats Bar & Grille muscled in among longtime restaurants like Amrheins.

But now, even the popular Stats is moving out at the end of the month. The property owner is developing a five-story, mixed-use residential building at the site.

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A small silver lining

Foley notes that some of the onetime “newcomers” have been here for three decades — and in some ways, have stabilized the place. Many have raised kids, who, like her son, may return to the neighborhood as young adults (albeit splitting a rented apartment with friends). Stats, the sports bar, says it will also return to the neighborhood’s thriving food scene.

“We have a lot of great restaurants now,” Foley says, “and everyone cleans up after their dog.”

Read: These maps show Boston’s wealthiest and most populous neighborhoods — plus other key trends.


🧩 6 Across: More scarce | 🌧️ 42° Another storm

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Grand New Party: How do you build a statewide slate of Republicans in a Democratic state? Nearly half of the Mass. GOP candidates didn’t use to be Republicans.

Farewell advice: After nearly 15 years of health system leadership, the departing CEO of Beth Israel Lahey Health offers this advice to others.

Hitting the brakes? After an ambitious state law, Lexington welcomed a wave of new housing. Now, people there are having second thoughts.

Hyde Park fatal bus crash: The driver has been indicted.

Patriots, strippers, and hookahs: A downtown restaurant’s liquor license is in jeopardy after it allegedly hosted Patriots players and guests after their AFC Championship in January. A decision is expected today.

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‘Culture of secrecy’: In a scathing report, R.I. authorities accused the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence of decades of “inaction, concealment, and revictimization” in complaints of clergy sexual abuse of hundreds of children.

Centers of suffering, campaigning: Federal immigration facilities have become backdrops for Democratic politicians seeking to fight President Trump’s immigration policies.

‘The best time to remember God’: Amid crackdowns, the Somali community leans into faith during Ramadan.

When is a reno worth it? Here’s how to judge the return on a home investment.


TED — TV fun in the 1990s, Framingham. Pictured, from left: Max Burkholder as John, Seth MacFarlane as the voice of Ted, Scott Grimes as Matty.Peacock

🧸 ‘Ted’ talk: Seth MacFarlane and the “Ted” cast talk Massholes, potty-mouthed teddy bears, and why Boston may have “the worst accent”

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🩰 A ‘Black Swan’ premiere: That’s among 30 sparkling arts events happening this spring around New England. Plus, why are more artists being banned from America?

🎥 Quiz: Test yourself with the Globe’s Academy Awards quiz.

⚽ Will $7.8 million stop the World Cup from coming here? Can Foxborough’s insistence on up-front security payments force the world’s soccer governing body to send matches somewhere else this summer?

♯ Teenage dreams: The future rock stars were teenagers when they wrote songs, influenced by David Bowie and Stevie Wonder, about a fictional nightclub. A half-century later, Squeeze has reworked and is releasing those songs.

💻 Death by chatbot? A new lawsuit alleges Google’s chatbot sent a man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit. When that failed, it set a suicide countdown clock for him. (WSJ)

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🍕 And a red cup, please: Fans are tracking down the few Pizza Hut Classic red-roofed restaurants that remain in the 6,200-store chain. (NYT)


Thanks for reading Starting Point.

This newsletter was edited by Heather Ciras and produced by Ryan Orlecki.

❓ Have a question for the team? Email us at startingpoint@globe.com.

✍🏼 If someone sent you this newsletter, you can sign up for your own copy.

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📬 Delivered Monday through Friday.


Dave Beard can be reached at dave.beard@gmail.com. Follow him on X @dabeard.





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Pittsburg, PA

As his polarizing Pitt career winds down, a banged-up Cam Corhen has saved his best for last

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As his polarizing Pitt career winds down, a banged-up Cam Corhen has saved his best for last






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Connecticut

Hartford community grieves men killed in police shootings

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Hartford community grieves men killed in police shootings


The Hartford community is grappling with two police shootings that happened within eight days of each other. Both started off as mental health calls about someone in distress.

People came together to remember one of the men killed at a vigil on Wednesday evening.

With hands joined, a prayer for peace and comfort was spoken for the family of Everard Walker. He was having a mental health crisis when a family member called 211 on Feb.19.

Two mental health professionals from the state-operated Capitol Regional Mental Health Center requested Hartford police come with them to Walker’s apartment on Capitol Avenue.

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A scuffle ensued, and police said it looked like Walker was going to stab an officer. The brief fight ended with an officer shooting and killing Walker.

The family is planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.

“All I will have now is a tombstone and the voicemails he left on my phone that I listen over and over again at night just so I can fall asleep,” Menan Walker, one of Walker’s daughters, said.

City councilman Josh Michtom (WF) is asking whether police could have acted differently.

“To me, the really concerning thing is why the police were there at all, why they went into that apartment in the way that they did, in the numbers that they did,” he said.

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The president of Hartford’s police union, James Rutkauski, asked the community to hold their judgment and wait for a full investigation by the Inspector General’s office to be completed.

A different tone was taken in a statement released about another police shooting on Blue Hills Avenue on Feb. 27.

Rutkauski said the union fully supports the officer who fired at 55-year-old Steven Jones, who was holding a knife during a mental health crisis.

In part, the union’s statement says that Jones “deliberately advanced on the officer in a manner that created an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury. This was a 100% justified use of deadly force.”

The Inspector General’s office will determine if the officer was justified following an investigation.

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The officer who shot Jones was the fourth to arrive on the scene. Three others tried to get him to drop the knife, even using a taser, before the shooting.

“It just feels like beyond the conduct of any one officer, we have this problem, which is that we send cops for every problem,” Michtom said. “I don’t know how you can de-escalate at the point of a gun.”

Jones died from his injuries on Tuesday.  

The union’s statement went on to say that officers should not be society’s default for mental health professionals. The statement said in part, “We ask for renewed commitment from our legislators to remove police from being the vanguard of what should be a mental health professional response.”

The officers involved in both shootings are on administrative leave.

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