Virginia
MS-13 gang leader sentenced to life for random killings in northern Virginia
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Even in the violent world of the MS-13 street gang, the killings in northern Virginia in the summer of 2019 stood out. In that year, “the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area became an MS-13 hunting ground,” in the words of prosecutors.
Law enforcement had become accustomed to MS-13 killings involving rival gang members, or ones in which MS-13 members themselves became victims when suspicions arose that they were cooperating with police. What was new, prosecutors say, was that victims were chosen at random, with no connection to MS-13 or any other gang.
On Tuesday, gang leader Melvin Canales Saldana, whose orders set off the killings, was sentenced to life in prison, as was another gang member convicted of carrying out one of them. A third member was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder but was acquitted of carrying out the killing himself.
Prosecutors say Canales was the second-ranking member in the Sitios clique, or subunit, of MS-13, which had a strong presence in northern Virginia. In spring 2019, Canales ordered midlevel members to carry out their duties to kill rival gang members more aggressively, prosecutors said; up until that time, members of the clique had largely contented themselves with running cocaine between New York and Virginia.
Melvin Canales Saldana. Photo via Alexandria Sheriff’s Office
MS-13 members responded by patrolling in Virginia and Maryland, looking for rival gang members. But they came up empty, according to prosecutors. When that happened, they instead targeted random civilians so they could increase their status within the gang.
“At first blush the murders committed in the wake of the defendant’s order seem to be the stuff of urban legend,” prosecutors John Blanchard and Matthew Hoff wrote in court papers. “Gang members forming hunting parties and killing whoever was unfortunate to cross their path was an alien concept.”
In August 2019, gang members targeted Eric Tate as he traveled to an apartment complex to meet a woman. He bled out in the street. The next month, Antonio Smith was coming home from a convenience store when he was shot six times and killed. Court papers indicate Smith asked his killers why they were shooting him.
At a separate trial, three other MS-13 members, including the gang’s U.S. leader, Marvin Menjivar Gutiérrez, were convicted for their roles in the double slayings of Milton Bertram Lopez and Jairo Geremeas Mayorga. Their bodies were found in a wooded area of Virginia’s Prince William County in June 2019. The defendants from that trial have not yet been sentenced.
Canales’ attorney, Lana Manitta, said she will appeal her client’s conviction. She said that the targeting of innocent civilians was against her client’s wishes, and that his underlings tried to portray the shooting victims as legitimate gang rivals to him so that they would earn their promotions within the gang.
“Mr. Canales repeatedly warned clique members to ‘do things right,’” Manitta said in court papers.
Prosecutors say that Canales joined the gang at age 14 or 15 while he was living in El Salvador and that he came to the U.S. illegally in 2016 to evade arrest warrants in that country.
MS-13 got its start as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles but grew into a transnational gang based in El Salvador. It has members in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, and thousands of members across the United States with numerous cliques, according to federal authorities.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
STERLING, Va. (7News) — Several people were hurt after a vehicle struck a building in Sterling, Virginia, on Wednesday afternoon, according to Loudoun County Combined Fire and Rescue System officials.
Officials said a vehicle struck a building in the 45000 block of Manifest Boulevard, sending six people to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The building was deemed safe as of 3 p.m., though crews were still working to clean up the incident, officials said.
Virginia
Navy sailor sentenced to 44 years for killing fellow service member Angelina Resendiz in his Virginia barracks room
A US Navy sailor was sentenced to 44 years in prison for strangling his fellow service member, whose body was later found in a wooded area of Virginia.
Petty Officer Jermiah Copeland pleaded guilty Tuesday in connection with the death of Petty Officer Angelina Resendiz at a general court-martial in Norfolk, Va., the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) announced Tuesday.
“Petty Officer Copeland deserves to be held fully accountable for his heinous actions that resulted in the tragic murder of Petty Officer Resendiz,” Special Agent in Charge Emily Schmid said.
Copeland told investigators that Resendiz, 21, was in his barracks in Miller Hall on Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, hanging out, drinking, and kissing on May 29, 2025, when she got upset about something on his phone, according to USNI News.
He admitted that he jumped on top of Resendiz and strangled her when she “started freaking out” and he tried to quiet her down.
“I killed CS3 Resendiz on May 29, 2025… I strangled her with my hands,” Copeland told the judge on Monday, according to the outlet.
Resendiz, 21, was last seen on May 29 at her barracks in Miller Hall around 10 p.m., NCIS said.
Officials had questioned Copeland over Resendiz’s whereabouts on June 1, while her body was inside his closet.
Copeland admitted that he lied to investigators and said he had taken her back to her barracks.
Resendiz’s body was discovered in a wooded area in Norfolk, about 10 miles off base, on June 9 — 12 days after her disappearance.
He then said he dumped her body inside a Navy-issued black wheeled duffel bag, according to USNI News.
“I knew people were looking for her and if she was found in my closet, I would be in trouble,” Copeland told the court.
Prosecutors presented cell phone data at a pre-trial hearing showing Copeland’s watch tracked him descending stairs around 4 a.m. on June 2, the outlet reported.
His GPS also placed him driving off base, and at 4:47 a.m. he dropped a Google Maps pin — and screenshotted it — near where Resendiz’s body was later found.
An NCIS forensics team went to the location of the pin, where they ultimately found Resendiz’s body.
Under the plea deal, Copeland was found guilty of five of the seven charges against him — aggravated assault by strangulation, indecent recording, obstruction of justice and false official statement — with his premeditated murder charge reduced to unpremeditated murder.
Among the charges, Copeland admitted to strangling another woman aboard the USS Harry S. Truman on July 24, 2024, as well as secretly recording a woman in a bathroom stall and filming another woman during sex without her consent, USNI News reported.
In addition to his decades-long sentence, Copeland will also receive a dishonorable discharge, forfeit all his pay, have his rank reduced to the lowest for a Navy enlisted — Seaman Apprentice — and will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release.
The plea agreement also required Copeland to sit down face-to-face with Resendiz’s mother, Esmeralda Castle, 13News Now reported.
Castle said the conversation was brief — but she made sure Copeland knew that despite the devastation he caused, he could still work on becoming a better person.
“You still have life,” she recalled telling Copeland to 13News Now. “I’m sorry it’s going to be behind these walls, but you still have life, and even behind these walls, you can still do good things.”
Copeland will serve his sentence at the US Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Governor Abigail Spanberger says conversations about creating a legal recreational marijuana market in Virginia remain ongoing. More information: https://www.wavy.com/news/spanberger-says-conversations-are-ongoing-about-creating-a-legal-recreational-marijuana-market/
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