His expression blank, his voice monotone, the MS-13 leader told a hushed courtroom how he and others in the gang took turns stabbing and striking one of the teens, and how the other begged to know why he was being attacked.

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       Testifying in federal district court in Alexandria about the two 2016 slayings, Josue Vigil Mejia said MS-13 members suspected one of the youths, a 14-year-old, of working with police, and the other, a 17-year-old, of spying for the rival 18th Street gang.

       But prosecutors said the 14-year-old was no police informant. And Vigil Mejia said that shortly after killing the 17-year-old, gang members found a photo on his phone showing he was earnestly trying to join their MS-13 clique in Northern Virginia.

       “By that time, it was too late,” said Vigil Mejia, who conceded he stabbed the teen about 20 times with a knife. “We shouldn’t have killed him.”

       MS-13 members on trial in killings of teens, 17 and 14, in Virginia

       Vigil Mejia, who went by the nickname “Horror," is considered the most critical witness in the trial of five members of a Northern Virginia MS-13 clique who prosecutors say killed 17-year-old Edvin Eduardo Escobar Mendez, of Falls Church, and 14-year-old Sergio Anthony Arita Triminio, of Alexandria. The teenagers’ bodies were found buried 50 yards from each other in a Fairfax County park in 2017, police said. Prosecutors began presenting their case to jurors this month, with Vigil Mejia providing painstaking details of the killings over four days of testimony last week.

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       Those on trial are Ronald Herrera Contreras, Duglas Ramirez Ferrera, Pablo Miguel Velasco Barrera, Elmer Zelaya Martinez, and his brother, Henry Zelaya Martinez. They were among a group of 13 men indicted in 2018 and 2019 on charges of kidnapping and murdering the teenagers. Vigil Mejia and at least some of the other seven have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors; their plea agreements are under seal.

       Defense attorneys have argued Vigil Mejia was a mastermind behind the killings, and was now trying to pin the blame on others to reduce his own time behind bars.

       Vigil Mejia pleaded guilty to murder in aid of racketeering, faces life in prison and said he cut a deal with federal prosecutors to testify in court because he hopes to get a sentence reduction. Prosecutors plan to call other cooperating witnesses who pleaded guilty to the murders, but Vigil Mejia’s account is the most extensive, assistant U.S. attorney Rebecca Bellows said.

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       The trial is expected to last several more weeks. Those charged face life in prison if convicted.

       Vigil Mejia said he and other MS-13 members took turns stabbing and striking Escobar Mendez after luring him up a hillside to a wooded area in Holmes Run Valley Stream Park. Gang members placed the teenager in a headlock from behind, threw him to the ground and struck him more than 250 times with knives, machetes, an ax and the shovel they had used to prepare a grave, Vigil Mejia said. Some attendees in the courtroom choked up as he recounted the violence.

       Once Escobar Mendez had been killed and buried — and cellphone video sent as proof to MS-13 leaders — Vigil Mejia said that he and the other gang members who participated were promoted. Prosecutors allege that Elmer Zelaya Martinez, whom they say led the Park View Locos Salvatrucha cell of MS-13 operating in Virginia and is among those on trial, sent Vigil Mejia a message boasting of “killing chavalas with elegance,” using a Spanish term for a rival gang member.

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       Bellows, the lead prosecutor, asked, “Did you understand what he meant when he said, ‘With elegance, dawg, killing chavalas with elegance’?”

       “No traces left of them,” Vigil Mejia said.

       MS-13’s appeal to girls grows as gang becomes ‘Americanized’

       The Park View Locos quickly discovered that Escobar Mendez was not a rival gang member and withheld that information from MS-13 leaders for fear of being punished, Vigil Mejia said.

       Vigil Mejia, who said he joined the gang in his native El Salvador at age 13, later testified that weeks after Escobar Mendez’s slaying, he reported to MS-13 bosses that Arita Triminio, 14, was a police informant. Gang leaders ordered the teenager killed, he said. Vigil Mejia said he did not take part in that attack, but described videos he had seen of the slaying.

       “He was in agony, saying, ‘Why are you killing me? Why are you doing this to me?’ ” Vigil Mejia said of one of the videos. He said he received that footage the day after the killing in September 2016, from Elmer Zelaya Martinez.

       Vigil Mejia said law enforcement officials later showed him a second video in which Arita Triminio was battered beyond recognition. Prosecutors said Arita Triminio was not a police informant and argue both killings were senseless, even under MS-13′s violent rules.

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       Bellows asked Vigil Mejia about dozens of Facebook, WhatsApp, text and audio messages and conversations spanning several months around the time of the killings, and he was able to recall nearly everything from the witness stand. But under questioning from defense attorney Manuel Leiva, who represents Elmer Zelaya Martinez, his memory seemed to falter.

       For example, Vigil Mejia said he could not recall a 2016 exchange shown to him in court in which Vigil Mejia stated a desire to kill the mother of his daughter, nor could he remember a Facebook message he sent days before Escobar Mendez’s death, expressing an “urge to kill.”

       "Is that because you always had the urge to kill, you don't remember?" Leiva asked.

       Defense attorneys have argued the teenagers were not kidnapped because they sought out the gang. Vigil Mejia said in response to other questions from Leiva that Arita Triminio was “eager” and “excited” to transfer to the Park View MS-13 crew from another clique called Silvas Locos Salvatrucha. The 14-year-old’s mother, Karla Triminio, earlier in the trial testified that he was a loving son who liked soccer, doted on his baby sister and — despite her warnings — went out sometimes with seedy characters.

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       Triminio told the jury she arranged two of her son’s three placements in juvenile detention, adding she sensed he was in danger "because some people were looking for him.” As she testified, Triminio pointed out two men she said had been stalking her son: Herrera Contreras and Velasco Barrera.

       Triminio said she confronted Herrera Contreras in 2016, saying her son was detained because of him, and he threatened her.

       “I told him ... I didn’t want to see them near my son,” said Triminio, who has attended every day of the trial. She said Herrera Contreras responded: “Ma’am, be careful with what you’re doing. We love the kid a lot.”