Newark Murders
Newark Murderers Caputred in D.C. Area Using MySpace
The Washington Post : Daniela Deane and Matt Zapotosky : August 19th 2007
Link:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081800575.html
Summary:
Two suspects in the Newark murders, Rodolfo Godinez and an Alexander Alfaro, were arrested in the Washington D.C. area. They were found in Oxon Hill and Woodbridge respectively, which are both on the periphery of the nation’s capital. The authorities mentioned in this article report no gang connection to the D.C. area.
Analysis:
There is additional illuminating and contradictory reporting that describes how these two were located. Apparently, a Newark detective, Rasheen Peppers, used MySpace.com to locate the suspects. According to this article by Jonathan Schuppe in NJ.com, also on August 19th :
Link:
www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/08/MySpace_helped_police_track_ne.html
Apparently, there was some as yet undefined gang connection that caused the two to flee Newark to the Washington D.C. area. Also mentioned in the article is the fact that Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchos was written somewhere on Alfaro’s MySpace page. Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchos have a substantial presence within the D.C. area. Additionally, Godinez was found in the company of other MS-13 members. This case is an interesting example of how MS-13 cliques, cross pollinate, and use social networking sites to communicate.
The Washington Post : Daniela Deane and Matt Zapotosky : August 19th 2007
Link:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081800575.html
Summary:
Two suspects in the Newark murders, Rodolfo Godinez and an Alexander Alfaro, were arrested in the Washington D.C. area. They were found in Oxon Hill and Woodbridge respectively, which are both on the periphery of the nation’s capital. The authorities mentioned in this article report no gang connection to the D.C. area.
Analysis:
There is additional illuminating and contradictory reporting that describes how these two were located. Apparently, a Newark detective, Rasheen Peppers, used MySpace.com to locate the suspects. According to this article by Jonathan Schuppe in NJ.com, also on August 19th :
Peppers took an hour to build a bogus MySpace profile so he could try to strike up a conversation with Alfaro's friends. For Peppers, a deputized member of the U.S. Marshals Service task force for the New York-New Jersey region the past five years, it was an online version of the old gumshoe technique of finding friends and neighbors.
The detective spent the rest of Thursday trying to draw out the online friends. That night, the FBI in Washington, D.C., shared an informant's tip that the little brother was in Virginia.
Peppers, remembering the MySpace page had listed friends from Virginia, asked the FBI to hold off until he and other New Jersey members of the task force could get there. Peppers, Daniel Potucek of the U.S. Marshals and Lydell James, the lead Newark homicide detective on the case, jumped in a car at 3 a.m. Friday.
Once they arrived in Virginia, the FBI told them the informant had seen Alfaro in Woodbridge, Va., hanging out with local members of MS-13. Alfaro was with another gang member from New Jersey, nicknamed "El Guapo."
"Guapo?" Peppers said he asked. "I know Guapo."
Peppers went back to the MySpace list of friends.
Peppers showed FBI agents El Guapo's pictures, which included some tattoos that matched the description provided by the informant.
By Friday night, Peppers and others tracked El Guapo to a Salvadoran restaurant in Woodbridge called Bongo's. El Guapo wouldn't tell them anything useful, so Peppers pressed his partners to raid the seven or eight houses they had been staking out.
As they were preparing for the raids, James got a tip from another informant: Godinez was in nearby Prince George's County, Md., where a black car was waiting to pick him up. The tipster said the car would leave at 2 a.m. Godinez would meet Alfaro and the two would head to Texas, then Mexico, then El Salvador.
At 1 a.m., investigators rushed to an apartment house in Oxon Hill, Md., about a 45-minute drive from Woodbridge, and raided a first-floor apartment with about 10 adults and teenagers inside, including several MS-13 members getting tattoos.
Godinez was in the crowd, but there was no sign of Alfaro.
Peppers and his partners called authorities in Woodbridge and told them to go ahead with their planned raid on a townhouse at Grist Mill Terrace. At around 1:45 a.m., they caught Alfaro walking out the back door. He didn't put up a fight.
Back in his Newark living room on Saturday, hours before he was finally able to sit down to his first hot meal in more than two days, Peppers said citizens should know Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Police Director Garry McCarthy and Police Chief Anthony Campos had let the fugitive team do whatever they needed to catch the two brothers.
"We'd do this for any citizen of Newark, not just those in a high-profile case," Peppers said. "This happens all the time. Hopefully, this shows that your police officers and public servants are really out there trying."
Link:
www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/08/MySpace_helped_police_track_ne.html
Apparently, there was some as yet undefined gang connection that caused the two to flee Newark to the Washington D.C. area. Also mentioned in the article is the fact that Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchos was written somewhere on Alfaro’s MySpace page. Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchos have a substantial presence within the D.C. area. Additionally, Godinez was found in the company of other MS-13 members. This case is an interesting example of how MS-13 cliques, cross pollinate, and use social networking sites to communicate.
Posted by Tim Reed at 9/13/2007 9:00 PM and is filed under Washington DC Area,New Jersey,Communications,Cliques 
I'm probably not the first to mention it: check out the tons of MS-13 entries on Facebook! Most of them are probably not to be taken seriously...but check out the member lists of some of those groups! Some brag and boast the names of their cliques over the forums...but since I have no means what so ever to verify the names I'll leave that to u guys!
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