Trial underway for alleged MS-13 gang member accused in 5 murders across Fairfax County

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. - An alleged member of the notorious MS-13 gang is on trial in Northern Virginia, facing charges for his role in half a dozen brutal killings.

Elmer Alas Candray, 27, is accused of six murders over the course of five years. Five of those deaths were in Fairfax County and one in Massachusetts.

The jury trial began on Monday, Oct. 7 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria and is expected to last about three weeks.

Candray is from El Salvador and prosecutors say he is a high-ranking member of the violent MS-13 gang and that these killings happened between 2018 and 2022 in Northern Virginia.

The descriptions of the murders, outlined in a 43-page indictment, are truly heinous. The court documents detail stabbings, shootings, dismemberment and body parts discarded or buried.

The victims range in age from a 19-year-old waitress in Fairfax shot sixteen times in the face to a 42-year-old alleged fellow gang member.

FOX 5 covered one of the deaths extensively. One of those murders was 24-year-old Jose Guillen Mejia, whose body was found in 2019 in the woods off a walking trail in Reston, behind a shopping center at Hunter Woods Plaza.

At the time, police didn't believe his death was gang-related but according to prosecutors, Mejia was simply the first person that Candray and his fellow associates saw in the woods, in an area they considered their turf. He was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds.

Candray is also accused of distributing cocaine and marijuana throughout Virginia and elsewhere.

He is facing federal racketeering, murder and firearm charges. If convicted on all counts, he could face up to life in prison.