Part of the Plainfield Locos Salvatrucha (PLS) crew, Gomez was assigned the hit when his bosses heard that one of their associates had been seen socializing in a bar with a rival 18th Street Gang member. Ordering a murder for such a sign of disrespect is not uncommon for MS-13, a transnational gang known for its extreme violence.

“To become a full-fledged member of MS-13,” said Special Agent Dan Brunner, who is investigating the case from the FBI’s Newark Division, “you have to kill someone on behalf of your local clique, or crew. Only then can you get the MS-13 letters tattooed on your body,” Brunner explained. “Gomez had not earned his letters yet.”

On May 8, 2011, Gomez—known to his friends as Cholo—invited himself and a co-conspirator to the victim’s house. Another person was there who was not involved in the plot. The four were drinking, smoking weed, and watching TV. “They were all friends,” Brunner said. “The victim had no reason to suspect that he was going to be murdered.”

The victim, Julio Matute, partied with his friends all night. Early the next morning, as he was getting dressed to go to work, Gomez grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and struck Matute in the back of his head several times. When he fell to the floor, Gomez cut his throat with a knife, then grabbed a screwdriver and repeatedly stabbed him in the back.

“He was stabbed so many times that when his body was discovered a week later,” Brunner said, “police officers thought that he had been shot with a shotgun.”