Teen girl arrested for allegedly luring man to MS-13 execution near NW Houston elementary school

Google Street View of the field where Jose Villanueza was shot and hacked to death by alleged MS-13 gang members, about 400 feet from Lewis Elementary School in the 3200 block of Spears Road. Google Street View of the field where Jose Villanueza was shot and hacked to death by alleged MS-13 gang members, about 400 feet from Lewis Elementary School in the 3200 block of Spears Road. Photo: Google Street View Photo: Google Street View Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Teen girl arrested for allegedly luring man to MS-13 execution near NW Houston elementary school 1 / 29 Back to Gallery

A 17-year-old girl has been charged with murder after allegedly luring a man to his death at the hands of alleged MS-13 gang members who shot and hacked him to death with a machete.

Karla Morales was arrested Friday after telling Harris County Sheriff’s Office investigators she was forced to lie to 24-year-old Jose Alfonso Villanueza with the promise of belated birthday marijuana. It was a ruse to coax him out of his apartment before the July 29 killing, which his family says took place on Spring ISD property.

“She told one of the males she didn’t want to go through with it anymore but they said it was too late,” investigators wrote.

Villanueza, whose birthday was on July 25, fell for the plot and joined Morales in a car with two men she identified as MS-13 members. Around 10:30 p.m., the four drove to a nearby field about 400 feet from a Lewis Elementary School parking lot where more men were waiting for him.

Morales watched the gang repeatedly pump Villanueza with bullets before one of the men landed the final blow with a machete — a signature blade associated with the transnational gang’s killings. On Aug. 7, a week before students returned to the nearby school, his partially-clothed body was found in “an advanced stage of decomposition” with a spent .45-caliber shell under him, according to authorities.

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Villanueza was identified through his fingerprints in a FBI database. An autopsy revealed he died of multiple gunshot wounds and sharp force trauma.

The address in court documents showing where Villanueza was found matches tracts of grassy fields owned by Spring ISD. Karen Garrison, a spokeswoman for the district, said the administration was never notified of the homicide investigation. The school is located at 3230 Spears Rd., Houston.

During Morales’ probable cause hearing Saturday, her public defender, Te’iva Bell, said the teen was a senior at Westfield High School in Spring ISD. But the district has no record of the girl attending one of its schools, Garrison added.

Bell said Morales has lived with her mother, a house cleaner, and step-father, an electrical worker, in the Houston area for the past five years.

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The teen was apprehended about a week after a Sept. 4 press conference where Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo announced the arrest of nearly a dozen alleged MS-13 gang members, four of whom were accused of slaying a confidential informant with a machete. The victim’s body was found hacked to death in southeast Houston’s Cullinan Park on June 6.

Acevedo estimated at the time that there were about 800 MS-13 members in the state’s Gulf Coast.

The presence of MS-13 in the United States, where the gang originated, has become a focal point of President Trump’s call to limit immigration and build a border wall to Mexico.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which did not publicize the gruesome killing in August, failed to respond to requests for comment and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office declined to elaborate on the investigation when reached on Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear if more suspects are outstanding.

About four days before Villanueza’s body was found, his cousin, Rosa Flores, became worried after he failed to return her calls and messages. She waited three more days for him to respond and then, on Aug. 6, she called police to report him missing. She later told investigators a rap battle with apparent rivals may have preluded the retaliation death.

“They got upset and starting rapping back telling him they were going to kill him. In a week, he was dead,” Flores told the Houston Chronicle.

Flores identified the location where Villanueza’s body was found and told the Chronicle she wished he had accepted her offer to stay with her a day before the slaying.

“I was telling him, ‘Are you sure? Are you OK? Are you sure you don’t want to come to my house and stay the night?’ But he said he was OK,” she recalled.

She knew Villanueza had friends with ties to MS-13 but didn’t know him to be involved with the transnational gang.

“He wasn’t no bad guy. His thing was rap. He liked to rap,” Flores said.

Villanueza’s sister, Mayra Nuevo, said he was born in Los Angeles but both of them were sent back to their family’s home country of El Salvador as children. The siblings returned to Houston as teens.

“For me this is something really hard,” Nuevo said. “It hurts, I don’t have the words to say how I feel.”

Villanueza’s mother lives in Mexico, according to the Harris County Forensic Insititute.

Nuevo did not know the teen arrested in Villanueza’s death, she said.

Morales recalled meeting the victim at a bar months before, according to court documents. He began “boasting” about his ties to the rival “18th Street” gang during a rap battle that apparently insulted members of MS-13 who worked for the same landscaping outfit as Villanueza. That same week, Morales told an investigator her boyfriend — an MS-13 gang member — overheard Villanueza insulting her.

According to the probable cause document, Morales played a key role in the plot to lure Villanueza out of the apartment complex on Antoine Street. She allegedly messaged Villanueza telling him “she wanted to give him a birthday present,” a gesture which struck Villanueza’s roommate as odd “because they were not close friends.”

Morales has since been jailed on a $100,000 bond. She is slated to return to court on Nov. 7.

During Morales’ hearing, prosecutors requested a higher bond because “she did lure him into a field knowing he would be murdered by gang members.”

Lomi Kriel contributed to this report

nicole.hensley@chron.com