Five men police call gang members have been charged in the San Bernardino shooting death of a wife of a Mexican Mafia member, authorities said on Wednesday, adding that the killing was orchestrated behind bars and one of the accused has since been slain.

The Jan. 18, 2017 death of Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez, 41, of North Hills was planned by the five defendants — three of whom were in the state prison system while the plot came together — said authorities, who have not disclosed a possible motive for the killing. While the charges don’t name the alleged shooter or shooters, one defendant is charged with being a felon in possession of a handgun the night of the shooting.

The victim was previously identified by authorities as Carmen Gutierrez Rodriguez.

The complaint filed in the case said the slaying was “for the benefit, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal street gang,” and was done to further criminal conduct by gang members. It also accuses the defendants of street terrorism.

The victim’s husband, convicted armed robber Andrew Rodriguez, identified by police as a Mexican Mafia prison gang member, died three months after her slaying, at Pelican Bay State Prison, on April 20, 2017. His death remains under investigation as suspicious, police said.

On July 11, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office quietly filed murder charges against the five accused gang members, with one, Eric Moreno, 30, killed just days later in his cell on Sunday in Kern Valley State Prison. Police declined to comment Wednesday on a motive in Moreno’s death. His cellmate, also from San Bernardino County, was named by prison officials as a suspect.

The arrests and charges in the woman’s murder case were the result of an investigation by a multi-agency task force formed after the slaying, San Bernardino police said in a statement.

Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez, a mother of five, was shot to death in a parking lot outside a cafe in the 1600 block of North Mt. Vernon Avenue.

Her husband was a member of the San Bernardino-based Westside Verdugo gang before being inducted into the Mexican Mafia while in prison, police said. He was serving a 115-years-to-life, three-strike armed-robbery sentence, records show.

Besides Moreno, those charged in Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez’s slaying were Isaac Aguirre, 44; Robert Fernandez, 43; Richard Garcia, 45; and Matthew Manzano, 35.

Police said Moreno, Garcia and Manzano were in California prisons when the slaying was planned and carried out, and the two still alive remain in prison custody.

Manzano was sentenced in San Bernardino County Superior Court in 2010 to two consecutive life-without-parole terms for the deaths of two men in 2005.

Moreno was sentenced in San Bernardino County Superior Court to 10 years in prison April 22, 2015 on his guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a felon and the enhancement of participation in a street gang, court records show.

State prison officials said Moreno’s cellmate, Daniel Olguin, 36, and also from San Bernardino County, is the suspect in Moreno’s death. Olguin was sentenced in 2017 to life-with-the-possibility of parole for his role, with two others, of murder, torture and false imprisonment in a 2005 death.

Garcia was sentenced to life without parole on April 21, 1998 in San Bernardino County Superior Court on a murder case, court records show. Aguirre and Fernandez are now in local custody, the police statement said. Aguirre is accused of both murder and being a felon in possession of a handgun the night of the shooting.

Court records show both men have pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges in connection with the Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez slaying.

Four of the men charged in the murder were identified as members of the Westside Verdugo gang, police said, while Manzano is from an unidentified Redlands gang. Police said the gangs are obedient or submissive to the Mexican Mafia’s orders from prison.

The task force’s effort, “Operation Green Hand,” also resulted in 86 other arrests on suspicion of various weapons, conspiracy, auto theft and narcotics charges. Those arrests were announced last year.

“The purpose of this task force was to target gang members in prison whom were attempting to influence the local street gangs of San Bernardino in addition to identify those who were involved in the murder of Carmen Rodriguez,” the police statement said.

Agencies involved in the task force include the San Bernardino Police Department’s Homicide Unit, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Fontana police, the FBI; the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the California Highway Patrol and the state Department of Justice.