JOSE Amaya Guardado didn’t stand a chance.

First, they hacked him with a machete. Then, they buried him alive out in the forest.

And to celebrate the crime, two of his attackers then had sex beside the shallow grave, where he was still breathing.

This horrific crime, committed by four students against their fellow classmate, has shocked the US state of Florida.

According to the Miami Herald, all were students at Homestead Job Corps, a live-in school and vocational training program run by the US Department of Labor.

As detectives dug deeper, what they uncovered was so horrific, so unthinkable, that they were left reeling.

On Sunday, June 28, 17-year-old Jose went missing. After a frantic search, his brother finally found Jose’s body, buried in a shallow grave in the woods not far from the school.

Police have since caught three of the culprits: 20-year-old Kaheem Arbelo, 18-year-old Jonathan Lucas and 19-year-old Christian Colon, who confessed to the crime last week.

Desiray Strickland, 18, became the fourth charged with the savage murder of Jose when she was arrested yesterday.

The group considered murdering the teenager a fortnight before actually carrying out the act, and managed to dig a grave and hide the machete in the bush a few days before, police said.

According to the arrest report, the foursome lured Jose into the woods before “ambushing” him with the machete, causing “massive injuries”.

As he was dying, he was told to lie in the grave.

“The victim made one last attempt to fight off the attackers,” the detective wrote on the police form, “at which time, [Arbelo] struck the victim with the machete several more times until the victim’s face caved in.”

The report then stated that Strickland “complained that she had missed the first series of machete strikes because she had walked away for a few minutes to urinate in the woods.”

She and the accused ringleader, Arbelo, then stayed in the woods to have sex near the murder scene.

Detectives have described the group as a pack of bullies who may have murdered Jose because of an unpaid debt.

According to the US news channel NBC6, one of the students was actually Jose’s roommate.

“We’re learnt from the victim’s family that one of those suspects, the one who allegedly carried out a machete attack, was actually the victim’s roommate,” the NBC6 reporter said.

A fifth suspect is also expected to be arrested.

The four students are being held in Miami-Dade jails, awaiting charges of second-degree murder.

Because all are legally adults, they could be charged with first-degree murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty.