The “shot caller” responsible for a series of grisly killings in furtherance of MS-13 activity, including a body dumped in a Santa Clarita Valley portion of the Angeles National Forest, is set to be sentenced next month, according to federal court records.
Walter Chavez Larin, 27, of Panorama City, was one of four men named in a federal indictment in connection to the murder of Oscar Fuentes, a former gang associate who was murdered for leaving the gang and becoming addicted to methamphetamine.
During a hearing last month, which was followed by dozens of documents being filed under seal by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Chavez Larin had his sentencing continued to Oct. 6. A Department of Justice spokesman declined to comment on the record regarding the content of the sealed documents. The other three defendants connected to the SCV murder, Edwin Martinez, aka “Desorden,” Carlos Daniel Orellana Gonzalez and Yefri Alexander Revelo, aka “Silent,” were convicted this past year at separate trials.
Orellana Gonzalez was found guilty of committing a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, conspiracy in the murder.
Judge Stanley Blumenfeld sentenced him to 405 months, or 33 years and nine months, in federal prison at an April 7 sentencing hearing, according to Department of Justice records.
A jury found Martinez guilty of four counts, and Blumenfeld sentenced him to a term of life imprisonment on Aug. 25.
The sentencing was not immediately available for Revelo, whose sentencing memorandum on his docket also indicated the federal government was recommending life imprisonment for his role in the gang’s activity.
Larin, who had several aliases, was identified as a leader of MS-13’s Fulton clique by the L.A. County DA’s Office and the U.S. DOJ, which worked together with a cross-designated deputy district attorney to achieve the federal convictions.
“On Jan. 13, 2019, defendant Chavez ordered (Oscar Fuentes’) murder because (Fuentes) abandoned MS-13 and was addicted to methamphetamine,” the indictment read. Later that same day, Chavez handed one of his co-conspirators a .38-caliber revolver and ordered the shooting.
After exchanging coded messages on Facebook messenger, defendants Chavez, Yefri Alexander “Silent” Revelo, Edwin “Desorden” Martinez and Carlos Daniel “Chellito” Orellana Gonzalez took Fuentes from Whitsett Park in Los Angeles to the Angeles National Forest, where he was murdered.
In 2021, the unsealed indictment reported how Fuentes’ murder was uncovered: skeletal remains were found in the Tick Fire burn area, which was deemed strange by those who found it.
The Tick Fire, which started about 10 months after Fuentes’ murder, burned 4,615 acres of a largely remote area north of State Route 14, west of Vasquez Rocks.
Workers found Fuentes’ skeleton Oct. 26, 2019, while surveying the area scarred by the Tick Fire, several days after the incident.
Investigators said at the time that the bodily remains were in an “odd place for … somebody to just walk up there and die.”
There were a number of murders that ended up being linked to the gang activity by county and federal prosecutors, who described the incidents as grisly.
Some involved torture, multiple baseball bats, another a large hunting knife, while still another was shot and then thrown off a cliff — all in furtherance of MS-13 activity, according to the DOJ.
“These convictions mark one of the most significant victories against MS-13’s Los Angeles network in decades,” L.A. County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement issued after Larin’s conviction in November. “I applaud the jury for their dedication and bravery in finding these individuals guilty of the brutal murders, extortion and drug trafficking they have inflicted on our communities for years.”
