Gang Member Suspect in Slaying of Long Island Teen Mom, Son Arrested in Nicaragua

The 21-year-old suspect was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" on Wednesday

Nicaraguan police arrested an alleged MS-13 gang member a day after he was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list as a suspect in the 2010 execution-style killings of his 19-year-old girlfriend and her toddler son on Long Island.

Police say Juan Elias Garcia was detained Thursday near the U.S. Embassy in Managua and turned over to the FBI. They gave no other details about the arrest.

The 21-year-old suspect was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" on Wednesday, the first MS-13 gang member to make the list.

Garcia is said to have had a romantic relationship with 19-year-old Vanessa Argueta, who was killed by gang members in Central Islip in February 2010.

According to testimony at two MS-13 trials, Garcia believed Argueta had told a rival gang that she and Garcia had had a dispute.

Court records say Garcia and MS-13 gang members Adalberto Ariel Guzman and Rene Mendez Mejia picked up Argueta and her son the night of Feb. 4 and told her they were going to dinner. 

Instead they drove to a wooded area in Central Islip and lured the mother and child into the woods.

Argueta was shot in the head and chest with a .22-caliber handgun, and when her son began crying, he was shot in the head. The boy got up from the ground and clutched Garcia's leg, and then Guzman fired a second shot, killing the child.

The bodies were found the next day.

Mejia pleaded guilty and Guzman was convicted in the murders. Both are awaiting sentencing.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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