The High School Dropout Who Became Long Island’s Worst Nightmare: MS-13 Leader Alexi Saenz ht

September 13th, 2016, Brentwood, Long Island. 7:43 p.m. A jogger notices something off Staly Street. At first, she thinks it’s discarded clothing. Then she sees the blood. Nissa Mickens, 15 years old, lies in the grass. The evidence of machete and baseball bat attacks was unmistakable.

The violence so extreme, so personal that even Hard and Suffach County detectives step back. 24 hours later, behind a house one street over, they find Kayla Quavvis, 16, best friends with Nissa since elementary school. Same weapons, same rage, same message. When we rolled up on that scene, a veteran detective would later testify, “I knew this wasn’t random.

This was a statement someone wanted these girls erased. The killer they were hunting had a name, Alexi Science. Street name Blasty. At 22, he ran the sailor’s locos salvatruius westside click of MS13 like it was his personal army. But Blasty wasn’t born a shot caller. Like most monsters, he was made. Rewind to 2010.

Alexi science sits in the cafeteria at Icelip High School. Skinny kid from El Salvador. Broken English, handme-down clothes. The recruiter spots him immediately. That perfect combination of desperate and angry. Within weeks, science is throwing up MS-13 signs. Within months, he’s collecting taxes. Within 2 years, he’s giving orders that end in shallow graves.

They look for the lonely ones. A former MS-13 member explains, “The ones who got nothing to lose, they become your family, your protection, your purpose. By the time you realize the price, you’re already in too deep.” September 5th, 2016, 8 days before the girl’s murders, Blasty orders the hit on Marcus Bohannan.

The method: lure him out, surround him, destroy him. It works. But Blast is not satisfied. He needs something bigger. Something that sends a message to every kid at Brentwood High who thinks they can disrespect Lamar Salvatruucha. The beef started over nothing. A week before the murders, Kayla Quaas and her friends get into it with MS-13 members at school.

Words exchanged, maybe a laugh at the wrong moment. In gang culture, disrespect equals death. Blasty makes the call. Laschica’s Tina Kamaria. The girls have to die. The hunting party assembles. Selvin Flash Chavez, Enrique Turkey Portillo, and four others. Baseball bats from Sports Authority. Machetes sharpened in garage workshops.

They cruise Brentwood in a stolen Honda. Windows down. regaton blasting looking for two teenage girls whose only crime was existing in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. 7:15 p.m. Kayla and Nissa walk home from Nissa’s sweet 16 planning session. They’re talking about dress colors, discussing the guest list.

Kayla checks her phone, a text from her mom asking when she’ll be home for dinner. She types back, “Soon, mama. Walking with Nissa.” She never sends it. The Honda pulls up slow. Flash recognizes them first. The call goes out to Blasty. We got them. His response, “Make it clean. Make it loud.

” What happens next takes less than 4 minutes. Seven MS-13 members surround two teenage girls on a suburban street. The first blow drops Nissa. She tries to run, but there’s nowhere to go. Kayla screams for help, but the houses might as well be miles away. The weapons appear. The attack begins. By 7:19, it’s over.

The level of overkill, the medical examiner would note, suggests deep personal rage. These weren’t just killings. They were executions designed to terrorize. The killer scatter. Blasty gets the confirmation call while eating dinner at his girlfriend’s house. He doesn’t even stop chewing. Just nods and says, “Good.

” But here’s what Blasty didn’t count on. Evelyn Rodriguez, Kayla’s mother. While police initially write the girls off as possible runaways, a devastating mistake that cost precious hours, Evelyn refuses to accept the silence. She pounds on doors. She floods social media. She organizes search parties. A working-class immigrant mother becomes in force of nature, demanding answers the system seems reluctant to provide.

They told me to wait. Evelyn would later tell Congress. Wait for what? For my baby to come home in a body bag. Within MS13, the killing says spark celebration. Blasty’s reputation explodes. The sailor’s click gains respect from Honduras to Virginia. Gang members tag walls with 187 police code for homicide next to the girls initials.

They take photos throwing gang signs over areas where the bodies were found. But every empire built on violence eventually drowns in it. January 28th, 2016. 8 months before the girls die, Blasty orchestrates his first confirmed murder. Michael Johnson. The pattern is already set.

Overwhelming force, maximum violence, zero mercy. April 29th, 2016. Oscar Aosta, 19 years old, becomes victim number two. By now, Blasty has refined his technique. The burial sites are predetermined. The weapons are distributed across multiple cars. The alibis are rehearsed. This isn’t gang warfare. This is systematic extermination, and Blasty is just getting started.

Federal prosecutor Brandon Michael would later describe the sailor’s click under Blasty’s leadership. They operated like a death squad, meeting weekly to discuss who lived and who died, keeping arsenals in bedroom closets, recruiting children to become killers. The FBI wiretaps tell the story in the killer’s own words.

Blasty on a recorded call. We’re soldiers, homie. This is war. You show weakness. You show mercy. You might as well paint a target on your back. Another recording captures him disciplining a younger member who questioned an order. You think this is a democracy? I say jump. You already better be in the air. October 10th, 2016.

Less than a month after Kayla and Nissa Blasty orders another execution. Javier Castillo, 15 years old. The accusation. He might be cooperating with a rival click. No trial, no evidence, just paranoia and blood lust. October 13, 2016, Dewan Staxs disappears. His body won’t be found for weeks.

By Halloween, Blasty has orchestrated six murders in 10 months. He’s not even 23 years old. The police are drowning in bodies, but can’t connect the dots. Different jurisdictions, different detectives, different theories. The killings seem random. Black victims, Latino victims, teenage girls, grown men. What’s the connection? MS-13 doesn’t discriminate, a gang expert explains.

Black, white, brown, doesn’t matter. You’re either MS or your potential prey. They’ll kill their own grandmother if she disrespects the click. Meanwhile, in Brentwood High School, terror becomes curriculum. Kids learn which colors not to wear, which hand gestures to avoid, which hallways belong to MS13. [Music] Teachers notice students disappearing.

Some fled to relatives in other states. Others simply vanish. The lucky ones are the runaways. [Music] January 30th, 2017, four months after Kayla and Nissa, Estaban Alvarado Bonia makes a fatal mistake. He owes the sailors click money. Not much, maybe $200. In Blasty’s world, that’s a death sentence.

They find a stubborn walking home from his dishwasher job. Six MS13 members, one target. The attack continued for 12 minutes. A surveillance camera catches the edge of it. Shadows moving like a pack of wolves surrounding, striking, disappearing. Estabbon’s body won’t be found for 3 weeks, decomposing in woods behind a strip mall.

You have to understand, a former MS-13 member explains, in the gang, everything is about respect. You owe money, that’s disrespect. You look at someone wrong, disrespect. You breathe wrong. Disrespect. And disrespect means death. By early 2017, Blasty controls a small army.

The sailor’s click has swelled to nearly 40 active members. Weekly meetings happen in Roosevelt apartments, Freeport basement, Central Icelip Parks. They call them meetings of the bad boys. Reunion de los Malos. FBI surveillance captures one session. Blasty stands before his soldiers like a general. Every one of you is a bullet in my gun.

When I pull the trigger, you fly straight. No questions, no hesitation. That’s what makes us different from these other weak clicks. We’re organized. We’re ruthless. We’re forever. The money flows in rivers, drug corners in Brentwood, protection taxes on immigrant businesses, gun running from Virginia, human trafficking from Central America.

Blasty takes his cut from everything, kicking portions up to MS13 leadership in El Salvador while keeping enough to live like a king in Long Island. But the real currency isn’t cash, it’s fear. They had the whole community on lockdown. Detective Timothy Sai would later testify. Parents afraid to let their kids walk to school.

Business owners paying taxes just to survive. Witnesses refusing to talk even when we promised protection because they knew our protection ended at 5:00 p.m. MS13’s protection was 24/7. April 11th, 2017, Central Iceland Park. Four boys meet to smoke weed and talk about girls. Justin Leakura, 16. Michael Lopez, 18. Horge Tigri, 18.

Jefferson Vilobos, 20. They’re not gang members. They’re not criminals. They’re just kids in the wrong place at the wrong time. MS13 scouts spot them and make the call. Within minutes, over a dozen gang members converge on the park. The boys never had a chance. The attack is so savage that investigators initially can’t determine how many victims there are.

The scene was catastrophic across a 100 yards. evidence patterns suggesting the boys tried to run in four different directions. While Blasty didn’t personally order these killings, they happened in his territory under his watch. The Sailors Click members involved knew they had his blessing for hunting parties.

Random attacks to spread terror and build reputation. After the Park incidents, a Brentwood mother recalls, “Everything changed. We stopped letting our kids go anywhere alone. No more parties. No more after school activities. We became prisoners in our own neighborhood. The FBI finally connects the dots. Special Agent Maria Gonzalez leads a task force combining federal agents, Suffach County Police, and state police.

They map the murders, track the phone records, follow the money. The picture that emerges is staggering. MS13 isn’t just active on Long Island. They’ve turned it into a killing field. Wire taps go up on 23 phones. Surveillance teams follow core members. Informants, many facing deportation, start talking.

The FBI hears Blasty planning murders like others planned dinner parties. Casual, methodical, cold. One recording captures him discussing a potential victim. The homie says he saw him at the mall with a red hat. Could be bloods, could be nothing. But why take chances? Better to kill an innocent than let an enemy live.

That’s Blasty’s philosophy in 11 words. Better to kill an innocent than let an enemy live. Behind bars at the Nassau County Jail on unrelated charges, Blasty continues running his empire. Guards find cell phones hidden in walls. Visitors carry coded messages. Even in custody, he’s ordering hits.

Photos leaked from inside. Blasty throwing MS-13 signs with other imprisoned members. Tattoo guns fashioned from CD players marking new soldiers with MS symbols. The jail isn’t containing him. It’s become his new headquarters. He was untouchable or thought he was. Prosecutor Arty McConnell notes, “Even locked up, he had this aura.

Young members would brag about visiting him, getting a nod from Blasty in jail was like being kned.” Meanwhile, Evelyn Rodriguez transforms her grief into action. She testifies before Congress. She meets with President Trump. She becomes the face of a community under siege, demanding justice, not just for her daughter, but for all of MS-13’s victims.

They took my baby, she tells a crowd at a vigil, but they didn’t take my voice, and I’ll keep screaming until someone listens. The task force builds their case brick by brick. Rico charges allow them to link murders across years and jurisdictions. Each killing becomes part of a larger conspiracy.

The death penalty enters discussion. Attorney General William Bar wants to make an example, but Blasty has one more card to play. His brother Gyro Funny Science runs his own crew within the sailor’s click. Where Blasty is calculating funny is explosive. Where Blasty plans murders, Funny commits them himself. Together, the science brothers create a dynasty of death that makes previous MS-13 leadership look amateur.

The wire taps capture their dynamic. Blasty. You’re too emotional, Hermono. This is business. Funny. Screw business. Someone disrespects us, they die. Simple. March 2nd, 2017. Federal indictments dropped like bombs. Blasty, funny, and 11 other sailors members are charged under RICO statutes.

Murder, conspiracy, racketeering, gun trafficking. The charges read like a horror novel, but the arrest don’t stop the killing. MS13 has bench depth. New shot callers emerge. The violence continues. The community bleeds. Taking down Blasty was like cutting off a Hydra’s head. Agent Gonzalez explains, “Two more grew back.

We realized this wasn’t about individuals. It was about dismantling an entire ecosystem of violence. September 14th, 2018, 2 years and 1 day after Kayla’s death, Evelyn Rodriguez returns to the memorial site on Stalie Street. She’s preparing the anniversary vigil when an SUV approaches. behind the wheel and Marie Drago who wants the memorial removed from near her property.

Words are exchanged. The argument escalates. Drago accelerates. Evelyn Rodriguez, the mother who stood up to MS13, who testified before Congress, who became the voice of the voiceless, is struck and killed at her own daughter’s memorial. The crulest irony, a family friend says, is that Evelyn survived MS-13 only to die fighting to preserve her daughter’s memory.

But Evelyn’s death doesn’t silence the fight. It amplifies it. Federal prosecutors, already building their case against Blasty, now carry the weight of two generations of tragedy. The mother and daughter both killed for refusing to disappear quietly. 2020. The pandemic locks down the world, but the case against Blasty accelerates.

Cooperating witnesses emerge from unexpected places. MS13 members facing life sentences start flipping. They describe Blasty’s reign in detail that makes prosecutors stomachs turn. One cooperator, identity sealed, testifies, “Blasty would quiz us on violence tactics like, “Which weapon sends a stronger message? If you got it wrong, he’d make you practice on trees until your hands bled.

” He was building killers, not gang members. The evidence is overwhelming. FBI recordings of blasty ordering violence, cell tower data placing him at crime scenes, financial records showing his control of drug money, photos from his phone of weapons arsenals, evidence stained clothing with his DNA found at burial sites.

But it’s the testimony of survivors that haunts the courtroom. A teenage girl, face hidden behind a screen, voice distorted, describes the night MS-13 came for her boyfriend. They forced me to witness everything. Blasty stood there smoking a cigarette, directing them like a movie director. When it was over, he looked at me and said, “Tell everyone what you saw.

Tell them Blasty did this.” November 2023. In a move that shocks the victim’s families, Attorney General Merrick Garland withdraws the death penalty authorization. Blasty will face life, not death. The families feel betrayed again. First, the system failed to protect our kids, Kayla’s aunt says outside the courthouse.

Now it fails to deliver justice. How many more have to die before someone says enough? July 10th, 2024. Nearly 8 years after Kayla and Nissa’s death, Blasty enters his plea. Guilty to eight murders, guilty to attempted murders, guilty to arson, drug trafficking, weapons charges. The list takes 15 minutes to read.

His lawyer tries to paint him as a victim. Alexis Science was groomed into this life. A poor kid from El Salvador, traumatized by poverty and violence, recruited as a child into MS13. He didn’t have the final say in these attacks. The prosecution’s response is brutal. He was the driving force, the architect, the shot caller who turned Long Island into a war zone.

His victims were children, innocent children, and he felt nothing. July 2nd, 2024. Sentencing day. The courtroom is packed. Victim’s families wear photos of their dead children on chains around their necks. The judge speaks for 40 minutes detailing each attack, each family destroyed, each community terrorized. Then the number 68 years, Blasty, now 30, will die in federal prison.

He shows no emotion. January 14th, 2025, 6 months after his brother’s sentencing, Hyro Funny Science stands in the same courtroom. He pleads guilty to seven murders. Another life destroyed, another family torn apart by the choices they made. When we arrested the science brothers, Detective Ciney reflects, “We found photos of them as kids in El Salvador.

Normal kids smiling, playing soccer. Somewhere between those photos and the mug shots, humanity died.” The aftermath is complex. MS-13 remains active on Long Island, though weakened. New leaders emerge, learning from Blasty’s mistakes. They’re quieter now, more careful, but no less deadly. The community bears permanent scars.

Brentwood High School installs metal detectors. Increases security, but can’t erase the memories. Teachers describe a generation of students with PTSD jumping at loud noises, avoiding certain colors, certain places, certain people. We survived MS13, a Brentwood mother says. But we’re not the same.

We’ll never be the same. Immigration becomes a flashoint. Politicians use the murders to justify harsh policies. Lost in the rhetoric, most victims were immigrants themselves. fleeing the same violence that followed them to America. MS-13 doesn’t represent immigrants, advocates argue. They prey on immigrants.

They terrorize the very communities politicians claim to protect. The investigations continue. Federal agents identify over 100 MS-13 members still operating on Long Island. Each arrest leads to more names, more connections, more tragedy. The science brothers were symptoms, not the disease. In El Salvador, MS-13 leadership watches the American crackdown with interest.

They adapt, evolve, survive. New routes for drugs and guns, new methods of recruitment, new ways to spread fear. [Music] Long Island’s immigrant communities exist in a state of perpetual vigilance. Every parent knows the signs, the subtle clothing changes, the new friends who don’t make eye contact, the money that appears without explanation.

They’ve learned to read danger like meteorologist read storms. My son comes home with a blue bandana. A Salvador and mother whispers. I burn it. No questions, no discussions, just gone because I know what comes next if I don’t. The gang adapts like a virus. Where Blasty’s generation recruited openly in schools, the new breed works through social media.

Instagram accounts with coded messages. Snapchat groups that disappear after 24 hours. Tik Toks that look like dance videos but contain gang signs, threats, territories marked in plain sight. A youth counselor in Brentwood explains, “They’re not stupid. They watch Blasty go down. They learned. Now they recruit kids as young as 11, 12.

By the time we notice, it’s too late. The kids already killed someone to prove loyalty. Federal funding pours in. Operation Matador, Operation Raging Bull, Operation Free Agent. Each sweep nets, dozens of arrests, weapons, drugs. Each victory lap by law enforcement ignores the fundamental truth. They’re pulling weeds while the roots grow deeper.

The cycle is predictable as clockwork. El Salvador’s poverty and violence drive families north. They settle in established Central American communities on Long Island. Their children caught between worlds become perfect targets for MS-13 recruitment. The violence they fled follows them home.

It’s like we’re cursed. A Honduran father says, “We leave everything behind, risk everything to come here, and the monster we ran from is already waiting for us.” The victim’s families struggle with different battles. Some pursue activism, fighting for stricter gang laws, immigration reform, community programs. Others retreat into grief so profound that neighbors stop seeing them altogether.

Houses become tombs for the living. Kayla’s father develops a ritual. Every morning at 7:19, the time she died, he stands in his driveway and looks towards Staly Street. He doesn’t pray, doesn’t cry anymore, just stands there, marking time that stopped 8 years ago. Nie’s mother hasn’t changed anything in her daughter’s room.

The sweet 16 dress still hangs in the closet, tags attached. The party that never happened for the girl who never got to blow out those candles. The school system adapts in ways that would horrify parents in safer neighborhoods. Active shooter drills now include gang attack scenarios. Teachers learn to spot MS-13 graffiti, hand signs, recruitment tactics.

Guidance counselors are trained in witness protection protocols. We’re not educators anymore, a veteran teacher admits. were wardens watching for signs, managing territories, trying to keep them alive until 300 p.m. After that, they’re on their own. The economic impact is quantifiable but ignored. Property values in MS13 territories plummet.

Businesses close or pay protection money that doesn’t appear on tax forms. The underground economy thrives while the legitimate one withers. A bodega owner breaks it down. $100 a week to MS13, 50 to the local crew, 20 to the kid who watches my store. That’s before rent, utilities, inventory. You ask why prices are high in the hood.

This is why law enforcement claims victory with each arrest, but the statistics tell different stories. Gang murders may decrease, but missing persons reports spike. Bodies found may decline, but bodies never found accumulate. Tonight in Brentwood, in central Icelip, and Roosevelt and Freeport, parents will check locks twice.

They’ll text their children constantly. They’ll pray to gods who seem to have forgotten their addresses. They’ll survive another day in communities where survival is victory. Somewhere, a 13year-old boy is being courted by MS13. They promise protection, family, respect, everything he’s never had. By the time anyone notices the signs, he’ll have involved in violence, another blasty in training, another generation lost.

The war doesn’t end. It just pauses between battles, between funerals, between headlines. In federal supermax, Blasty counts days he’ll never see. 68 years. Everyone’s counting. Families count days without children. Communities count days without violence. The truth about MS-13 isn’t in headlines.

It’s in the silence between screams. The pause before violence erupts again. In communities where survival is victory. Where the war never ends. It just waits.