California indictment alleges MS-13 hacked victims to death

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal indictment alleges members and associates of the MS-13 gang committed a series of murders including several in which victims were hacked to death with machetes in a Southern California forest.

The indictment released Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles charges 22 people linked to a subset of the gang known as the Fulton clique.

Authorities say in one case a member of a rival gang who was believed to have defaced MS-13 graffiti was targeted.

The indictment alleges that on March 6, 2017, the rival was abducted, choked and driven to a remote area of the Angeles National Forest where six people dismembered him with a machete and threw the body parts into a canyon after one cut the heart out of the body.