On the morning of June 23, 2019, the body of 24-year-old Jose Lorenzo Guillen Mejia was found in a wooded area near a walking path between Hunters Woods Plaza and Breton Court in Reston, Virginia. Responding Fairfax County police learned Guillen Mejia, a Reston resident originally from El Salvador, had sustained trauma to his upper body; an autopsy confirmed he died from multiple gunshot wounds. Authorities quickly classified the death as a homicide.

Investigators say Guillen Mejia had been out with friends earlier that evening and was drinking in the wooded area that prosecutors later described as territory claimed by the violent transnational gang MS-13. In June 2020 Fairfax County police charged a 17-year-old male with first-degree murder; the teen’s identity was not released because of his age. Prosecutors later linked the killing to an MS-13 clique active in the Reston area and said the attack was part of a pattern of violence to assert control over turf.

Did anyone in the Reston community know Guillen Mejia or see activity in that wooded area the night of June 23, 2019?