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Walter “Cholo” Yovany-Gomez, 35, spent years on the run after the slaying, much of that time in Maryland and Virginia, before he was caught in August 2017 in Woodbridge, Va. Just a few months earlier, Yovany-Gomez had been placed on the most wanted list.
In May 2011, Yovanny-Gomez and other members of the notorious MS-13 street gang plotted to kill Julio Matute for socializing with members of a rival gang.
Yovanny-Gomez and another man, Cruz Flores, went to Matute’s apartment in Plainfield. After hours drinking and taking drugs together, the two attacked Matute, hitting him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat, stabbing him repeatedly with a screwdriver and slashing his throat. A witness to the killing was threatened by Flores and Yovanny-Gomez.
Weeks later, he jumped out of a second-floor window to avoid police and traveled to Virginia with the help of MS-13 members.
Yovanny-Gomez and Flores were among several members of the gang indicted in 2013 on gang-related charges. Yovanny-Gomez was the last of the 14 gang members to be convicted.
He faces up to life in prison when he’s sentenced at the end of next month.
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