Montgomery County police say 19-year-old man and his teenage girlfriend used Facebook to lure a New Jersey man to Maryland, where he was murdered and buried in a shallow grave.
Hikers found Jordy Mejia's body in a wooded area of Gaithersburg, Maryland, on Nov. 12, 2016.
According to court documents, Mejia's mother said he left New Jersey on Oct. 15 to travel to Maryland to meet a girl. She reported him missing three days later because she had not heard from him.
After Mejia's disappearance, his family found conversations he had on Facebook with someone who identified herself as "Shaila Smith." Police say it appears Smith was the girl he went to see in Maryland.
In one message, Smith gave Mejia a phone number to call for someone that would take him to her. Police also listened to several voice messages Smith left on Mejia's Facebook account, court documents said.
Detectives tracked the phone number Smith gave Mejia and another New Jersey number that contacted Mejia's phone the night of Oct. 15.
According to court documents, detectives used Facebook and phone records to connect 19-year-old Neris Moreno, of West New York, New Jersey, to Meija's death.
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On Monday, police arrested Moreno and his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jackelin Leiba-Esperanza, of Brentwood, Maryland.
Police said Leiba-Esperanza confessed to recording the voicemails pretending to be Shaila Smith and said she did it for Moreno.
Moreno and Leiba-Esperanza have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Mejia's death. Leiba-Esperanza has been charged as an adult.
Police have not said how Mejia was killed and no motive for the murder has been released at this time.
