One of the teenage boys charged in connection with the abduction and murder of 15-year-old Alexandra Reyes last month in Fairfax County, Virginia, was wearing a court-ordered GPS electronic monitoring device at the time of the killing, according to a search warrant.
The teen had a prior conviction, and the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court ordered him on Jan. 4 to wear the GPS monitor. Detectives wrote in a search warrant that they learned the GPS data placed the suspect at the locations "where the abduction and torture of the victim occurred."
Not all juveniles with ankle bracelets are on house arrest. Court officials are barred from speaking about specific terms of supervision in his case. But they said there was no violation; the teen's presence at the industrial park where Reyes was found dead did not trigger an alarm.
Fairfax County's director of court services for juveniles, Bob Bermingham, said the system appeared to have worked worked as intended.
"I have no indication in this case that we have any dysfunction in the GPS system," he said. "There was no formal violations filed with the court in the supervision of this case."
Court officials said they will continue to review their work.
Reyes had been missing from her home in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for two months before she was found dead Feb. 11 in an industrial area of Fairfax County, Virginia.
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The juvenile suspect was arrested Feb. 10 and charged with abduction and participation in a street gang. He admitted his role in the abduction, according to detectives.
A total of 10 people were charged in connection with the case.
Among them, five suspects -- two young adults and three juveniles -- are facing charges of murder, abduction and gang participation. Another five suspects -- two young adults and three juveniles -- were charged with abduction and gang participation.
The warrant sought records of the teen suspect's whereabouts from the company that owns the GPS device, 3M Electronic Monitoring in Odessa, Florida.
The warrant also provided gruesome new details on how Reyes was killed. It says detectives have reviewed and translated several cellphone videos. Prince William County police found the cellphone video clips before Reyes' body was found.
Based on statements in the videos, police believe Reyes was killed in retaliation for the Jan. 12 murder of Christian Alexander Sosa Rivas, 21, in Dumfries, Virginia.
Prince William County court documents suggest that Reyes may have been blamed by rival gang members for helping to lure Sosa Rivas to his killers.
The videos, taken by gang members, show the interrogation and taunting of the victim by several males and at least one female before she was ordered to walk farther into the woods.
"Some of the videos depict the interrogators holding a knife, poking the victim with a knife and stabbing the victim with a large pointed log while the victim still exhibited signs of life," the warrant says. "In one of the videos, the victim is lying supine on the ground surrounded by dead leaves and bleeding heavily from large wounds on different areas of her body."
News4 is awaiting comment from police.
