Teen Testifies About Attack by Gang Members

Alyssa Tran was supposed to die that night in the George Washington Cemetery.

She was 15, and she and her friend Nancy Diaz had gone to the graveyard in Adelphi with a couple of members of the Latino street gang MS-13, she recounted yesterday.

They were supposedly going there to drink, but Tran thought something wasn't right. Twice she asked to be dropped off elsewhere, to no avail.

She was about to become a victim of the gang violence that has wracked local Latino enclaves such as Langley Park, where MS-13 has made a home in Maryland and where she met up that night with the members of the gang.

Sitting inside a federal courtroom yesterday in Greenbelt, where the U.S. attorney's office is prosecuting a reputed MS-13 leader as part of a sweeping racketeering case, Tran explained what happened next on Oct. 25, 2004.

"I heard a noise," she said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chan Park asked what it was.

"A gunshot," she said.

The sound had come from behind, where MS-13 members Jesus Canales and Jeffrey Villatoro were walking, Tran testified.

Tran told Diaz they should turn back. But it was too late.

Another shot rang out, apparently striking Diaz, who gang members suspected of cooperating with police, prosecutors say. Canales set upon Tran and pushed her to the ground, she recounted.

Then she saw a gun. "I was screaming 'No,' " she testified. Villatoro shot her in the face, she said.