Teen Slaying Suspect Was on Probation, Also Allegedly Beat Own Mother

The 17-year-old charged with killing a Silver Spring woman and stuffing her body into a plastic bin was on probation and, in a separate case, beat up his own mother, tied her up, threatened to kill her with a pair of scissors and tried to steal her bank card, according to court records made public Monday.

Ivo P. Portillo-Guevara, identified by police as a member of the gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, was ordered held without bond during a court hearing Monday. A prosecutor told a judge that Montgomery County detectives were continuing to question Portillo-Guevara in the case.

Appearing in court via video from the county jail, the boyish-faced Portillo-Guevara said little.

Montgomery police assert that on Aug. 30, his then-girlfriend, who was 13, sneaked him into her house, where he spent the night. The next morning, after the girl left for the first day of school, Portillo-Guevara exchanged words with his girlfriend's mother, Rosa L. Vasquez, 35, who didn't approve of the relationship, according to police. He attacked the mother, killing her, and then placed her 4-foot-9, 115-pound body into the plastic bin under a sleeping bag, which was found in a corner of the victim's back yard, according to authorities.

Detectives didn't immediately know what happened. The case came to their attention as a missing-persons report Sept. 1.

A Sept. 7 traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike helped investigators crack the case, according to court records. A state trooper pulled over a 2002 Honda Accord for speeding and determined that it was registered to Vasquez. Two passengers had no identification, but one of them was later identified as Portillo-Guevara, according to charging documents.

Detectives found the body inside the bin Thursday night, 10 days after the traffic stop. Officers watched Portillo-Guevara leaving a residence in Gaithersburg the next morning and took him into custody, police said.

Portillo-Guevara was also served with a warrant issued after an August incident at his mother's house. On Aug. 6, Portillo-Guevara's mother told police that when she came home about midnight, her son was waiting, and within five minutes he started asking her for the PIN for her Chevy Chase Bank card, according to police.

She told him that she didn't know it, prompting Portillo-Guevara to hit her in the face and head, Detective M.E. Drotos wrote in an application for criminal charges. After she repeated that she didn't know the PIN, Portillo-Guevara gagged her, tied her feet together and threatened her. The victim told her son that if he untied her, she could call her other son and get the PIN, Drotos wrote.

Portillo-Guevara let her go, and she fled to the basement and called police, Drotos wrote. Portillo-Guevara grabbed a blank check and two cellphones and left, the detective asserted. In his application for charges, Drotos stated that Portillo-Guevara had been arrested before for robbery and assaulting the mother of his child.

At the bond hearing Monday, officials said that Portillo-Guevara also had violated the terms of an earlier probation he received in the juvenile court system. Juvenile court records are not made public, so the details of those charges could not be learned.

Separately, a manager of the Costco where Vasquez worked for more than 10 years, said that a weekend fundraiser at the front of the store raised $10,600 for Vasquez's family. The store manager, Michael Hall, said donations also can be made at Bank of America to the Rosa L. Vasquez Memorial Fund.