A federal judge sentenced Walter Chavez Larin to life in prison for two MS-13 murders.

Life in this case is the sentence on a verdict that is already in. It is not a new set of charges. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the November 2025 jury convicted Chavez of racketeering conspiracy and two murder counts, and that four other defendants were convicted at the same nine-week trial. The Signal and MyNewsLA do not describe those two killings with the same names or the same dates. A life term does not erase that gap. It means the government proved the two counts the jury returned, under whatever facts that jury accepted.

The Signal reported that the Justice Department said Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, that a ranking member of a San Fernando Valley wing of MS-13 was sentenced that day to life in federal prison for participating in two murders of associates who violated gang rules and were taken to remote parts of Los Angeles County. MyNewsLA reported the same life sentence. Both identified him as Walter Chavez Larin, 27, of Panorama City, also known as Delito, and both reported U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. imposed the term. Both reported that a jury in November 2025 found him guilty of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering murder, and that four other defendants were convicted at the end of a nine-week trial in Los Angeles. A life sentence is the judgment on those counts.

The Signal, citing that Justice Department release, reported the two people were Oscar Fuentes and a man identified in court records only as E.H. The outlet reported officials said Chavez put a "green light" on Fuentes, an order that he be killed for disobeying gang rules, and that earlier reporting said Fuentes had left the gang after becoming addicted to methamphetamine. The Signal reported Fuentes was taken from a North Hollywood park to Santa Clarita and killed there by MS-13 members including Edwin Martinez, Carlos Daniel Orellana Gonzalez, and Yefri Revelo, under Chavez's direction. On E.H., The Signal quoted the department: he was taken to Angeles National Forest, "stabbed and hacked to death," and several members tried to decapitate him but "found it too difficult." The quoted statement said they doused the body with rubbing alcohol because they believed it would destroy forensic evidence, then threw it over a ridge.

MyNewsLA reported the same life sentence and the same two convictions, and it did not use the names Fuentes or E.H. The site reported prosecutors said that in June 2017 Chavez and others took a man who had claimed a leadership role in the gang to Angeles National Forest, where he was stabbed and hacked to death, and that several assailants tried and failed to decapitate him. MyNewsLA also reported prosecutors said Chavez helped murder a gang associate who was addicted to methamphetamine and was shot to death on Jan. 13, 2019. Those are two descriptions of the killings the government tied to him. The outlets are not using the same names, and this story does not treat them as a single settled timeline.

The Signal reported three co-defendants already have their own results. It said Blumenfeld sentenced Orellana Gonzalez to 405 months, 33 years and nine months, on April 7, sentenced Martinez to life on Aug. 25, and that Revelo filed a Sept. 23 motion to delay his sentencing until Dec. 15. Those are their cases. They are not a second sentence for Chavez. MyNewsLA reported the broader trial evidence also described other killings, including in the mountains near Malibu and in Van Nuys, charged as violence to move up in the gang. Chavez's conviction, as both outlets stated it, is two murder counts, not six. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. A jury convicted Chavez in November 2025, and Tuesday's life term is the sentence on those counts.