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SPRINGFIELD: Co-workers charged in farm slayings

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
   SPRINGFIELD — Two farm workers have been charged in what authorities have described as the “grisly slayings” of two co-workers at a local horse farm, officials announced Wednesday.
    Carlos Reyes, 41, was charged March 6 with two counts of knowing and purposeful murder. His brother Cesar Reyes, 38, was charged as a material witness.

Timeline

   Timeline based on information from the Burlington County prosecutor’s office and the New Jersey State Police investigation into February homicides police said occurred at Sterling Chase Farm:
   Feb. 26: Alex Aguilar, 29, and Marcial Morales-Maldonado, 48, are killed in a nighttime altercation at the farm. Police said the two were undocumented immigrants from Honduras who had lived on the farm with two other undocumented Honduran laborers, brothers Carlos Reyes, 41, and Cesar Reyes, 38. The victims had lived at the farm for three or four years.
   Feb. 28: Around dawn, a female employee of the farm finds the mutilated bodies of Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Morales-Maldonado lying facedown outside their living quarters. Township police respond and request the aid of state police, who take over the investigation.
   State troopers search farm and surrounding area but cannot locate the Reyes brothers.
   March 1: Burlington County Medical Examiner Ian Hood completes autopsies that indicate the two men were murdered. The cause of death was massive head trauma caused by hacking and cutting consistent with a machete. Fingerprints sent to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement confirm the identity of Mr. Morales-Maldonado.
   State police search the farm for evidence and find a mobile phone they believe belonged to one of the missing workers. A call made from the phone indicates the brothers contacted someone near Houston, Texas.
   Unbeknownst to police, the Reyes brothers board a bus around midday headed toward Houston.
   March 2: A Spanish-speaking trooper calls the number in Texas and obtains information about the Reyes brothers’ itinerary. Police contact the U.S. Marshals Service in Houston for help. ICE also is alerted.
   March 3: State police identify an address in a Houston apartment complex and relay the information to U.S. marshals, who enter the residence with I.C.E. agents and find the brothers. I.C.E. later confirms their status as undocumented immigrants.
   March 4: Two detectives from the state police fly to Houston.
   March 5: The detectives interview the Reyes brothers.
   March 6: Continuing their investigation, the detectives determined the victims died in the Feb. 26 altercation. At the same time, state police detectives in New Jersey continue to search the 118-acre farm and, with the aid of the farm owner, discover a machete believed to be the murder weapon and clothing believed to be connected to the incident.
   The state police and county prosecutor’s office present arrest warrants to Superior Court Judge James J. Morley, charging Carlos Reyes with two counts of knowing and purposeful first-degree murder, and Cesar Reyes as a material witness.

    The two men, who were taken into custody March 3 and are not in the country legally, are being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas, according to a joint press release from the prosecutor’s office and state police.
    The men left New Jersey by bus March 1, and were intercepted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshal’s Office at the apartment of an acquaintance who picked them up from the bus stop in Houston earlier in the day, police said. Authorities tracked them after finding a cell phone believed to belong to one of the brothers at the farm, police said.
    On the 118-acre farm, state police also discovered a machete on March 6, which they believe to be the murder weapon, and clothing they think is connected to the incident, according to the press release.
    Troopers from the New Jersey State Police flew to Houston March 4 and interviewed the men March 5 to gain more information about the circumstances of what a police press release called the “brutal murders” of Honduras natives Alex Aguilar, 29, and Marcial Morales-Maldonado, 48. The victims were undocumented immigrants who worked with the Reyes brothers at Sterling Chase Farm on Highland Road, according to officials.
    The two victims were “hacked to death by a machete” after an altercation the evening of Feb. 26, according to the prosecutor’s office. Their bodies were found outside their living quarters around dawn by a female farm employee Feb. 28, officials said.
    An autopsy performed by Burlington County medical examiner’s office determined the men were both murdered, and the cause of death was “massive head trauma caused by hacking and cutting, consistent with machete,” according to the prosecutor’s office.
    “We know that the necessary investigation is being done," Edis Morales, the nephew of Mr. Morales-Maldonado, and  Jose Wilmer Aguilar, the brother of Mr. Aguilar, said in a joint statement. "We ask that those who are responsible for the crime pay for the crime and that they be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
    Sterling Chase Farm has declined to comment on the case, citing the investigation. Asked Wednesday if the farm would face charges for employing undocumented immigrants, ICE public affairs officer Harold Ort said, "We are still working with the New Jersey State Police, and the matter is under investigation."