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.
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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: |
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."

