Brentwood

A member of the notorious MS-13 gang on Aug. 31 pleaded guilty for his part in four murders, including the slayings of two teenage girls who were attacked with baseball bats and machetes while walking home in Brentwood.

At first, Evelyn Rodriguez thought her teenage daughter had forgotten to charge her phone—it kept going straight to voicemail. Or maybe she had just lost track of time. But Kayla Cuevas and her best friend Nisa Mickens never blew through their 9 p.m. curfew, especially without checking in.