Teenage illegal alien from El Salvador arrested for murder and mutilation of man found in California orchard

California police said an illegal alien teenager from El Salvador was arrested in connection to the murder and mutilation of a man found in an orchard in January.

On Jan. 17 at about 2 p.m., a farmer called police after finding a suspicious car dumped in the middle of an orchard near Belmont and Washoe Avenues west of Mendota. When deputies investigated, they found the dismembered body of 25-year-old Fraylee Hernandez in the trunk of the car.

During the investigation, police identified a prime suspect and determined that Hernandez had died 11 days prior to his body being found.

On Tuesday, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that they had arrested an illegal alien for the crime and booked him into the Fresno County Juvenile Justice Campus on Friday.

His identity has not yet been released because he was entered into the juvenile court system. Sheriff's officials said he was an illegal immigrant who had been 17 years old at the time of the murder but has since turned 18 years old.

The suspect was on probation for assaulting his mother, and police believe that he was an acquaintance of the victim.

On Tuesday, KSEE-TV reported that the Fresno district attorney requested that the suspect be tried as an adult.

"We see a lot of different methods of homicide in our line of work. To shoot somebody is bad enough, but there's some sort of separation there," said Tony Botti, the public information officer for the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. "When you're that intimate with somebody that you would mutilate them, that's a whole different level."

Police are asking for help from the public to aid the investigation. Anyone with information can contact police anonymously, and they may be eligible for a cash reward.

"They'll beat up their own mom and then they'll chop up another man, it seems, in the blink of an eye," Botti continued. "It's very disturbing. And this is somebody we need to keep off our streets and locked up for the rest of his life."

Mendota is a small agricultural city of about 11,000 residents in central California. In 2019, it was rated the worst city in America by USA Today because of high unemployment, crime, and poverty. The city calls itself the cantaloupe center of the world.

Here's more about the shocking case:

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