New Jersey gang member on FBI's Most Wanted list

NEW JERSEY (FOX 5 NEWS) - A New Jersey gang member wanted for a brutal murder has landed on the FBI Most Wanted Fugitives list.

The FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to the capture of Walter Yovany Gomez, a member of the ultraviolent MS-13 gang, which spans several counties.

"To become a full-fledged member of MS-13, you have to kill someone on behalf of your local clique, or crew," Special Agent Dan Brunner said. "Only then can you get the MS-13 letters tattooed on your body. Gomez had not earned his letters yet."

Back in May 2011, Gomez and another member of the Plainfield Locos Salvatrucha crew partied all night at the Plainfield, New Jersey, home of Julio Matute, a friend of theirs, authorities said. The next morning, Gomez smashed Matute in the back of his head with an aluminum baseball bat, cut his throat, and the stabbed him repeatedly in the back with a screwdriver, the FBI said.

"He was stabbed so many times that when his body was discovered a week later, police officers thought that he had been shot with a shotgun," Agent Brunner said.

The FBI said that Gomez's crew ordered the killing because Matute was seen socializing in a bar with a rival gang member.

Police arrested Gomez's co-conspirator, but when they went to Gomez's home he jumped out a back window and got away, the FBI said. MS-13 gang members helped him get to Maryland.

The FBI believes that Gomez, a Honduran national who entered the United States illegally, may be living in Maryland, Virginia, or New Jersey.

"He would probably be considered a higher-ranking member of the gang now," Agent Brunner said.