It appears that construction worker Bryan Cojon Tuyuc lived and died as an innocent man. Thinking that he would meet a person he had been messaging over the internet, Tuyuc drove a minivan from his home and into a deadly trap. As per detectives, a Mara Salvatrucha gang member robbed the construction worker without any criminal record, then stabbed him to death and dumped him in La Tuna Canyon.
Tuyuc’s life was different from the life of a person accused of killing him. As far as M-13 member Gabriel Orellana is concerned, his recent arrest as a suspect in Tuyuc’s killing case was the end of a series of violent crimes and misery.
Orellana has long been incriminated in a Fontana liquor shop robbery, the assault of a trans woman at MacArthur Park and an attempted murder at Griffith Park. Without any apparent connections to anything beyond the MS-13 gang, Orellana lived in the form of an indigent in Los Angeles.
Orellana’s portrait from interviews and court records shows the precarious and untethered existence that Mara Salvatrucha gang members shared. Crude and subsistence-level cases of crimes define their existence, and flashes of violence punctuate it.
Several Mara Salvatrucha members are aware of one another by their aliases alone. A Dopey, a Grumpy, a Pelon, and a Flaco will almost certainly be part of all subsets or cliques of the Mara Salvatrucha gang. Diablos and Killers are also in the gang.
As per court records, Orellana was also known as Ordinario and Chaparro. According to an American probation officer, it is unclear how or when the man from El Salvador came to this nation. Investigator Christabel Youssef stated that Orellana lived in not only tents around MacArthur Park but also a makeshift shack row on the Park View Street area. Youssef has investigated Mara Salvatrucha when in the LAPD’s Rampart Division.
Mara Salvatrucha traces back to a period where El Salvador natives lived in the Pico-Union, Rampart and Westlake neighborhoods west of DTLA. In those neighborhoods, Salvadoran adults and teenagers had an interest in the heavy metal genre of music as well as a requirement to safeguard themselves against gangs with Mexican-American members. As per authorities, they banded themselves into stoner populations. In time, those groups came together into one gang, known as MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha.
The suspect has offered police many different names after various arrests, including Antonio Orellana, Juan Hernandez and Gabriel Orellana. In the alleged dating and killing case, detectives confirmed his identity with his fingerprints.
Orellana’s attorney has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Court records mention Orellana for the first-ever occasion in January 2021, as LAPD officers were monitoring a mobile device from a person who got kidnapped in LA.
As per detective Christian Mrakich, those who abducted a Mexican restaurant’s cook knew that they had the wrong individual after they forced the man into a vehicle at knifepoint. They drove him to LA’s Griffith Park and then stabbed him and pummeled him with a bat, as per an affidavit for a search warrant from Mrakich. Thinking that the man was dead, his abductors left him on the sloping side of a hill and stole his mobile device.
Then, detectives tracked that device to an Ardmore Avenue block in Koreatown, as per the affidavit. Detectives were monitoring a temporary shelter enveloped in a tarp as a teenager and Orellana emerged. As per Mrakich, Orellana had the mobile device of the cook with the photos of him in a gagged and bound state.
Orellana was not accused of the kidnapping incident, and cops have not come up with any piece of evidence suggesting that he played a part beyond possessing that device. Many days later, two LAPD detectives went to an LA hospital, in which a trans woman with a head injury was getting stitches.
As per a recent probation report, the woman stated that Orellana and someone else asked her what was her activity at MacArthur Park. The report also states that Orellana asked the woman to leave the park before punching her. The trans woman also said that Orellana kicked her as she was on the ground and then left the location.
Police found him and apprehended him in a MacArthur Park tent. Prosecutors accused the man of assaulting that transgender woman and alleged that it is a crime motivated by prejudice based on sexual orientation.
Tuyuc told Edgar Cojon, his father, that he was heading out and would come back soon. Tuyuc did not tell him which place he was visiting, but Cojon stated that he seemed excited and happy about something. Tuyuc was perhaps excited about meeting this mysterious woman with whom he had been chatting online.
Somebody had struck his pickup some days before, so Tuyuc borrowed the Honda Odyssey of his uncle and drove it to the canyon. Cojon contacted Tuyuc around 2 hours afterwards. Tuyuc had got a construction job and had to go for work sharp at 04:00 am daily. Cojon did not want Tuyuc to stay out late. Cojon’s first call, unfortunately, went to Tuyuc’s voicemail. When Cojon called Tuyuc again 30 minutes later, his mobile device was off. Cojon wondered why his son would do it as he would always answer his father.
Cojon had come from his native place Guatemala to the US as Tuyuc was aged just 7 years. Tuyuc, his brother and his mother stayed back in Guatemala for five more years before joining Cojon in the US. Tuyuc was caught as he attempted to cross the border, but he was allowed to enter the US and join Cojon in LA due to his age. The family lived in an LA-based three-bedroom residence.
As per Cojon, it was unlike Tuyuc to be out as he had a job to do the next day. So, Cojon waited for his son to come back home throughout the night. First thing in the morning, Cojon drove to Tuyuc’s construction location at LAX and expected that his son would be available there.
