Gang violence looms in murder trial of teen boy in Lynn convenience store killing
By the time a knife pierced the bottom of a 17‑year‑old's heart inside a Lynn convenience store on a summer night in 2023, the two teenage boys fighting in an aisle were already entangled in rival worlds.
Prosecutors say the older teen was a probationary recruit of the Trinitarios — a gang known for slipping into schools to lure boys into its decades‑old cycle of violence. The 15‑year‑old who wielded the knife was aligned with a rival gang, according to federal officials , and claims he acted out of fear and self‑defense.
What exactly happened on Aug. 22, 2023 inside Alpha Convenience Store in Freeman Square is at the heart of a trial playing out in Essex Superior Court this week.
The sun was still shining around 5:50 p.m. on Aug. 22, 2023 when 15-year-old Iram Allen Jr. walked into the convenience store with three friends. A short time later, 17-year-old Daniel Marquez Santeliz walked in with two friends of his own.
It wasn't long before a fight broke out. It ended when Marquez Santeliz was stabbed to death.
The now-18-year-old Allen is on trial for second-degree murder , accused of killing Marquez Santeliz.
Allen is free on bail while his trial plays out. When the evidence began Monday, he sat between his two court-appointed lawyers, wearing glasses and a black sweater over a collared shirt and tie. His family and Marquez Santeliz's family sat on opposite sides of the Salem courtroom.
Both prosecutors and Allen's defense lawyers agree that Marquez Santeliz shoved Allen inside the convenience store and that Allen reached into the waistband of his sweatpants, retrieved a kitchen knife and stabbed Marquez Santeliz. The knife pierced the bottom of the 17-year-old's heart and he died at Salem Hospital.
Allen's defense says the stabbing was self-defense, that he was at risk of serious harm. Prosecutors say Allen wasn't scared of Marquez Santeliz and took steps to cover up the crime.
Even though Allen was 15 at the time of the crime, he was charged as an adult because Massachusetts law requires anyone over the age of 14 charged with first or second-degree murder to be prosecuted as an adult.
In her opening statement, Assistant Essex District Attorney Anne Marie Gochis did not mention gangs or gang violence. But Marquez Santeliz's killing was highlighted by federal prosecutors last year in their sweeping takedown of the Trinitarios gang.
When he died, Marquez Santeliz was a provisional member of the gang, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. Allen was a member of a rival gang, the Tiny Rascals Gang, or TRG, Special Agent Joseph Shapiro said in an affidavit.
Ahead of the trial, the judge ruled that prosecutors are barred from linking Allen to the gang after the defense argued any evidence connecting him with TRG is "speculative at best." But Allen's defense is allowed to raise Marquez Santeliz's connection to the Trinitarios.
"At the very least, some evidence regarding the existence of the Trinitarios gang and its activities in Lynn in the year and a half up to the events in question may be admitted as circumstantial evidence bearing on the defendant's state of mind," Judge James Lang ruled before the trial began.
On April 10, 2022, Brian Gomez, a Trinitario associate, was killed behind Lynn English High School. Prosecutors have charged two people in connection with his death, Alan Bernadin and Nathaniel Mercedat, both suspected members of the TRG. Bernadin and Mercedat are scheduled to go on trial in May.
Two months later, in June of 2022, a member of the Trinitarios is accused of opening fire on Blossom Street in a targeted attack on a member of the TRG.
Leading up to the convenience store stabbing in 2023, the Trinitarios were responsible for at least three other shootings, including a targeted attack on a TRG member in July 2023.
At the time of the stabbing in the convenience store, Marquez Santeliz was a "particularly active" probationary member of the Trinitarios. When he was killed, leaders of the gang were furious, and posthumously inducted him as a full member.
Marquez Santeliz's death unleashed another wave of violence in the North Shore city, as the Trinitarios sought revenge.
On Aug. 27 around 2:23 a.m. — less than a week after Marquez Santeliz was killed — Lynn police responded to a shooting at the intersection of Exchange and Spring streets in the city's downtown. The shooting was the Trinitarios' first attempt at retaliation, prosecutors say, as a group of six members descended upon the area, three of whom opened fire.
No one was injured in the incident, though a 911 caller told police several "projectiles" entered her second-story apartment.
On Sept. 2, the violence exploded when a group of Trinitarios rained a hail of bullets on a farewell party for an individual heading off to college. The gang targeted the party on Essex Street because, prosecutors say, they had reason to believe a rival gang member, referred to only as "MA" in the document, was in attendance.
Lynn Police responded to the shooting at 189 Essex St. around 2:20 a.m. on Sept. 2. Arriving officers found seven people with gunshot wounds, numerous spent shell casings and broken glass.
Abraham Diaz and Jandirel Heredia died of injuries from the drive-by shooting. But prosecutors say neither was the intended target of the violence.
Surveillance video from the area showed Marquez Santeliz's green Honda Accord, which the gang used in order to send a message to its rivals, slow down in front of the party, with muzzle flashes coming from the front and rear passenger-side windows. Prosecutors believe one gang member fired from the front seat while another fired from the back.
State prosecutors charged six people each with two counts of murder in connection with the drive-by, including 15-year-old Leonardo Espinoza, who is accused of helping dispose of the murder weapons after the shooting.
No trial date has been set for Espinoza.
The Trinitarios undertake extensive recruitment efforts targeting boys, particularly immigrants from the Dominican Republic. The gang was started at Rikers Island in New York in the 1990s by people who were facing murder charges.
Recruitment is "particularly common" in high schools in Lawrence and Lynn, two majority-minority cities with large Hispanic and Latino populations. U.S. Census data shows Lawrence is about 83% Hispanic or Latino, while Lynn is 46%, the largest ethnic group in the city.
"The Trinitarios use a common Spanish language and culture, appearance of prosperity and brotherhood, and appeals to Dominican patriotism to ingratiate themselves to new members," the affidavit prepared by Shapiro reads.
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