Family of kindhearted Salvadoran immigrant killed over a parking spot want suspects to rot in prison

The family of the kindhearted Salvadoran immigrant kidnapped, savagely beaten, and shot to death after one of his killers took offense to him parking in “her” spot in front of her Long Island home, want the “animals” responsible for the senseless slaying to rot in prison.

“I want them to pay for what they did. I want them to get the toughest punishment that they can get so my brother can rest in peace,” Jaime Ortiz, victim Linver Alexander Ortiz Ponce’s older brother told the News in an exclusive interview.

“Nothing is going to bring him back. Nothing is going to restore what was killed inside of me, when they killed him, but knowing that those people are in jail, they’re not going to be able to kill another human being and that will give me peace of mind.”

Ortiz Ponce, a total stranger to the suspects, parked his red Camaro outside Kayla Alvarenga’s home on Fifth Ave. in Bay Shore just before midnight on Sept. 16, 2022, in a public spot. He was three miles from the Central Islip home he shared with family, and had no connection to anyone on the block, his brother said.

“I don’t know [why he was parked there],” he said. “The only thing that came to my head was that it had to do with a girl. For him to park there, he probably pulled over to text a girl or something.”

Alvarenga, now 22, demanded that Ortiz Ponce move his car, but he refused, prosecutors said. Outraged, Alvarenga called her friend Christopher Perdomo, now 27, to her home, asking him to “take care” of Ortiz Ponce, prosecutors say.

Perdomo and three teens, who at the time were between 16 and 17, showed up in a BMW they had carjacked in another section of Bay Shore hours earlier, according to authorities. The four of them pulled Ortiz Ponce from his Camaro and beat him until he managed to escape, running to a Shell gas station a short distance away where he hid behind several cars.

The crew did not relent, searching for him with two more teens, before they found him at the gas station and kidnapped him at gunpoint.

Alvarenga then recommended they go to a church parking lot on Holbrook St. because she didn’t believe there were any surveillance cameras there, prosecutors said.

Perdomo repeatedly pistol-whipped Ortiz Ponce as they drove about 6 miles to the Jesus House of Prayer Church of God parking lot — where a surveillance camera was in fact installed, prosecutors said.

Once there, each suspect pounded on Ortiz Ponce, who was so badly hurt he could only crawl away from his captors, prosecutors say surveillance footage shows. That’s when Perdomo, at Alvarenga’s orders, shot Ortiz Ponce dead, according to prosecutors. He died in the parking lot before medics arrived.

“It was very tough… When my brother died, I truly felt like something in me died. And I still feel it now. I feel like something’s missing. It’s hard to explain, but it is what it is. They killed something,” Ortiz said with tears brimming in his eyes.

The two siblings were born and raised in La Libertad, El Salvador, with another younger brother and two younger sisters.

“He and I were extremely close… We did everything together,” Ortiz recalled. “We were poor. We didn’t have much when we were in El Salvador. Our toys were sticks and rocks, but we were happy, running on the river, things like that…”

Ortiz immigrated to Long Island in 2000, leaving a then seven-year-old Ortiz Ponce in El Salvador. Over a decade later, Ortiz Ponce decided he wanted to follow in his older brother’s footsteps.

“He told me, ‘I want to go to the United States.’ And I told him, ‘Over there, it’s not easy. It’s a tough life. You work every day. It’s hard.’ I told him, ‘I’m not gonna help you because I don’t want you to have that life.’”

But Oritz Ponce found a way, immigrating to Snelville, Georgia where he lived with cousins for a short time before moving to Long Island, where he reunited with Ortiz after 13 years.

Ortiz Ponce, known by family as ‘Alex’ was a hard worker and took a job washing dishes, and later prepping food at the same Nesconset pizzeria that Ortiz currently manages. He was working for a party rental company, delivering and setting up tents, tables, and chairs for events when he was killed, according to Ortiz.

“It sucks because when this happened, we were about to start a business in El Salvador. We wanted to buy a couple of buses,” Ortiz said. “The number one transportation in El Salvador is bus and you can make good money.”

The pair had been saving up money to buy the buses and to one day buy a house together in Centereach, New York, he said.

When he wasn’t working, Ortiz Ponce enjoyed spending time with his brother’s son Milo and playing soccer and video games with friends.

“He loved [being an uncle]. He loved every second of it,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz Ponce leaves behind a niece and three nephews. His sister’s son, born less than a year ago, shares his name, Linver.

“He was a very loving person. We don’t have much, but if he ever could help someone… he would without asking any questions,” Ortiz said. “He will always, always be loved and remembered because of the person he was. [He had a] big heart.”

After two funerals, in Long Island and El Salvador, Ortiz Ponce was buried atop his mother’s casket.

“I told my brothers and my wife, when I die, you put me there,” Ortiz Ponce said. “I don’t care where I am, bury me there.”

Ortiz Ponce’s killers took his wallet and split up the cash, but they missed a gold chain on his neck, Ortiz said.

“I’m holding on to every little thing that I have from him. This was his,” Ortiz said pointing to the chain, now hanging on his own neck. “It was on his body. I haven’t taken it off since I got it back a year ago.”

Two years later, Ortiz said the gutting loss still keeps him up at night.

“Nobody knows, but there are many nights I’m just home by myself crying,” he said. “I cry because I have a lot inside of me. A lot of anger, a lot of questions that haven’t been answered, and most of all because I miss him so much.”

The investigation into Alvarenga and Perdomo began to build in February after Suffolk County cops nabbed one of the teens allegedly involved in the killing, the first arrest in the case. The four other teens are now in custody with charges pending.

Perdomo was nabbed in Georgia this month after having moved there in May, prosecutors said. He was extradited to Long Island last Wednesday, and a judge ordered him held without bail on murder, kidnapping, and robbery charges. He’s facing life in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

Alvarenga will be arraigned on murder charges on Oct. 30, prosecutors said. This is the second time she’s been charged with murder.

She is already in prison for her role in a botched 2021 robbery of a marijuana dealer in Huntington Station, L.I., in which a friend of the dealer was fatally shot, officials said.

Alvarenga was indicted on murder and robbery charges in January 2023 in the marijuana robbery slay, about four months after Ortiz Ponce was killed, and was ultimately convicted of robbery in April. She was sentenced to 17 years in prison and won’t be up for parole until 2037.

“They didn’t just take my brother, they took my son, my best friend, and the way they took him kills me even more. No one deserves to be killed, but no one deserves to be killed like that,” Ortiz said. “Beat you up, run away, look for you, beat you up again, and then they kill you? Those are animals. Those are not people.”