Subway police
Exavian Diaz, from left, Mateo Facio and Briana Matus.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021 | 8:36 pm
The brother of a man who died in a gunfight near Sunset Park in August was one of three people arrested last week in a retaliatory murder warranted by police.
Exavian Diaz, 18), Mateo Facio, 21, and Briana Matus, 20, were arrested on October 20 and charged, respectively, with open murder, conspiracy to murder, and triple attempted murders with a lethal weapon derived from a foursome shooting , in which Kieron Hatchett, 23, was killed in the early morning hours of August 29th, according to booking logs. Facio has also been charged with battery and both he and Matus face an additional number of suspended sentence violations.
Hatchett was shot twice in the head, while De’Marcco Alexander sustained injuries to his right eye and both hands; Travis Montgomery suffered a broken thigh and Jordan Youngblood a thigh wound in a shooting just before 2 a.m. on August 29th on Rainbow Boulevard and Westcliff Streets. Facio and Matus are alleged to have followed the four who were in a car together at the time of the shooting and opened fire while they waited to turn left. Diaz is accused of sharing a photo of Alexander on Snapchat on Facio and Matus before the shooting so they knew who to target, according to a Metro Police arrest warrant.
Investigators were able to link the trio to the shooting after receiving an anonymous lead, surveillance footage from nearby businesses compiled along with Snapchat archives.
Diaz’s brother Anthony Emilian was fatally shot and killed on August 13 after an argument in block 3100 on East Sunset Road near Pecos Road, police said. Emilian drew a gun and fired several shots, and Alexander, who was in the dispute, returned fire in self-defense, according to police. Several people were transported to nearby hospitals, including Emilian, who later died.
Police say a white Nissan Altima was dragged to the MountainView Hospital emergency room shortly after the time of the shooting. As the Altima drove to the hospital, Youngblood got out of the vehicle and stated that he and his friends were injured in a shootout.
Alexander and Montgomery also got off the vehicle and Hatchett was removed and placed on a stretcher by medical personnel, but he and Alexander were transported to Sunrise Hospital due to the severity of their injuries, police said.
Hatchett was pronounced dead later that afternoon, with the cause of death ruling a gunshot wound to the head as the cause of death, according to the Clark County Coroner’s Office.
Investigators later learned that the four had partied after work the night before at a restaurant on the 1700 block of South Rainbow Boulevard near Oakey Boulevard. There was an altercation between staff that resulted in the partygoers leaving, but the four stayed to clean up the business and left at 1:48 a.m., police said.
The four left the Nissan and were followed by two friends in a silver Buick Century. The two cars were stopped at a red light when the vehicle carrying Facio and Matus opened fire. The police were able to recover 13 cartridge cases at the scene and, according to the arrest warrant, counted 16 bullet holes in the Nissan.
On August 30, police obtained surveillance footage from a shop near the restaurant where the victims’ party was taking place. The result was that around 10:30 p.m. a black Chevrolet pickup arrived in the parking lot and was waiting for the group to leave, the police said.
The next day the police received their anonymous tip. The person said she was in the restaurant and was walking in the opposite direction just before the shooting, and the party would be held for Alexander and Montgomery.
They said they believed the shots were in retaliation for Emilian’s death on August 13th. After Emilian was shot, they said several people received a Snapchat message with the username “Vegazmack” asking for the names, addresses and phone numbers of the people who were currently being shot. It later emerged that the arrest warrant said Alexander matched the description of the person who shot Emilian.
A conversation with the anonymous tipster led the police to investigate the background of Emilian and his staff. This led police to an April 30 incident in which Emilian shot a black Chevrolet pickup truck that belonged to his ex-girlfriend Matus. Investigators found that a description of the truck matched the description of the vehicle in connection with the shooting. An arrest warrant was also issued to investigate Vegazmack’s news flow.
On September 1, patrol cars passed Matus’s home, where a black Chevy truck was parked in the driveway and took pictures of the vehicle, confirming that it was the same vehicle that was involved in the April 30 shooting . On September 8, police learned of a video sent to “Vegazmack” from an account believed to belong to Facio from the restaurant’s parking lot on the night of the shooting.
A month later, on October 1, police issued a search warrant to search Matus’ truck in which ammunition cartridges with the same markings as the cartridge cases were found at the scene. Ultimately, Diaz reportedly used a photo posted on Alexander’s Snapchat to determine what he was wearing that night and passed that information on to Facio and Matus, who were already near the restaurant.
Diaz, Matus and Facio all have bail hearings scheduled for Thursday. Lawyers representing them could not be reached for comment.
