Damien Corrente was a 21-year-old man with a clear future and a kind heart. A pre-med student at Stony Brook University, the Freeport, New York, native was home for winter break in January 1999, with ambitions of becoming an anesthesiologist. His family remembers him as a loving son who had the biggest heart in the world. According to his mother, Pam, it was this willingness to help others that tragically placed him in the path of a violent street war he had no part in. Damien, a white male, had absolutely no gang affiliation, a fact repeatedly confirmed by police and news reports.
On the afternoon of January 14, 1999, Damien agreed to give a ride to a high school friend, Harold Zambrano. Zambrano, a 19-year-old member of the Ñetas street gang, had been assaulted by members of the rival MS-13 gang two days earlier and asked Damien to help him find the men responsible. Police believe Zambrano likely never told his friend that he was in a gang.
Damien’s loyalty and naiveté led him to a local strip mall in Freeport, where Zambrano spotted 19-year-old German DeLeon, a known MS-13 member. Zambrano confronted DeLeon, who was at a laundromat with his girlfriend. DeLeon denied involvement in the earlier assault, and Zambrano and Damien, respecting that he was with his girlfriend, returned to their car.
As they prepared to leave, two other MS-13 members appeared and opened fire on the car. Zambrano was shot in the neck and critically injured. Damien Corrente was shot five times in the head and died from his injuries. His mother, Pam, was running errands with her younger son when she drove past the chaotic scene, dismissing it as a bad car accident. Only later, after a strange phone call and unanswered pages, did she call local hospitals and learn the devastating truth. Her son was at South Nassau Hospital. "When they told me he was shot five times in the head, I couldn’t comprehend it," she later said. "Everything went crazy at that point."
The Nassau County Police Department and Freeport Police Department investigated the brutal slaying. Investigators quickly determined that the MS-13 members had mistaken Damien for a member of the rival Ñetas gang. The shooting was not random but a targeted attack in a violent turf war. Police identified the alleged shooters as German DeLeon, Mario Portillo, and Juan Gil Ferrufino. Warrants were issued for their arrest, but the three men vanished. Authorities traced them to their native El Salvador, and though their families still lived in the Freeport area, the suspects themselves were beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Damien's murder was a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it had violent repercussions. His death is noted in federal court documents as a notorious event that significantly escalated the already violent conflict between the Ñetas and MS-13 on Long Island. On January 1, 2001, Ñetas members, seeking retaliation for Damien’s death, murdered 20-year-old landscaper Giovanni Aguilar, whom they mistakenly believed was an MS-13 member. Two men were eventually sentenced to life in prison for Aguilar's murder.
In the face of unimaginable grief and rage, Pam Corrente channeled her pain into action. She founded a gang awareness program in Freeport, determined to educate children and parents about the dangers of gang life. She said she had no choice but to fight back against the hate that took her son's life. While the work has been rewarding, she has said that the only thing that will truly bring her peace is the capture of her son's killers.
More than two decades later, Damien Corrente’s murder remains officially unsolved. As of January 2024, the three suspects—German DeLeon, Mario Portillo, and Juan Gil Ferrufino—are still wanted for murder. Authorities have speculated they may have returned to the United States, possibly hiding in communities in Los Angeles or Miami. Until their specific whereabouts can be confirmed, they cannot be extradited to face trial for the senseless killing of a promising young man.
