On a late Sunday evening in Boston, the life of Moises Ortiz-Santiago, a 27-year-old Hispanic male, was tragically cut short. Just after 11:00 PM on July 30, 2023, police officers from the Roxbury district were called to the intersection of Weldon and Quincy Streets in Dorchester following a report of a person shot. Upon their arrival, they discovered Ortiz-Santiago suffering from gunshot wounds.
He was quickly transported by Boston EMS to a local hospital, but his injuries proved fatal, and he was pronounced deceased.
The investigation into the homicide led Boston Police to identify two suspects in the weeks that followed. The first to be apprehended was 21-year-old Xavier Pena-Guerrero of Boston. Members of the BPD Fugitive Unit and officers from the Mattapan district arrested him in Dorchester. The following day, with the assistance of the Rhode Island Violent Fugitive Task Force, the second suspect, 24-year-old Orlando Soto, also of Boston, was located and arrested in Newport, Rhode Island.
Both Pena-Guerrero and Soto were wanted on murder warrants that had been issued out of Roxbury District Court for their alleged roles in the death of Ortiz-Santiago. In addition to the murder charges, both men faced charges for unlawful possession of a firearm and carrying a loaded firearm. By December of that year, a Suffolk County grand jury had indicted both suspects on all charges. They were being held in custody awaiting their appearance in Suffolk Superior Court.
