Prosecutors detail how a brutal gang and its cult of death left trail of murder

"Fear Me" read the sticker with an image of a skeletal, scythe-wielding figure on the back of Roberto Cerda's 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis.

The image was of La Santa Muerte — Holy Death or Saint Death — a female deity meant to provide protection and deliverance to the afterlife. Cerda, 30, had built...