BALTIMORE—Two Baltimore-area teens were charged with first-degree murder last week for killing an 18-year-old fellow gang member because they suspected he was gay.

Steven Hollis III, 18, and Juan Flythe, 17, were ordered held without bail Aug. 18 in the slaying of Steven Parrish, whose body was found May 29 in a wooded area near his parents’ home in Baltimore.

The Baltimore Sun reported that an autopsy found that Parrish died from blunt-force trauma and being stabbed more than 50 times. The stab wounds were to his arms, head, neck and chest, including one that damaged his heart and caused significant blood loss. The youths killed Parrish, prosecutors alleged, after finding text messages on his phone that suggested he might be gay.

Just before the slaying, a neighbor reported seeing Parrish walk toward the woods with another young man. A minute or so later, said that witness and other neighbors, they heard someone screaming, “Stop! Why are you doing this to me? I didn’t do anything!”

William Bickel, the prosecutor in the case, told the Baltimore Sun, “It’s awful. You’re talking about a gangland-style execution because he was gay. They took him out back in a field and stabbed him to death.”