Family of dead Seattle teen says she ran with dangerous crowd

The family of a Seattle teen who was found dead in a Mountlake Terrace lake on Tuesday say they often worried about the girl because she was running with a dangerous crowd.

Britney Galindez, 17, was last seen after boarding a bus bound for Everett on Oct. 12, said her stepfather, Daniel Bittick. The teen's mother called Bittick on Saturday to say that the girl's cellphone was off, she hadn't called home and there was no activity on her MySpace page.

Bittick filed a report with the Seattle Police Department on Sunday; the girl was classified as a runaway, according to a Seattle police. On Tuesday, Mountlake Terrace police pulled the Galindez's body from Lake Ballinger.

Bittick, who raised Galindez from the time she was six months old, said that Mountlake Terrace police told him that the girl's death was "highly suspicious." Detective Doug Hansen said they are looking into whether the girl was slain.

The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office has not released her cause of death.

Police are looking into whether Galindez had ties to Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a Latino gang that originated about 23 years ago in Los Angeles and spread to Central America and other parts of the U.S., including the Seattle area. When Galindez was found she was fully-dressed and wearing a belt with the number "13" on it, Hansen said.

In recent years, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security have started a series of initiatives to confront the threat posed by the gang, also known as MS-13, which has 30,000 to 50,000 members in half a dozen countries, including up to 10,000 members in the U.S., according to federal law-enforcement statistics.

Bittick said that Galindez had friends in Mara Salvatrucha.

Galindez was living with her mother in Seattle and taking classes at North Seattle Community College to get her high school equivalency, Bittick said. She sold magazines when she wasn't in school, he added.

Bittick, 34, of Bonney Lake, describes the girl as happy, friendly and always willing to spend time with her two younger siblings or help him fix up one of his muscle cars.

Anyone with information should call 911 or e-mail detectives at crimetips@ci.mlt.wa.us.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com