U.S.-born teen "El Ponchis" sentenced to three years for four Mexico beheadings

(CBS/AP) MIACATLAN, Mexico - A Mexican judge has sentenced Edgar Jimenez Lugo, an American teenager, to three years in prison for homicide, kidnapping, and drug and weapons possession.

Authorities say the teen confessed to killing four people whose beheaded bodies were found suspended from a bridge.

A prosecutor says Lugo, known as "El Ponchis," was given the maximum sentence allowed for a minor.

Lugo was born in San Diego but raised in Mexico. He was arrested as he and his sister, whom the police also accused of participating in organized crime, boarded a plane for Tijuana, on the California border, reports the New York Times.

Authorities say he confessed to working for the South Pacific drug cartel.

When he was handed over to prosecutors, the 14-year-old calmly said in front of cameras that he began to kill at age 11 and had participated in four killings while drugged and under threat.

The bodies were found in the tourist city of Cuernavca.

In November, stories of a "hit boy," maybe as young as 12, spread after a YouTube video appeared with teens mugging for the camera next to corpses and guns.

One boy on the video alleged that "El Ponchis" was his accomplice.