A Texas grand jury last week indicted the two suspects in 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray’s June murder in Houston.
Franklin Pena, 26, and Johan Martinez-Rangel, 22, were indicted on capital murder charges in connection with Nungaray’s murder, Harris County court records show.
Documents say Pena and Martinez-Rangel kidnapped the 12-year-old and caused her death by applying pressure to her neck.
Prosecutors are asking Google to release certain information after authorities recovered a phone in the water near Nungaray’s body. Further examination of the phone revealed that Google applications had been downloaded onto the device, and prosecutors are asking to inspect information on those applications.
Prosecutors are also asking for information from the suspects’ initial encounters with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Authorities charged Rangel and Franklin Pena, illegal immigrants from Venezuela, with capital murder in July and said both suspects entered the United States illegally shortly before the slaying.
Jocelyn left her mother’s apartment on the evening of July 17 to get a soda at a convenience store, at which point prosecutors say the suspects lured her out of the store and kidnapped her.
“In this case, the defendant lured a 12-year-old under a bridge where he and his co-defendant remained with her for over [two] hours, took her pants off, tied her up, and killed her, then threw her body into the bayou,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Abner wrote in June.
Jocelyn’s mother testified before the House Homeland Security Committee last week about the impact of illegal immigrant crime on U.S. citizens.
“That Monday morning, June 17th, was terrifying,” her mother told the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, three days before the grand jury handed down their indictments for the two suspects. “Waking up to know your child was missing and frantically searching the area where her phone was being pinged just two minutes away from her home, driving up to that exact location to see crime scene tape and officers by a bridge.”
Nungaray told the committee Tuesday that the suspects threw her daughter off the bridge thinking the creek below would wash away their DNA.
“Because of the Biden-Harris administration open border policies, catch and release, they were enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program,” Nungaray told lawmakers. “This meant that they were released into the United States. It was not even a full three weeks later that they would take my daughter Jocelyn Nungaray’s life.”
Rangel is due back in court on Nov. 11.
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