The family of Jocelyn Nangaray, the 12-year-old Houston girl who was allegedly murdered by two illegal immigrants last week, is calling for a “safer country” and stricter border security to prevent other families from suffering the same fate.
“We have to stop burying our children,” Jocelyn’s mother, Alexis Nangaray, tearfully told “Hannity” on Tuesday. “This is wrong. We have to step up in letting people in. This is not OK.”
Jocelyn Nangaray murder case: ‘Evidence is clear that sexual assault likely occurred’, prosecutor says
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Ms Nungarei fought back against her attackers, two illegal immigrants who they said lured her under a bridge, sexually assaulted her, then tied her up and killed her.
This week, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nangaray was found strangled to death in a creek in Houston. (Courtesy of Fox Houston and the Nungarei Family)
“This case is horrific. Jocelyn’s final moments were devastating beyond words,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told “America’s Newsroom.” “She endured hours of assault. This girl sneaked out of her home to call her 13-year-old boyfriend and was spotted by two immigrants who had been drinking all afternoon and picked her up, presumably asking for directions, but she was innocent. She left with them. Footage from a local store shows them luring her under a bridge near a Houston bayou, where they He attacked her and strangled her. Then they dragged her body into the water.”
One of the suspects, Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, was wearing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ankle bracelet at the time of the attack, a detail highlighted by Jocelyn’s grandfather, Kelvin Alvarenga, in an interview with “Hannity.”
“Don’t tell me you can just put an ankle monitor on you and you’ll be fine,” Alvarenga said. “Someone doesn’t suddenly decide one day to commit these horrific crimes. The people who commit these crimes are people who are used to doing these things. It’s unfortunate that this is happening all over the country. We need a safer country.”
Jocelyn Nungaray’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, spoke after Peña Ramos’ court appearance on Monday, June 24. (Crive)
The grieving grandfather then turned his attention directly to lawmakers.
“I just want the people who can change the law to just sit back and think,” he said. “I don’t know if I can convey the pain that we feel through a camera, but I want you to just sit back and think about these little angels that should never have been taken. They were taken because we’re not doing the things that we need to do to test these people.”
An illegal immigrant suspect in the murder of a Texas girl was recently arrested by the Border Patrol and released into the US.
Alberenga described his granddaughter as a “warrior” and a “leader.”
“She was amazing. She was starting to become a teenager and that was taken away from us,” he told host Sean Hannity.
Joseline’s mother said her daughter had big dreams and was convinced she would “succeed.” Alexis said she has worked through the pain to become her daughter’s voice after it was brutally “stolen away.”
“I want the world to understand that she was a child. She was my child, my first child,” Alexis said. “She was in her early teens, slowly growing into a beautiful young woman, so grown up. She had dreams and goals that she wanted to achieve in life, and she was going to achieve them. She was going to achieve something, and these men, these illegal men, robbed my daughter, our family, of the opportunity to watch her grow into an amazing person.”
Franklin Jose Peña Ramos (left) and Johan Jose Martinez Rangel are charged with murdering Jocelyn Nungaray on Monday, June 17, in Houston, Texas. (Harris County Jail)
Click here to get the FOX News app
“And now, in her voice “I’m going to be her voice and stand strong and try to change this world,” she said, “because this has got to stop.”
Suspects Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, have each been charged with murder.
