Jocelyn Nungaray’s accused killers captured with help of roommate who saw duo while watching news with them: docs
The illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of killing 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray were watching television with their roommate when surveillance images of the duo flashed on the screen — with the roommate later helping authorities arrest the brutes, according to an affidavit.
Yohecfredder Rodriguez told authorities he was at the apartment he shared with Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos on Tuesday, June 18 — two days after Jocelyn’s murder — when he recognized the pair from images broadcast on the news of the suspects outside 7-Eleven, the affidavit states.
Martinez-Rangel and Peña Ramos are accused of luring the pre-teen under a bridge, where they stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours before killing her.
Rodriguez said his roommates — whom he only knew as “Gordo” and “Gordo’s cousin” — were inside watching television with him at the time.
Rodriguez told police he had only moved in with the suspects a day earlier after he met them while migrating to Mexico and then crossed paths with them again while working construction jobs in Houston, according to the affidavit.
He said he was careful not to react because he did not want the men to realize he was onto them, the affidavit states.
Rodriguez then sent his cousin a frantic text saying he was “scared” and he “did not know what to do,” according to the affidavit.
He also sent his cousin a photograph of both Martinez-Rangel and Peña Ramos at the Ojos Locos bar on the night that Jocelyn was killed, which he then deleted from his device.
According to Rodriguez’s version of events, he picked Martinez-Rangel and Peña Ramos up on the night of June 16 and took them to the bar.
He claimed to have left without them around 10 p.m. – the same time that Jocelyn is believed to have snuck out of the house.
Jocelyn’s mother Alexis Nungaray, noticed her daughter was missing the following morning.
Rodriguez made an excuse to leave the apartment on the night of June 19 after he recognized his roommates on the news and met with a Houston Police Department investigator for an interview.
Around the same time, the suspects’ boss also went to the Houston police headquarters and told investigators that Peña Ramos had admitted to him that he and another person “made a mistake after partying” and “hurt someone” who then died.
Follow along with The Post's reporting on Jocelyn Nungaray's murder
- The illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of murdering Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston lured the 12-year-old girl under a bridge, where they stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours, disturbing new court documents allege.
- Both Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos were seen on surveillance video entering a 7-Eleven with Jocelyn the night she was killed and before the two walked her to a bridge, where her body was later found half-naked and strangled.
- Peña, 26, and Martinez-Rangel, 21, allegedly bound Jocelyn’s hands behind her back during the brutal assault, then strangled her and dumped her body in a bayou.
- Department of Homeland Security sources said Peña crossed into El Paso, Texas, on May 28. He was released soon after his interaction with border agents.
- Jocelyn fought back against her attackers after she was lured under the bridge and assaulted — leaving scratch and bite marks on one of the illegal migrants who is accused of killing her.
- Peña was given an ankle monitor when he was released into the US after being caught at the border in May, according to Homeland Security sources. He reportedly cut off the monitor after Jocelyn’s body was found.
- Republicans slammed the White House for its “pathetic” and “shameful” statements on the killings of Jocelyn and Maryland mother of five Rachel Morin — which never mentioned they were murdered by illegal immigrants
Peña Ramos and Martinez-Rangel were arrested a day later, on June 20, and charged with capital murder.
Meanwhile, the affidavit also reveals that Jocelyn’s concerned mom tracked her daughter’s phone when she awoke to find her missing — tracking it to an area near a skate park alongside the bayou where the pre-teen’s body was recovered.
Her daughter was found naked from the waist down with her hands and feet tied, investigators said. An autopsy indicated she had been strangled.
The arrests of the migrant duo led to a wave of outcry over illegal immigration, with one of Jocelyn’s family members calling on the government to vet border crossers more thoroughly.
“These men — these illegal men — took that opportunity from my daughter, from our family of watching her become this amazing person,” Jocelyn’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, also told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
