Jocelyn Nungaray timeline: After 12-year-old girl’s body found, two charged with murder

Today’s case take us to Houston, Texas, where in 2024 12-year-old Joselyn Nungaray lived with her mother and siblings.

Her grandmother describes her as an intelligent, calm, creative and very sweet girl. As an older, Joselyn wanted to be an actress and loved music so much that she was part of her school band.

It is known that recently the girl along with her mother and siblings had moved to the Rankin Road area. The least they could imagine was that they would find the worst of the finals there.

The facts:

June 16, 2024 was Sunday and Jocelyn returned from a vacation with her family and since they were very tired, everyone went to sleep.

The next morning Alexis, the mother, went to wake up Joselyn because in theory she was going to accompany her to work but to her surprise the girl was not in her room or in the rest of the house. Worried, the woman reported the disappearance to the police.

According to several media at that time Alexis activated the locator of her daughter’s mobile phone by placing it in a nearby skating park.

But unfortunately within a few hours Alexis was informed of the worst of the news and is that apparently someone had found in a stream that was under a bridge near her house the lifeless body of a girl that matched Joselyn’s description.

The investigation:

A first autopsy revealed that the little girl had been deprived of air until her death and that she had been abused before. Then it was learned that Jocelyn was found without clothes from the waist down with her hands tied and with signs that she had been dragged into the stream.

The agents in charge of the case discovered that on Sunday at about 10 at night Joselyn left her house without being seen and that she was talking on the phone with her 13-year-old boyfriend. The teenager told them that during the conversation he heard two adults in the background.

The next step was to check the security cameras in the area to see Joselyn’s footsteps after sneaking out of her house, and it must be said that they found several important clues there.

On Sunday night the girl was recorded walking next to two men towards a seven eleven.

Once inside, she was talking to them. The store manager stated that he saw her so distressed that he asked her if she was uncomfortable to which she said no.

On Tuesday the authorities published the photo of these two individuals that they had obtained thanks to the camera of the seven eleven, more than anything in case anyone could identify them.

They also managed to find more surveillance videos. According to the investigators after the seven eleven Jocelyn was recorded with the two men entering under the bridge where she was found dead. Then they are seen leaving there without her and heading towards the apartment block where it was determined that they resided.

The community was so involved in the case that several witnesses called to identify the suspects. Finally, on June 20, they were arrested and charged with aggravated murder.

The individuals in question are Johan José Martínez Rangel, 22, and Franklyn José Peña Ramos, 26.

Of them it is known that they are from Venezuela and that they entered the country illegally on an unknown date.

Interestingly, on March 14, 2024, Rangel was arrested by the Border Patrol near El Paso and released that same day with an order to appear in court later.

For his part, Peña Ramos was arrested on May 28, also near El Paso, and with another order to appear in court later.

During a press conference held on the same day of the arrests, the mayor of Houston, John Whitmire, appealed to the judicial system so that these two subjects could not be released on bail claiming that they represented a high risk of escape.

As it is an ongoing investigation, many data are still unknown, even so, according to the court documents, the chronology of what happened would be as follows:

On the night of June 16, Rangel and Peña left a restaurant. Later they met Jocelyn who had sneaked out of her house and asked her for an address. With her they walked together to a 7-Eleven store and after leaving the place the 3 went to the bridge where everything happened. Everything indicates that the girl was taken there with some kind of deception.

Alexis was desolate before the media and declared that her daughter did not know these two people.

On Court:

The first to appear before the judge was Franklyn José Peña. Once there, they imposed a bail of 10 million dollars.

During this hearing the prosecutor’s office explained that the two defendants were working in the construction and that after the crime they asked their boss for help to be able to leave the city because they had done “something bad.”

In addition, on the other detainee’s mobile phone, they found several searches on how to escape the country after seeing Jocelyn’s photo on television.

In a second hearing, José Peña declared to him that the one who ended the girl’s life was Rangel and that he only tried to kiss her. Then he helped to throw the body into the roll to erase the DNA and other clues.

Upon hearing the most scabrous details, Joselyn’s family, who was in the room, began to yell at him murderer.

On June 25, Rangel appeared before the court where he was also given a bail of 10 million dollars. In addition, like the other accused, any contact with relatives of the victim is prohibited. The prosecutor’s office, for its part, declared that the death penalty will be requested for them.

On June 27, Joselyn’s funeral was held where family, friends and neighbors attended. Now all that remains is to wait for the trial of the two individuals accused of ending the little girl’s life.

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