Family of Jocelyn Nungaray pleads for heightened border security: 'We have to stop burying our kids'
The mother and grandfather of Jocelyn Nungaray remember the 12-year-old who was brutally murdered and deliver a pointed message for lawmakers in an exclusive interview on "Hannity."
The family of Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old Houston girl who was allegedly murdered last week by two illegal immigrants, pleaded for a "safer country" and called for heightened border security to prevent other families from suffering the same fate.
"We have to stop burying our kids," Jocelyn's mother, Alexis Nungaray said tearfully Tuesday on "Hannity." "This isn’t right. We have to have more reinforcement when it comes to letting people in. This is not okay."
JOCELYN NUNGARAY MURDER: 'EVIDENCE IS CLEAR THAT SEXUAL ASSAULT LIKELY HAPPENED, PROSECUTOR SAYS
Prosecutors said Tuesday that Nungaray fought back against her attackers, two illegal immigrants who allegedly lured her under a bridge where they sexually assaulted her before tying her up and killing her.
"The case is horrific. Jocelyn’s last moments were unspeakable," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said on "America’s Newsroom." "She endured assault for multiple hours. This was a little girl who slipped out of her house to call her boyfriend, a 13-year-old, was seen by two immigrants who had been drinking all afternoon, they picked her up probably asking for directions and she was innocent. She walked off with them. We see footage from local stores that show they lured her under a bridge near a Houston bayou where they attacked her, strangled her and dragged her body into the water."
One of the suspects, Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, was wearing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) ankle bracelet at the time of the crime – a detail highlighted by Jocelyn's grandfather, Kelvin Alvarenga, during the "Hannity" interview.
"You're not going to tell me that with an ankle monitor you are good to go," Alvarenga said. "You don’t just wake up one day and decide you are going to commit this horrific crime. These are people that come who were used to doing this type of thing. It’s just sad it happens all over the country. We need a safer country."
The grieving grandfather then turned his attention directly to lawmakers.
"I would like the people that can make changes to our laws to just sit back and reflect," he said. "I don’t know if we can transmit the pain that we’re having through cameras but please sit back and reflect and think of all these little angels that shouldn’t have been taken away, and they have for the reason that we’re not doing what we need to, screening these people."
Alverenga described his granddaughter as a "fighter" and a "leader."
"She was amazing. She was starting to become a teenager and that’s something that was taken from us," he told host Sean Hannity.
Jocelyn's mother said her daughter had big dreams and was confident "she was going to make it." Through her pain, Alexis said she has committed to representing her daughter's voice after it was brutally "ripped away from her."
"I want the nation all around the world to understand that she was a child. She was my child, my firstborn," Alexis said. "She was a preteen that was slowly becoming this beautiful young lady, and she was going so far. She had dreams and aspiring goals she wanted to do in life. She was going to make it. She was going to do things and these men, these illegal men, took that opportunity from my daughter, from our family, of watching her become this amazing person.
"So now, with her voice being ripped away from her, I am going to be her voice and stand strong and try to make a difference in this world " she said. "Because this has to stop."
Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, have each been charged with capital murder.