Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced this morning that her office will seek the death penalty in the prosecution of Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Pena, the two Venezuelan nationals charged in the brutal sexual assault and murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray on June 16.
Ogg’s office is filing official notice this morning with Judge Josh Hill’s 232nd District Court of its intention to seek the death penalty in the case. Notice is also being provided to both defendants and their attorneys.
Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Pena, 26, are each charged with capital murder and are being held in the Harris County Jail. According to the charges, the two men kidnapped, sexually assaulted and strangled the girl before leaving her partially nude body in shallow water below a bridge in the 400 block of West Rankin Road.
The two men crossed into the United States from Mexico illegally earlier this year. Both were detained by Border Patrol agents but were released on their promise to appear in court at a later date. At least one of the defendants was still wearing an ankle monitor from the detention at the time of the murder arrest.
The Nungaray case has attracted national media attention for its brutality and because of the defendants’ immigration status.
“Jocelyn’s murder was as vile, brutal and senseless as any case in my tenure as district attorney,” Ogg said Friday. “And it was made worse by knowing that these two men were here illegally and, had they been held after being captured at the border, they would never have had the opportunity to murder Jocelyn and destroy her family’s future.”
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