Kaitlin Hernandez, San Antonio, Texas teen girl found slain in ditch as cops take a person of interest in custody along with a second male. No suspects or arrests announced.
San Antonio police have announced having detained a person of interest in the slaying of a 17 year old teen girl who was found in a ditch an hour after she was reported missing by her family.
Kaitlin ‘Sana’ Hernandez missing San Antonio teen girl’s body was discovered just before 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday in a ‘drainage ditch’ beneath a bridge on the 7600 block of Dell Oak Drive, the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) stated in a Wednesday Facebook post.
‘We need to find out who did this, because she didn’t deserve to be left there like an animal. It’s just very ugly and cruel,’ Angie Hernandez, the victim’s mother, told FOX San Antonio. ‘I don’t know what this person was thinking, why they targeted her. I don’t understand.’
Male friend who victim had gone walking with claimed not knowing where missing teen was
Come Thursday, the SAPD announced that they had detained a person of interest, which it stated was ‘cooperating and assisting in the investigation.’
‘Detectives are still investigating. This is an active and ongoing investigation,’ SAPD told Fox News in a statement. ‘The person of interest shown in our previous social media post is cooperating with the investigation. There have not been any arrests at this time.’
Hernandez died of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head, according to FOX San Antonio.
On the night she went missing, she left home to go on a walk with a male friend, Hernandez’s family told FOX San Antonio. The friend returned home just on 11.30pm, but Hernandez did not. The friend claimed not knowing where Hernandez had went.
The missing girl’s body was found less than an hour later.
Kaitlin’s body was located beneath a bridge in a drainage ditch on Oak Dell Drive, approximately half a mile from her residence.
Were two males involved?
Investigators said the teen was found naked, with signs of trauma. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that Kaitlin had been strangled, KENS5 reported.
‘I actually saw two males standing next to the ditch shining like a light down there. After a couple of seconds of that. I then heard a female shout “Hey!’’ a neighbor told KHOU 11.
Adding, ‘I want to say it was in the ditch. It echoed like it was in the ditch. But then after that it just kind of went quiet.’
Police detained the friend for questioning, in addition to the person of interest, but authorities have not made any arrests so far or stated whether the two individuals were suspects.
It remained unclear if the two individuals were the same two males the neighbor recalled seeing on the evening of Kaitlin’s disappearance and subsequent murder.
No known motive
Crystal Rodriguez, Hernandez’s aunt, organized a GoFundMe for the teenager’s grieving family, saying they are in a ‘state of shock’ after Hernandez was ‘found murdered’ just four months after her sister died.
‘[T]his feels so unreal to us. We ask that you help out with anything,” Rodriguez said in a description of the GoFundMe page. “We’re trying to have a proper funeral service for her. As we just laid her sister down to rest [four] months ago, now they’re together in heaven.’
Kaitlin was the oldest of six children, a high school senior at Roosevelt High School, a church regular, and just baptized last year. According to her aunt, Kaitlin was set to graduate from schoo in March.
‘She was funny, always making other people laugh. She loved her family so much and we loved her. She loved her dogs, she always slept with them. We miss her dearly,’ Rodriguez wrote.
San Antonio Crime Stoppers is offering a $5,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest in the case.
Any information leading to the identity of this person of interest, please contact the SAPD Homicide unit at 210-207-7635 and provide them with case number SAPD24055687.
Come Friday, 4pm, family and friends gathered for a vigil for the teenager at 118 Ashland Drive as the family asked for answers, urging people to come forward.
No known murder motive was immediately known.
