A 17-year-old female student from Texas was recently found naked and strangled to death in a ditch just one hour after she was reported missing, according to the Daily Mail. The girl’s parents said she had gone on a walk with a male friend but did not return home.
The male friend said he did not know where Kaitlin Hernandez was, which motivated the girl’s family to report her missing on Tuesday night around 11:30 p.m. A man who has not been identified reportedly found the girl’s phone in a ditch and reported it to the police.
The report noted that the San Antonio Police Department later found Hernandez’s jacket and eventually her nude body under a bridge in a drainage ditch on Oak Dell Drive, about half a mile away from her home. She was discovered around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
One of the girl’s neighbors — who wished to remain anonymous — gave their account of what happened the night Hernandez went missing, according to KHOU.
“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!’ 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,” the neighbor said.
The authorities have reportedly detained the man Hernandez was last seen with and questioned him. They are now searching for a second individual as they continue working to find what led to the girl being found naked in the drainage ditch.
A suspect has not yet been arrested in the case.
Kaitlin’s mother, Angie, said: “We need to find out who did this because she didn’t deserve this. To be left there like an animal is very ugly and cruel and I don’t know what this person was thinking. Why they targeted her. I don’t understand.”
The family has also set up a GoFundMe to help raise money for Hernandez’s funeral and explained that the family was grieving. At the time of this report, the fundraiser has raised just over $6,000 out of its $10,000 goal.
Hernandez was remembered as a devoted big sister to her younger siblings, according to the page. “She loved her family so much and we loved her. She loved her dogs, she always slept with them,’ she said. We miss her dearly.”
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