A scar-faced illegal migrant was charged Friday with murdering a Maryland teenager whose body was found dumped on the side of a highway more than a week after she was reported missing.
Hugo Hernandez-Mendez, 35, was charged with first- and second-degree murder after a body found near a Washington, DC-area highway was confirmed to be missing 19-year-old Dacara Thompson, officials said.
He is suspected of murdering the teen in his bedroom after surveillance showed her getting into a back SUV that took her to the house in Bowie, the Prince George’s County Police Department said.
Hernandez-Mendez — who has a long scar stretching from above his right eye down to his mouth — was in the US illegally despite an earlier arrest in April for driving under the influence, County Executive Aisha Braveboy told a press conference Friday.
He was released pending trial earlier this year — but is now facing an ICE detainer while held without bond on the murder charges, officials said.
It is not clear if he knew Thompson, who was reported missing by her family on Aug. 23, the day after she left her father’s house in Lanford, just outside DC, saying she was quickly grabbing gas, her family told NBC Washington.
Thompson’s car was found two days later, parked the wrong way next to a hydrant, with her purse and credit cards still inside.
On Sunday, a body was finally found, dumped on the side of Route 50 in Anne Arundel County. It was confirmed this week to be the missing teen.
Investigators then found surveillance footage showing Thompson approaching a black SUV around 3 a.m. the night she went missing and then hopping in after speaking to the driver, cops said.
“For reasons still under investigation, it appears that Dacara willfully entered a vehicle being driven” by the suspect, Prince George’s County Police Chief George Nader told a press conference.
The car went to a house in Bowie, where a search warrant showed the teen “had been murdered in a bedroom,” cops said.
“The suspect has access to the black SUV and lives in the bedroom where the murder occurred,” the department said in a statement.
“We believe everything transpired in the bedroom,” Nader said. “What is surrounding the two coming together, that’s what we’re still investigating.”
Cops say the suspected killer then dumped Thompson’s body in the grassy field about 7 miles from the murder scene, according to WTOP.
Authorities are still investigating exactly how she died.
Thompson, a recent graduate of St. Charles High School in Waldorf, Maryland, was living at home while working at a nonprofit as part of a Service Year program for recent graduates, according to Braveboy, the county executive.
“This is a young woman who dedicated part of her young life to serving others, to serving others, and I want that to bring home to all of you that this is a good, good, good young woman who wanted to do good for her community, and now her community will stand behind her family as we seek justice for her,“ Braveboy said.
