HOUSTON — New details are surfacing about how police were able to identify the accused killers of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray.
An investigator said in a search warrant obtained by KHOU 11 that two roommates of Franklin Peña, 26, and Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, went to police separately after recognizing the men from surveillance images that were released publicly.
One of the roommates told police he was watching the news with the two men when he saw the images. The roommate texted his cousin in Laredo, saying he couldn't talk about it out loud as Peña and Martinez-Rangel were in the room with him and would hear him. The cousin reached out to HPD and the roommate made an excuse to leave the apartment and was picked up by police.
The night before Jocelyn was killed, June 16, the roommate said he was not yet living with the men. He said he had gone out for food with them and went home at around 10 p.m., but Peña and Martinez-Rangel had stayed out. When he got home, he learned his landlord was kicking him out. The next day, the two men invited him to stay with them and help pay rent. He saw the news report on June 18.
According to court documents, another man was living in the apartment - the boss of the accused. The boss told police Peña had confided in him on June 19 that the two "had made a mistake after partying on Sunday night and had hurt someone," the warrant reads.
The boss dropped Peña off and went to his girlfriend's house, who told him about how Jocelyn's body had been found. The boss recognized the men when his girlfriend showed him the pictures HPD had released. That's when he called police to report Peña and Martinez-Rangel.
How Jocelyn was found
Jocelyn's mother, Alexis, had put her daughter and 5-year-old son to bed around 10 p.m. on June 16.
Police said they believe she snuck out of the apartment sometime around midnight.
When Alexis noticed Jocelyn was missing, she tracked her phone to a skate park near where her body was found, according to court documents.
Around 6 a.m. on June 17, a passerby was crossing the Rankin Road bridge near Kuykendahl around 6 a.m. when she noticed something odd. She realized it was a body and called 911. HPD's dive team was called to the scene and the body was identified as Jocelyn.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences determined her cause of death was strangulation.
