Suspect in Jocelyn Nungaray murder was wearing ankle monitor during killing

One suspect in the alleged murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was wearing an ankle monitor at the time of her death and cut it off two days later, the New York Post reported on Monday.

Two illegal immigrants from Venezuela were charged with Nungaray's murder last week, after the two men were spotted on video surveillance with the 12-year-old in Houston. The Houston Police Department said they were able to "trace the movements of our suspects" and Nungaray "all the way to the point of where she was murdered."

The two men have been identified as Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 22, and Franklin Pena Ramos, 26.  Both were fitted with ankle monitors when they illegally entered the country through El Paso earlier this year, but Pena Ramos was still wearing it until two days after Nungaray's death, according to the outlet.

Pena Ramos had entered the country on May 28, and was ordered to wear the monitor for 21 days to track his movements. 

Rangel Martinez, who entered the country in March, had his ankle monitor removed in May after it was determined that he had no known criminal history. 

Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs said  on Monday that he does not trust the ankle monitors, because Mexican drug cartels have offered to cut ankle monitors from people they traffic into the U.S. for an additional fee for years.

"They don't want you to be tracked either. And so the ankle bracelets just come off," Biggs said on the "Just The News, No Noise" TV show. "This is not surprising. It's not new. But what it is, is the latest case manifest [of] how dangerous it is to assume that you actually know where these people are, because you don't. You don't know what their background is. You don't know where they're going, you don't know what they're going to do."

Pena Ramos appeared for his first court hearing on Monday, where a judge set his bail for $10 million after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk. 

“Our immigration system is broken and if there was ever a case that reflected that, it’s this one,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a press conference after the hearing.

Both men have been accused of capital murder, and allegedly lured Nungaray under a bridge, where they allegedly sexually assaulted her for two hours before strangling her to death.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire said on Thursday that the case was horrifying, and that “as the mayor, as a grandfather and a father — it doesn’t get any worse," according to NBC News.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just the News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.