HOUSTON — Hundreds of mourners packed two overflow rooms at a Houston funeral home to say goodbye to 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray on Thursday — the 12-year-old who was allegedly brutalized and murdered by two illegal migrants.
Among those were family members who admitted their views on the border and immigration changed forever after Jocelyn was found strangled and bound in a bayou.
“I used to feel bad for the immigrants, but ever since this happened its made me change my mind about who to let in and who not to let in” Christine Nunez, a cousin of Jocelyn’s grandmother, told The Post outside Earthman Resthaven Funeral Home and Cemetery.
“I can’t say all of them are bad, there’s good people, but they need to close the borders and not let everybody in, and look at each individual, and look at whose good for the public and whose good for the community.”
“She had a whole future ahead of her, she was bubbly and fun, she didn’t follow nobody. She was her own person,” Nunez said.
Those who knew her remember her for being bright and outgoing.
“She was very energetic. When you’d see her she made others laugh, she always spoke. She was just a happy girl,” said January Revada, who was Jocelyn’s middle school academic advisor.
Follow along with The Post’s reporting on Jocelyn Nungaray’s murder
- The illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of murdering Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston lured the 12-year-old girl under a bridge, where they stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours, disturbing new court documents allege.
- Both Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos were seen on surveillance video entering a 7-Eleven with Jocelyn the night she was killed and before the two walked her to a bridge, where her body was later found half-naked and strangled.
- Peña, 26, and Martinez-Rangel, 21, allegedly bound Jocelyn’s hands behind her back during the brutal assault, then strangled her and dumped her body in a bayou.
- Department of Homeland Security sources said Peña crossed into El Paso, Texas, on May 28. He was released soon after his interaction with border agents.
- Jocelyn fought back against her attackers after she was lured under the bridge and assaulted — leaving scratch and bite marks on one of the illegal migrants who is accused of killing her.
- Peña was given an ankle monitor when he was released into the US after being caught at the border in May, according to Homeland Security sources. He reportedly cut off the monitor after Jocelyn’s body was found.
- Republicans slammed the White House for its “pathetic” and “shameful” statements on the killings of Jocelyn and Maryland mother of five Rachel Morin — which never mentioned they were murdered by illegal immigrants
A secretary at the school, Erie Benson, remembered Jocelyn as “a very sweet girl” and a hardworking student.
“She cared a lot about her studies. She had friends. She was very nice,” Benson said.
Jocelyn was killed some time on the night of June 16 after she snuck out of her house and allegedly encountered 26-year-old Franklin Jose Peña Ramos and 21-year-old Johan Jose Rangel-Martinez, two migrants from Venezuela who had illegally crossed into the US earlier this year and were released by Border Patrol agents.
Both men were given GPS ankle monitors before they were released.
And both were apparently working for a local construction foreman, whom they frantically called after the killing and asked for money to flee the country, according to prosecutors.
The suspects were seen on security footage with her near the bridge where she was allegedly killed.
After never coming home that night, Jocelyn’s body was found bound by the hands and feet and dumped in a bayou creek.
Pena and Rangel-Martinez are being held on $10 million bail, charged with capital murder.