The Murder of Jocelyn Nungaray

In the early morning hours of June 17, 2024, Jocelyn Nungaray was walking on Kuykendahl Road in north Houston when two men approached her and asked for directions. According to investigators and surveillance footage, the men, later identified as Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, walked with Jocelyn to a nearby 7-Eleven. From there, they lured her to a bridge on West Rankin Road.

Security cameras captured the three of them arriving at the bridge at 12:57 a.m. Over the course of approximately two hours, the men bound Jocelyn, sexually assaulted her, and strangled her. At 3:04 a.m., the cameras showed both men walking away from the bridge without her. Her bound body was then thrown into a nearby creek.

Around 7 a.m. on June 17, a passerby found Jocelyn's body in the creek at the 400 block of West Rankin Road near Kuykendahl. A medical examiner later confirmed she had been strangled and sexually assaulted. She was 12 years old. Houston Police Department launched an investigation, obtained the surveillance footage, and within 24 hours released images of the two men asking for the public's help in identifying them.

The Houston Police Department built its case quickly and primarily through surveillance footage. Cameras in the neighborhood captured Jocelyn walking with both men, from the initial encounter on Kuykendahl Road, to the 7-Eleven, to the bridge, and then captured both men walking away without her. That timeline, combined with the discovery of her body in the creek hours later, provided the evidentiary foundation for the arrests. Officers also obtained DNA evidence from the crime scene confirming sexual assault.

The arrests came through two independent citizen tips. Pena's own employer called police after Pena approached him asking for money to flee the area. Separately, the suspects' roommate recognized the two men from news coverage, texted a family member, and that family member contacted police. Officers met the roommate and moved on the apartment. Both men were taken into custody without incident on June 20, just three days after Jocelyn's body was found.

Both suspects had been apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol earlier in 2024. Martinez-Rangel was apprehended on March 14 and Pena Ramos on May 28, both near El Paso, and both were released with notices to appear in immigration court. ICE holds were placed on both men following their arrests in Jocelyn's case. The case has been handled in Harris County's 232nd District Court under Judge Josh Hill, who has issued a protective order governing public statements by parties involved in the proceedings.

Jocelyn Nungaray was 12 years old. She put her brother to bed. She stepped outside for a moment, the way children do, the way they are supposed to be able to, and she did not come back. The last images of her alive show her walking alongside two strangers, one of whom would be captured on camera walking away without her a little over two hours later.

Her mother Alexis has not let Jocelyn's name fade. She has been to Congress. She has been to the border. She has stood in front of cameras when most people would not be able to stand at all. She has said that she has to be brave, that she has to keep moving, because she is Jocelyn's only voice now. "I really always wonder and do the what-ifs, what she could've been," she said. "And it does make me sad to know that I was ripped away from those opportunities of seeing her. But I just try to hold onto her memory and all the good times."

Jocelyn deserved to grow up. She deserved to find out what she could become. Both men charged with ending her life remain in jail awaiting trial. Her mother is still waiting for that day. Jocelyn Nungaray is not forgotten.