Hundreds of unsealed documents shed light on Hania Aguilar kidnapping, murder
More than 500 pages of documents unsealed Thursday by the Robeson County District Attorney’s Office are shedding light on what happened before and after 13-year-old Hania Aguilar was kidnapped and killed last year.
Hania was snatched from the front yard of her Lumberton home on Nov. 5 after she went outside to start her family’s SUV and wait for relatives to take her to school.
Investigators said that Michael Ray McLellan, 34, of Fairmont, forced the girl into the family's green SUV and fled from the area.
Following the kidnapping, authorities had circulated several videos in the hopes of identifying the suspect. The newly unsealed documents show several witnesses saw suspicious activity in the Rosewood Mobile Home Park, where Hania lived on the morning of the incident.
Documents show that one woman reported seeing a man in a dark hoodie walking in the neighborhood at about 6:15 a.m. on Nov. 5. The woman said she felt uncomfortable and pretended to make a phone call in order to avoid him.
Another resident in the mobile home park said she saw a man in a mask standing on her porch, potentially trying to break into the home. The man fled from the home, and the 911 call reporting Hania’s kidnapping came nine minutes later.
The documents also show that several witnesses reported that McLellan had discussed his plans to commit a crime.
The witnesses said that McLellan had identified three potential targets for “a lick,” which, according to the documents, is a slang term for committing robbery. One of the targets McLellan had identified to witnesses was an area described as the mobile home park by the Kia dealership, which investigators believe referred to Rosewood Mobile Home Park.
Documents state that McLellan told others that he wore a yellow bandana when committing crimes because it conceals his race and led people to falsely assume he was a member of the Latin Kings gang.
Hania’s body was located on Nov. 27, and an autopsy report released Wednesday showed her body was found lying in water in a wooded area. Since her body was partially decomposed by time it was recovered, a specific cause of death could not be identified.
The SUV belonging to Hania’s family was found several days before her body was located, and documents show that investigators found the shirt, pants and undergarments Hania was believed to be wearing at the time of her disappearance in the vehicle. Documents also show that McLellan’s DNA was found on that clothing.
The autopsy report indicated that Hania was naked when she was found, and her body showed signs consistent with sexual abuse.
Investigators also found McLellan’s DNA on the steering wheel of the SUV, although he denied ever being in the stolen vehicle.
Other items taken from the SUV included a photograph of a female and white rope.
McLellan was charged with at least 10 felonies, including first-degree murder, first-degree forcible rape and first degree kidnapping in connection with the case. He was being held in the Robeson County jail on an unrelated kidnapping charge when authorities tied him to Hania’s case.
Two Robeson County deputies are no longer with the sheriff’s department as a result of their actions over a 2016 case linked to McLellan.
The State Crime Lab found in 2016 that DNA from a rape kit matched McLellan, whose DNA had been submitted to a federal database after he was convicted in 2007 of felony assault with a deadly weapon and first-degree burglary.
The DNA match should have prompted investigators to collect a new DNA sample from McLellan to confirm the test, but nobody followed up and the report on the DNA match went missing after being sent to the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office in October 2016.
