LUMBERTON — The man accused of kidnapping, raping and then murdering Hania Aguilar once spent almost a decade in prison for a violent crime and was released earlier this year from prison for another crime.
Michael Ray McLellan, 34, whose name was floated publicly as a suspect in Aguilar’s disappearance even when the FBI denied a person of interest existed, was charged Friday with 10 crimes related to the 13-year-old’s murder.
He already was in custody on a separate charge when he was arrested and charged with the crimes against Aguilar, that happening on the same night there was a private mass in her honor and the day before a public funeral drew thousands of people to pay their respects.
He currently is in the Robeson County jail under a $7.9 million bond.
In 2007, he was convicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and first-degree burglary. He was sentenced to between 10 years and 12 years and nine months in prison and released on parole in February 2016.
McLellan was convicted in February 2017 on charges of felony breaking and entering, and larceny of a motor vehicle, according to state records. He was sentenced to between nine months and 20 months, and was released on parole in June.
He was in the jail recently on charges of second-degree kidnapping and armed robbery in connection to an incident in October in Fairmont.
According to Fairmont Police Chief Jon Edwards, McLellan, wearing a mask, approached a woman as she pulled into her home on Pittman Street and pointed a gun at her and demanded money. The woman recognized his voice and called him by name, and, according to Edwards “he removed the mask and talked to her in a way to attempt to play it off with her.” Edwards said he did take money from the woman.
McLellan is said to be a Fairmont resident, but he has a home on N.C. 41, according to Edwards.
Investigators say forensic evidence connected him to Aguilar’s death.
The Lumberton Police Department charged McLellan with 10 felonies: first-degree murder; first-degree forcible rape; statutory rape of a person under 15 years of age; first-degree sexual offense; statutory sex offense with a person 15 years or younger; first-degree kidnapping; felony restraint; abduction of a child; concealment of a death; and felony larceny of a motor vehicle.
“This has been an extremely complex and heartbreaking case,” said Erich Hackney, an investigator for the Robeson County District Attorney’s Office who has assisted with the investigation since the day Aguilar was abducted. “The resources and police work by the agencies involved has been nothing less than phenomenal and has involved thousands of man-hours to bring us to this point.”
Aguilar was forced into a family member’s idling SUV and kidnapped from her driveway in the Rosewood Mobile Home Park in Lumberton on Nov. 5. Her body was found on Nov. 27 off Wire Grass Road.
According to law enforcement officials, the SBI, the Robeson County District Attorney’s Office, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, the Lumberton Police Department and the FBI followed more than 850 leads and conducted nearly 500 interviews.
The break in the case came through forensic testing of evidence taken from the stolen SUV, which was recovered on Nov. 8. The Robesonian has been told that McLellan is the man depicted in a widely distributed surveillance video of a person walking near where Aguilar was kidnapped and shortly before the kidnapping.
“Twenty-three search warrants and court orders have been executed during the case, which resulted in the discovery of critical evidence,” Hackney said. “Both the N.C. State Crime Lab and FBI lab in Quantico have bent over backwards in accommodating the expedited requests we have made for evidence analysis. District Attorney Johnson Britt, District Attorney-elect Matthew Scott and Assistant District Attorney Joe Osman have been very involved in the case and briefed constantly since Day 1.”
There has been an outpouring of community support for the family, which includes the wearing of purple, her favorite color, $20,000 raised in a GoFundMe campaign, and the gift of a mobile home to the family so they could move out of the home from where she was snatched. Aguilar wanted to be a Marine, and retired Marines and some who came from Camp Lejeune were pallbearers at her funeral.
Donnie Douglas can be reached at 910-416-5649 or [email protected].