Tragedies: Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens

The Democrat-NGO-media complex buries anything that distracts from their support for illegal aliens of all stripes, no matter the havoc wrought on individual American citizens and society in general. No discussion of the downsides, especially the violent crimes committed and resultant deaths of innocent America citizens at their hands. They’d rather manufacture stories that tug on the heartstrings of their drive-by viewership as opposed to discussing the lives ripped apart in the wake of family members and loved ones cruelly murdered by people who shouldn’t have been in the US in the first place.

Here is a summary of documented cases of Americans murdered by individuals in the United States illegally, from December 2022 through mid-2025, based on court records, law enforcement announcements, and verified media reporting. The cases are presented in chronological order. Where charges are alleged and trials are pending, that is noted. The inclusion of a case here reflects documented charges and law enforcement confirmation.

1. Kayla Hamilton — July 27, 2022 (arrested January 2023) | Aberdeen, Maryland

Kayla Hamilton, 20, who was diagnosed with autism, was raped, bound at the wrists with a phone charger wrapped around her neck, and strangled to death in her bedroom in a mobile home in Aberdeen. Walter Javier Martinez, a 16-year-old MS-13 gang member from El Salvador, had entered the United States as an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC) via Rio Grande City, Texas, in March 2022 — just four months before the murder — and was released to a sponsor in Maryland despite a prior arrest record for gang affiliation in El Salvador that DHS and HHS failed to detect. Martinez was arrested in January 2023, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to first-degree murder, and was sentenced to 70 years in prison (life with all but 70 years suspended, as Maryland law prohibited life without parole for a juvenile); the case triggered a House Judiciary Committee investigation into the Biden administration’s vetting of unaccompanied minors.

2. Maria Rios — January 31, 2023 | La Marque, Texas

Maria Rios, 57, a mother of three and grandmother of four who owned a cleaning company, was found beaten to death inside a newly constructed vacant residence in the Sunset Grove subdivision in La Marque, where she had been contracted to clean. Carlos Lara-Balcazar, 34, an undocumented immigrant whose country of origin was not publicly confirmed, was identified through discarded evidence found in a Houston dumpster and arrested in February 2023; ICE placed a detainer on him. Lara-Balcazar was convicted of murder in Galveston County in 2024 and sentenced to prison; the length of sentence was not confirmed in available records.

3. Rachel Morin — August 5, 2023 | Bel Air, Maryland

Rachel Morin, 37, a mother of five, was ambushed, raped, and beaten to death while jogging along the Ma & Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air, Harford County; her body was found in a drain culvert off the trail. Victor Martinez-Hernandez, a 24-year-old Salvadoran national who crossed into the United States illegally in February 2023 after fleeing an arrest warrant in El Salvador for another woman’s murder, was identified via DNA evidence, tracked to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and arrested in June 2024. He was convicted on all counts — first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense, and kidnapping — in April 2025 after a nine-day trial in which the jury deliberated less than an hour; he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole plus 40 additional years.

4. Aiden Clark — August 22, 2023 | Springfield, Ohio

Aiden Clark, 11, was killed on the first day of school when Hermanio Joseph, a 36-year-old Haitian immigrant with Temporary Protected Status and no valid US driver’s license, drove his minivan left of center on State Route 41 near Springfield and struck a school bus carrying 52 children, causing it to roll over; Aiden was ejected and died at the scene, and more than 20 other students were injured. Joseph was convicted by jury in May 2024 of involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide and sentenced to 9 to 13.5 years in prison; his appeal for a change of venue was denied by the Ohio Second District Court of Appeals in 2025.

5. Lizbeth Medina — December 5, 2023 | Edna, Texas

Lizbeth Medina, 16, a cheerleader at Edna High School, was found stabbed to death in the bathtub of her apartment by her mother after she failed to appear at a Christmas parade; forensic evidence showed she had been beaten, had her head struck against a firm surface, and was stabbed repeatedly. Rafael Govea Romero, 23, an undocumented Mexican national who had overstayed a visa and had a prior 2022 felony burglary charge in Schulenburg on which he received probation, was arrested four days after the murder; police chief Rick Boone stated he was “100% confident” Romero killed Medina and that Romero had confessed. Romero pleaded guilty in September 2025 to murder, aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, and burglary, and was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences plus an additional 20 consecutive years; his family indicated they would actively oppose any future parole.

6. Melissa Powell, 47, and Riordan Powell, 16 — December 12, 2023 | Broomfield, Colorado

Melissa Powell, a mother, and her teenage son Riordan were killed when Jose Guadalupe Menjivar-Alas — driving between 80 and 100 mph in a 40 mph zone near Broomfield High School with a blood alcohol level of .249, more than three times the legal limit — crossed the center line in his Toyota pickup and struck their Mazda head-on; Melissa was pronounced dead at the scene and Riordan died shortly after at the hospital. Menjivar-Alas, 37, a citizen of El Salvador, had been deported four times (2009, 2012, 2014, 2015), had four separate prior alcohol-related driving convictions in Boulder County, and had been sentenced to probation just four days before the fatal crash. He pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide, was sentenced to 24 years in prison in November 2024, and an ICE detainer was lodged against him.

7. Laken Riley — February 22, 2024 | Athens, Georgia

Laken Riley, 22, a nursing student at Augusta University, was struck in the head with a rock multiple times and asphyxiated while jogging near a wooded trail on the University of Georgia campus; her body was found hours after she texted her mother that she was heading out for a run. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan national who crossed into the United States illegally near El Paso in September 2022 and was paroled and released, was later arrested by the NYPD in September 2023 on child endangerment charges but was released before ICE could issue a detainer; DNA evidence — including his DNA under Riley’s fingernails and on a jacket found in a nearby dumpster — connected him to the murder. Ibarra was convicted at a bench trial on all 10 counts in November 2024, including malice murder and aggravated assault with intent to rape, and sentenced to life without parole; a subsequent request for a new trial was denied, and a court-ordered mental evaluation is ongoing as part of continued post-conviction proceedings.

8. Ruby Garcia — March 22, 2024 | Grand Rapids, Michigan

Ruby Garcia, 25, was shot four times — twice in the head — by her boyfriend during an argument in her car on US-131 in Grand Rapids; her body was left on the side of the highway and her car was abandoned in South Haven with blood and bullet holes. Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, a Mexican national who had entered the US illegally as a child, received DACA status that expired in 2019, was deported in September 2020 after a DUI, and then reentered the country illegally at an unknown date; he called police himself two days after the shooting to confess. Ortiz-Vite was sentenced in November 2024 to a minimum of 39 years — 37 to 100 years for second-degree murder plus two consecutive years for a felony firearm charge — and faces deportation upon release.

9. Jocelyn Nungaray — June 16–17, 2024 | North Houston, Texas

Jocelyn Nungaray, 12, snuck out of her family’s apartment late at night and was lured under a bridge by two men she encountered at a convenience store, where she was sexually assaulted, tied up, and strangled; her body was found in a shallow creek the next morning after being thrown off the bridge. Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26 — both Venezuelan nationals who entered the US illegally and were apprehended near El Paso (Martinez-Rangel in March 2024, Peña Ramos in May 2024) and released with notices to appear — were arrested within days of the murder, and one admitted to police to having tied the girl’s legs and told the other to throw her in the water. Both are charged with capital murder, held on $10 million bonds in Harris County Jail, and face the death penalty; as of mid-2025, no trial date had been set.

10. George Levin — January 26, 2025 | Chicago, Illinois (Norwood Park)

George Levin, 63, an interior designer, was beaten to death in the basement of his Norwood Park home — found by his sister bound with duct tape and electrical cord, gagged with a sock, with broken ribs and hemorrhaging in the head and neck — after meeting two men through the Grindr dating app. Jefferson Ubilla-Delgado, 29, from Ecuador, and Geiderwuin Bello Morales, 21, from Venezuela, both crossed the Texas border in the summer of 2023 and were released into the interior; Ubilla was wearing a DHS ankle monitoring bracelet at the time, and its GPS history helped investigators place him at the scene; one suspect had also been arrested weeks earlier for attempting to lure a 13-year-old girl into a car, with charges downgraded under Chicago’s sanctuary city policies. Both were charged with first-degree murder and robbery; a Cook County judge ordered them held without bond, calling the crime “violent” and saying he could not “overlook the horrific nature of this crime”; trial is pending.

11. Camillia Williams — March 12–13, 2025 | Marietta, Georgia (Cobb County)

Camillia Williams, 52, a mother of five and grandmother, was found dead near a road in Marietta; her family had reported that she expressed fear in the days before her death that a man was following her; an arrest warrant states she was placed in a chokehold until she lost consciousness, after which the suspect put both knees and his full body weight on her neck. Hector David Sagastume-Rivas, 21, of Honduras, crossed into the US illegally on March 17, 2021, was apprehended by Border Patrol, paroled into the country, and was ordered removed in absentia in July 2023 after failing to appear for a hearing. He faces charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, rape, aggravated sexual battery, and necrophilia; he is held without bond with an ICE detainer lodged; trial is pending.

12. Luis Jocsan Nanez Lopez — July 20, 2025 | Morehead, Kentucky

Luis Lopez, 15, was shot three times through a closed bedroom door and killed while trying to intervene after hearing his mother screaming as her boyfriend attempted to rape her in their Morehead apartment in the early morning hours; his younger sister was also struck and injured by the same firearm. Gildardo Amandor-Martinez, 36, a Mexican national, attempted to cross the US-Mexico border illegally three times in 2021 and succeeded on his third attempt at an unknown date and location, per DHS. Charged with murder, first-degree assault, and first-degree attempted rape, Amandor-Martinez is held in the Rowan County Detention Center on a $1 million bond with an ICE detainer placed by federal authorities; trial is pending.

13. Chandra Mouli Nagamallaiah — September 10, 2025 | Dallas, Texas

Chandra Mouli Nagamallaiah, a hotel manager and American citizen (or long-term U.S. resident victim), was beheaded with a machete on September 10, 2025, in Dallas, Texas, in front of his wife and son. The perpetrator was Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, a Cuban national paroled into the U.S. in April 2016 who remained illegally after failing to qualify for residency and receiving a final removal order in October 2024 (released again in January 2025). An ICE detainer was lodged on September 12, 2025; prosecution is pending.

14. Stephanie Minter — February 23, 2026 | Fairfax County, Virginia

Stephanie Minter, an American citizen, was stabbed to death on February 23, 2026, at a bus stop on Richmond Highway in Fairfax County, Virginia. The perpetrator was Abdul Jalloh, a Sierra Leonean national who entered the U.S. illegally in 2012 and had a final order of removal from 2020 that was not carried out. He was arrested the next day and an ICE detainer was lodged on February 25, 2026; prosecution is pending.

Additional documented cases noted by DHS and congressional sources:

• Taliyah Crochet and Rylan Oncale, both 18, were killed in Louisiana in 2024 in a crash caused by Axel Flores-Cordova of Honduras; legal status pending.
• Ivory Smith, 7, and Alex “AJ” Wise Jr., 10, were killed in separate 2024 Texas crashes caused by undocumented drivers from Venezuela and Mexico respectively, per DHS records.
• Maria Rios (a different victim from the 2023 Texas case above) and her daughter Dayanara, 11, were killed in a 2025 New Jersey crash caused by Raul Luna-Perez of Mexico, per DHS.
• William Carter and Jennifer Lower were killed in November 2025 near Bend, Oregon, when Rajinder Kumar, an Indian national who entered the US illegally in 2022 and was later issued a commercial driver’s license in California, lost control of his trailer and blocked a highway; per FAIR.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

FAIR’s running database at fairus.org/issue/examples-serious-crimes-illegal-aliens and DHS’s VOICE office (ice.gov/voice) document additional cases with varying levels of verification. The Remembrance Project (trp-usa.org/stolen-lives) maintains a “Stolen Lives Quilt” listing victims going back decades, though individual case details there are often not individually sourced.

Note that the tragedies listed above were derived from sources that provided reported and convicted crimes. Sanctuary city policies, fear of deportation, language barriers, and community distrust of law enforcement all plausibly suppress crime reporting in immigrant-heavy communities. If victims and witnesses don’t call police, crimes don’t enter the data. The true rate of crime — by any population — is higher than official records reflect, and the degree to which underreporting distorts the picture for undocumented immigrants specifically is unknown and disputed

Thus, the true number of Americans (and others) killed by illegal aliens may never be known.

What are the lives of these victims and their survivors worth to the Democrat-NGO-media complex other than statistics to be buried in their quest to end deportation of illegal aliens for political purposes (e.g., ghost-voting via mail-in ballots and puffing up population numbers in Blue states for census purposes)? That’s really the bottom line for Democrats: illegal aliens are an expressway to gaining and holding political power in perpetuity.

I will take a hard pass on their crocodile tears endlessly shed for illegal aliens trespassing in the US.

The end.

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This article originally appeared in Stu Cvrk’s Substack. Reprinted here with permission

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