LUMBERTON — The man charged with kidnapping, raping and killing 13-year-old Hania Aguilar was within reach of law enforcement in the days after the kidnapping, but kept slipping away.
That information was included in more than 500 pages of documents filed by investigators for 23 search warrants that covered cell phone records for McLellan and others identified as “material witnesses;” GPS coordinates from Google accounts; a sport utility vehicle; and a residence on Atkinson Road in Orrum.
Hania was kidnapped about 6:50 a.m. on Nov. 5 when she went to start her aunt’s Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle parked outside their home in Rosewood Mobile Home Park on Elizabethtown Road in Lumberton.
Hania’s cousin saw the incident and told law enforcement that a black man, wearing dark clothing and a yellow bandana on his face, approached the girl, forced her into the SUV and drove away. Hania’s body was found Nov. 27 in a small pond off Wiregrass Road in Orrum.
She had been raped and likely died from strangulation, according to an autopsy.
Michael Ray McLellan, 34 when he was arrested, of Fairmont, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree forced sex offense, statutory rape of a child, statutory sex offense with a child, first-degree kidnapping, felonious restraint, abduction of a child, concealing the death of a child and larceny of a motor vehicle.
The Ford Explorer was found Nov. 8, in woods on Quincey Drive, off Alamac Road, about a half-mile from Deerfield Mobile Home Park. Inside, investigators found clothes believed to be Hania’s, the documents show.
Josh Allen lives in the park and told investigators that he and his brother had an encounter with McLellan about two hours after Hania was kidnapped, according to the documents. Allen said McLellan, dressed in black clothing and wearing a yellow bandana, approached them. His clothes were wet, according to the documents. McLellan asked if he could wash his clothes at Allen’s house.
Allen identified McLellan, who has teardrops tattooed under one eye, from a photograph.
The same day the SUV was found, Allen saw McLellan in the mobile home park. McLellan asked Allen if he could use his phone. As McLellan was wrapping up the call, Allen said four police officers walked in the park. McLellan, whose back was to them, turned around to give Allen the phone “and looked directly at the four officers,” according to the documents.
McLellan ran away before he could be seen.
A day later, on Nov. 9, an unidentified woman called a tip line after seeing video footage released by investigators, the documents show. She identified him as “Michael Ray” and said she knew him from frequenting Lambeth Street when she lived there. He later was identified as McLellan.
The woman said that on Nov. 8, the day the SUV was found, she heard helicopters flying around the Deerfield Mobile Home Park area. She went to see what was happening and saw McLellan running to a wooded area as law enforcement approached, the documents reveal.
McLellan was arrested Nov. 12 on charges from an unrelated case.
During an interview, McLellan told investigators that a friend, identified in the documents as Lyvette Ross, picked him up near Deerfield Mobile Home Park the same day Hania was kidnapped. She drove him to a residence on Atkinson Road in Orrum, where he spent the night.
About 10:30 a.m. the next day, Robeson County deputies responded to a report of a disturbance at the home, according to the documents. McLellan fled into the woods. He stayed elsewhere until the SUV was found, then returned to the Atkinson Road home, where he stayed until Nov. 10.
The documents also revealed that investigators questioned Patricia Jacobs, identified as McLellan’s girlfriend, on Nov. 11. Cell phone records showed that McLellan called her “over 100 times in a seven-day period” after Hania’s kidnapping.
After meeting with detectives “a good part of the day,” Jacobs left. She then used her mother’s phone to call McLellan and had a 35-minute conversation with him. Investigators discovered a message from McLellan on Jacobs’ voicemail in which he said he blocked his phone to keep law enforcement officers from finding him, the documents reveal.
The 23 search warrant affidavits were drawn up by Erich Hackney, an investigator with the Robeson County District Attorney’s Office. The investigation was conducted by the Lumberton Police Department, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the District Attorney’s office.
