Hania Aguilar
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McLellan
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Marines, both active and retired, answered the call to lend a hand for the funeral of Hania Aguilar, the 13-year-old whose death united Robeson County in sorrow and in support for her surviving family members.
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Hania Aguilar
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Stephanie Andrade ties purple balloons to the Rosewood Mobile Home Park sign with her friend Kelly Hunt in 2018. Hania’s family have been given a new home in another mobile home park.
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Balloons rise into the air Sunday at Luther Britt Park in Lumberton as a tribute to Hania Aguilar. Parents and their children from across Robeson County shed tears over the 13-year-old’s death.
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Editor’s Note: This is a developing story. Stay with Robesonian.com as news is made available.
LUMBERTON — The man accused of the 2018 killing of 13-year-old Hania Aguilar will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Michael McLellan entered a guilty plea Friday to first-degree murder, the Lumberton Police Department said in a prepared statement. Superior Court Judge James Gregory Bell at the Robeson County Courthouse in Lumberton accepted the deal.
McLellan, 40, of Fairmont was 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.
“Six years,” said local District Attorney Matt Scott of the time since McLellan’s arrest. “I’m glad it’s here. It took longer than I would have wanted, and longer than the family would have wanted.”
Hania was abducted from the driveway of her family’s home near Lumberton on Nov. 5, 2018, while waiting for a ride to school. The FBI and Lumberton police found her body 22 days later in a swamp about 10 miles away. Investigators said she had likely been asphyxiated.
McLellan was arrested on Dec. 8, 2018. The case was delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic and because McLellan cycled through several court-appointed attorneys over the years.
In capital murder cases in North Carolina, defendants must have two attorneys. The brutality of Hania’s death rocked Robeson County, with many residents outraged that McLellan could have been behind bars for other suspected crimes the day Aguilar was kidnapped.
The Robeson County Sheriff’s Office received evidence from the state crime lab in 2017 that connected McLellan to a 2016 rape, but had not arrested him. Former Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt said Hania “might be alive” if deputies had followed up on the evidence in a timely manner.
Police in the neighboring town of Fairmont waited until Nov. 13, 2018, to serve an arrest warrant on McLellan in an attempted robbery case that occurred the month before. The state Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission also had a warrant for McLellan’s arrest for violating the terms of his recent release from prison. McLellan also pleaded guilty to two other crimes that occurred in October 2016 and July 2018, Lumberton police said.
Hania was abducted the day before Election Day, when Scott was first elected Robeson County district attorney. He said the case brought the residents of Robeson County together in a way that hurricanes had done in the past.
“This incident galvanized a community in support of a family,” he said. “I think that’s pretty powerful. That is an amazing family.” Scott said Hernandez spoke at the court hearing Friday, along with Hania’s cousin and a friend who often serves as an interpreter for the Spanish-speaking family.
“Their faith and their resiliency is an example for all of us,” Scott said.
NEAR ESCAPE
According to Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins, Friday’s sentencing wasn’t the only thing on the killer’s agenda. McLellan made escape attempts both before his appearance in court and afterward as he was being transported back to Central Prison in Raleigh.
Wilkins said that during McLellan’s trip both to and from Central Prison he kept saying, “You’re going to love this. You’re going to love this.”
Wilkins said he suspected McLellan was referring to his planned escape.
“I believe this whole day was an escape plan for [McLellan]” Wilkins told the Robesonian.
As the transportation team was carrying McLellan back to Raleigh, he used a homemade key to unlatch his handcuffs and reach through a ventilation slot in the plexiglas divider.
“He puts his hand through the slot and got the deputy’s gun,” Wilkins said. “He had the gun in his hand. The deputy driving slammed on the brakes and grabbed the barrel of his gun,” Wilkins said.
As the struggle was going on in the car, another deputy used pepper spray and McLellan let go of the gun, Wilkins said
Wilkins said despite McLellan changing clothes before appearing in court and changing back after the sentencing, he was able to hide a key that unlocked the handcuffs, leg irons and waste chain.
Wilkins, who was in court Friday to hear the sentencing, said he was teary eyed to hear of the horrendous acts and then to hear the statements from Hania’s family.
He said in reply to the family, McLEllan offered only an “I’m sorry.”
“He didn’t mean it,” though, Wilkins said.
David Kennard is the executive editor of the Robesonian. Reach him by email at dkennard@robesonian.com. Sarah Nagem from Border Belt Independent contributed to this report.
