A 17-year-old high school student from Texas was found naked and strangled to death in a ditch – just an hour after she was reported missing.
Kaitlin Hernandez’s family said she had gone for a walk with a male friend from her neighborhood on the northeast side of the city but did not return home.
He reportedly told them he did not know where she was and her frantic loved ones reported her missing on Tuesday night around 11.30pm.
An unidentified man found her cell phone in a ditch and gave it to the police.
Officers from the San Antonio Police Department then found the missing woman’s jacket and later her naked body under a bridge in a drainage ditch on Oak Dell Drive about half a mile from her home around 10 p.m. 12.30 Wednesday morning.
Kaitlan Hernandez, 17, was found naked and strangled to death in a ditch just an hour after she was reported missing by her family
San Antonio police officers found the missing woman’s jacket and later her naked body under a bridge in a drainage ditch on Oak Dell Drive. A cross (pictured) was placed on the spot where the murder took place
Katilin’s devastated aunt, Crystal Rodriguez, wept as she said: ‘She wanted to be a vet. You took her from us too soon. seventeen years old’
Police said her body showed visible signs of trauma. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed that the young woman had suffocated, KHOU11 News reported.
Police said the case, which started as a missing person, is now being treated as a homicide.
The San Antonio Police Department released photos of an unidentified man asking the public for help identifying “this person of interest.”
A SAPD spokeswoman Ximena Alvarez told DailyMail.com on Friday morning that a person of interest, who has not been named, has now been identified and is cooperating with the investigation.
No arrests have been made at this time and the investigation is ongoing, the spokesman added.
Hernandez was a senior at Roosevelt High School and was set to graduate in May.
Her devastated family said she had dreams of becoming a vet.
Katilin’s distraught mother Angie Hernandez said: ‘We need to find out who did this because she didn’t deserve it. Being left there like an animal is very ugly and cruel and I don’t know what this person was thinking. Why they targeted her. I do not understand it”.
In a heartbreaking interview with KSAT news on Thursday, Kaitlin’s aunt Crystal Rodriguez said: ‘She wanted to be a vet. You took her from us too soon. Seventeen years old.’
“And now her little sisters, they don’t have time with her anymore,” she said through tears.
Rodriguez described his niece as ‘fun, always making other people laugh’. Hernandez was also remembered as a devoted big sister to her younger siblings
Kaitlin pictured at a bowling alley with loved ones
Officers are pictured searching for the young woman after her family reported her missing
The woman’s body was discovered early Wednesday morning in the drainage ditch under a bridge
Rodriguez pleaded: ‘I’m begging you please … please somebody speak up … somebody say something.’
She told the news outlet that the family is in a state of shock: ‘We are barely holding on. We are taking life right now one minute at a time.’
The aunt has also created one GoFundMe to help raise money for her niece’s funeral, where she explained that the grieving family had lost their sister just four months earlier.
“Now they are together in heaven,” she said.
As of Friday morning, more than $6,000 has been raised toward their $10,000 goal.
Rodriguez described her niece as ‘funny, always makes others laugh.’
Hernandez was also remembered as a devoted big sister to her younger siblings.
‘She loved her family so much and we loved her. She loved her dogs, she always slept with them,’ she said. We miss her very much.’
She also shared that love of animals and had four dogs of her own, and her aunt remembered how she always fed the stray animals in the neighborhood, KSAT news reported.
Kaitlin pictured with her family during the Christmas holidays
A vigil will be held at 18 on Friday at 118 Ashland Drive. The family said there will be a priest leading the service and friends and family of the young woman will have an opportunity to speak.
At the memorial, they will go to a bridge where Hernandez was found and play music in her memory.