Update, December 9, 2018: A man has been arrested in the disappearance of 13-year-old Hania Noelia Aguilar, the FBI said. Michael Ray McLellan, 34, was charged with first-degree murder, among other charges, in connection with the disappearance and death of the North Carolina teenager. McLellan was in custody at the time of his arrest on unrelated charges.
This story was originally published on November 27, 2018.
FBI and local law enforcement in Robeson County, North Carolina, located a body on November 27 while "following leads related to the search" for Hania Aguilar about 10 miles south of where she was kidnapped on November 5.
FBI officials reported the case was being investigated as a homicide after the discovery. "We are absolutely devastated. I wish we had a different outcome for Hania's family, for the community, and for the hundreds of law enforcement officers and searchers who put everything they had into finding her alive," Lumberton Police Chief Michael McNeil said in a news conference.
The eighth grader was last seen on the morning of November 5th in her front yard at the Rosewood Mobile Home Park in Lumberton, NC. Neighbors reported seeing Aguilar being forced into a stolen green SUV by a man wearing all black with a yellow bandana. An Amber Alert was issued that day. The SUV was found abandoned on November 8.