High Schooler Was MS-13 Gang Member Accused of Murder

What could be worse than allowing ultra-violent MS-13 gang members to traipse over the porous southern US border and easily make their way into the nation’s interior? How about allowing them to attend public school with America’s children for months after they are strongly suspected of the heinous murder of a young woman?

Tammy Nobles is a powerful advocate for the families of those forever scarred by the horror of violent illegal alien crime. In July 2022, her daughter, 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton, was murdered and sexually assaulted, by an illegal inside her mobile home in Aberdeen, MD. Kayla was autistic, making her even more vulnerable.

On Sept. 10, Nobles testified before Congress, again telling her story of unbearable loss.

“After [Kayla] was deceased, [Walter] Martinez tied her up and sexually assaulted her,” Nobles told the House Judiciary Committee. “This is not a political issue. This is a safety issue for everyone here living in the United States.”

MS-13 and Murder

Martinez was an immediate suspect in the murder. “According to charging documents, Martinez was detained by police and questioned. Detectives had surveillance video and an audio recording that placed Martinez at the scene of the crime. Martinez was read his Miranda Rights,” Fox Baltimore reported. “They knew he was guilty. They just needed that DNA to really lock it in,” Nobles told the local television station.

But that would take time. For whatever reason, it took six months to process the DNA evidence. That allowed Martinez, the lead suspect in a vicious murder and subsequent sexual assault on a corpse, to attend public high school.

“It makes me angry,” Nobles said to Fox Baltimore. “You're sitting there putting this monster into high school with other people's children, and you're putting children at risk. Look what he did to Kayla.”

When Nobles testified to Congress in January, she pointed out the egregious lack of oversight by US border officials that directly led to her daughter’s savage death.

Department of Homeland Security “employees failed to visually inspect the assailant by lifting his shirt to check for gang-related tattoos,” Nobles testified. “Had DHS employees performed a visual inspection of the assailant's body, they would have seen MS-13 gang-related tattoos on his body, disqualifying him from entering the US.

“DHS employees failed to make a simple phone call to the El Salvador government to verify if the assailant was on an MS-13 gang affiliation list,” she continued. “Had they done so, El Salvador government officials would have confirmed that the assailant was a known MS-13 gang member with a prior criminal history. DHS supervisors had failed to train and supervise DHS employees to properly screen minors attempting to enter US soil from El Salvador.”

Normalizing the Unthinkable

As his DNA was being processed, Martinez enrolled at Edgewood High School in Harford County, MD. Fox Baltimore shared a statement by Harford County Public Schools on the killer it allowed into the halls of a school filled with innocent teenagers.

“There was no information in our possession that would suggest he was a danger to other students and staff,” the office declared. “HCPS is not afforded unfettered access to information held by law enforcement which may suggest that a potential student is dangerous, gang-affiliated, or suspected of heinous and disturbing crimes.”

If you were the parent of a 14-year-old female freshman at Edgewood High, would you be satisfied with that explanation?

It is a perfectly understandable question, however. The serious crime that is illegal immigration has been too often casually dismissed in everyday life in America for close to 30 years now. There seem to be few consequences for illegal aliens who commit unspeakable crimes. This is just how things are in America today.

How do you look a grieving mother in the face who knows there was no reason for her daughter to be slaughtered at a young age and shrug and shake your head? And, so, it seems the bloodshed will continue.

Martinez was sentenced to 70 years in prison in August 2024, two years after the murder of Kayla.