Teen Girl Found Dead an Hour After Being Reported Missing, Witness Gives Chilling Account

When Kaitlin Hernandez left her San Antonio home Tuesday evening to hang out with friends, she had bright, indefinite dreams as she prepared to graduate from high school.

“Now we have to bury her,” Crystal Rodriguez, the 17-year-old’s aunt said Wednesday, after her niece was found dead under a bridge only a few hours after leaving home, according to KENS-TV.

Hernandez’s family reported the girl, who had dreams of becoming a veterinarian, missing at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Searchers found her naked, trauma-covered body an hour later.

“I actually saw two males standing next to the ditch shining like a light down there,” a neighbor told KENS. The station did not use the neighbor’s name.

“After a couple of seconds of that I then heard a female shout “Hey!’ I want to say it was in the ditch. It echoed like it was in the ditch. But then after that it just kind of went quiet,” the neighbor said.

Searchers found the teen’s phone in the ditch, and a blue jacket there as well. Her body was then found under a bridge.

Officials said she was strangled to death.

Police said a man who was with Hernandez Tuesday night has been questioned, and that they are seeking a second person.

“She was innocent,” Rodriguez said of the senior at Roosevelt High School. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”