A 17-year-old Muslim girl named Nabra Hassanen was assaulted, abducted and killed on Sunday by a bat-wielding motorist as she was returning home after prayers at a mosque in the USA state of Virginia.
Hassanen, 17, was with a group of as many as 15 teens who had left their Sterling-area mosque between Ramadan prayers to get food at a McDonald's, Parker said. She then disappeared. A 22-year-old suspect has been arrested and charged with murder.
According to accounts by Hassanen's friends, reported by Buzzfeed, the teenager was leaving the mosque with her friends when an altercation ensued between them and the suspect who was in his auto and appeared drunk.
Some of the teenagers were in the road and Martinez allegedly began arguing with the boy on a bicycle as he was driving in his auto, Parker told a news conference. Police say he chased the group in his auto, then got out with a baseball bat and caught up with Hassanen, brutally beating her. Hassanen's body was discovered Sunday afternoon in a Virginia pond after the teen went missing following an altercation in the early hours that morning.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Northern Virginia told CNN that Nabra died of blunt force trauma to the head and neck.
The Washington Post reported that Hassanen and her friends were dressed in abayas, the robe-like dress worn by some Muslim women, prompting fears the victim was targeted because she was Muslim.
If evidence surfaces that indicates hate did play a role, additional charges could be filed. A vigil also is planned for Wednesday in Hassanen's hometown of Reston, Virginia. "She's like humble. She was very nice, you know, I'm very sad", said Abas Sherif, a family friend and spokesperson.
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During an intense search for the missing girl on Sunday, an officer stopped a suspicious vehicle. Police said Martinez Torres appeared to be motivated by road rage, not religious hatred, after driving up to the teenagers along the road in suburban Washington.
A potential hate crime is one of the possible motives under investigation, the Washington Post reported. Hassanen's mother claims she was told by police that her daughter was struck by a metal baseball bat. Detectives say Torres then took Nabra with him in his auto to a second location nearby in Loudoun County.
Torres allegedly struck the girl with a baseball bat and abducted her, putting her into his auto and driving away, unbeknownst to Hassanen's friends who had headed back to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS).
The suspect is an El Salvador native living in the US illegally, ICE says.
Police said there is no indication of any racial or ethnic slurs were exchanged between Torres and the group when they encountered each other. "He went and drove his auto and came back, and picked her up and threw her in a lake a mile from the mosque", he said.
Meanwhile, the USA daily quoted the girl's father, Mohmoud Hassanen, as saying that he and his firstborn daughter were always close.
Martinez was arraigned Monday and was set to appear in court July 19.
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