By Sarah Nagem
The man accused of kidnapping and killing a 13-year-old Hania Aguilar in Robeson County in 2018 pleaded guilty on Friday, according to local District Attorney Matt Scott and Lumberton police.
Michael McLellan, 40, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to first-degree murder, the Lumberton Police Department sadi in a news release. Superior Court Judge Greg Bell accepted the plea deal.
“Six years,” Scott said of the time since McLellan’s arrest. “I’m glad it’s here. It took longer than I would have wanted, and longer than the family would have wanted.”
Hania was abducted from the driveway of her family’s home near Lumberton on Nov. 5, 2018, while waiting for a ride to school. The FBI and Lumberton police found her body 22 days later in a swamp about 10 miles away. Investigators said she had likely been asphyxiated.
McLellan was arrested on Dec. 8, 2018. The case was delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic and because McLellan cycled through several court-appointed attorneys over the years. In capital murder cases in North Carolina, defendants must have two attorneys.
The brutality of Hania’s death rocked Robeson County, which has one of the highest violent crime rates in North Carolina. Many residents were outraged that McLellan could have been behind bars for other suspected crimes the day Aguilar was kidnapped.
The Robeson County Sheriff’s Office received evidence from the state crime lab in 2017 that connected McLellan to a 2016 rape, but had not arrested him. Former Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt said Hania “might be alive” if deputies had followed up on the evidence in a timely manner.
Sheriff Burnis Wilkins fired one deputy and a second resigned following an investigation into how the evidence was overlooked, The News & Observer reported at the time.
Police in the neighboring town of Fairmont waited until Nov. 13, 2018, to serve an arrest warrant on McLellan in an attempted robbery case that occurred the month before. The state Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission also had a warrant for McLellan’s arrest for violating the terms of his recent release from prison.
“It’s been very hard, and it’s going to keep being hard,” Hania’s mother, Celsa Hernandez, told WRAL on Friday. “But I have a little bit more peace today now that I know that justice has been served.”
McLellan also pleaded guilty to two other crimes that occurred in October 2016 and July 2018, Lumberton police said.
Hania was abducted the day before Election Day, when Scott was first elected Robeson County district attorney. He said the case brought the residents of Robeson County together in a way that hurricanes had done in the past.
“This incident galvanized a community in support of a family,” he said. “I think that’s pretty powerful. That is an amazing family.”
Scott said Hernandez spoke at the court hearing Friday, along with Hania’s cousin and a friend who often serves as an interpreter for the Spanish-speaking family.
“Their faith and their resiliency is an example for all of us,” Scott said.
While the plea deal closes one chapter in the case, Scott says Robeson County investigators are still using lessons learned from the case. Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices are informed of matches from CODIS, the national DNA database, Scott said. His office, he said, follows up with law enforcement to make sure they receive the evidence.
“It shined a light to that,” Scott said, “which I think we’re better as a judicial system for.”
