Dacara Thompson left her father’s house for a late-night gas station run over two weeks ago in Maryland. She never returned home, prompting police and her family to search high and low for her. Now, after days of searching, there’s a devastating update in the case.
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The Root previously reported that Thompson, 19, left her dad’s Lanham home in Prince George County on the night of Aug. 22. When she didn’t come back home, her father discovered her 2013 white Ford Edge in front of a fire hydrant, parked in the wrong direction, in Hyattsville six miles away with her belongings inside. Her mother Carmen encouraged her to “do whatever you have to to get out of your situation, and you get somewhere and you let somebody know you need help.”
Surveillance footage, per detectives, showed Thompson walking to a parking lot behind a Family Dollar store on University Boulevard in the Langley Park area early Aug. 23. She was seen approaching a black Yukon Denali, and after speaking to the driver for a minute, she got into the car and was driven to a yellow house on Kembridge Drive in Bowie. Maryland State Police discovered a naked body on a riverbank off Route 50 in Anne Arundel County Sunday (Aug. 31) and the remains were later identified as Thompson, ABC News reported.
A man named Hugo Hernandez-Mendez, who police believe was the driver, was charged with first- and second-degree murder on Sept. 5 for Thompson’s death. Hernandez-Mendez, an “illegal alien” from Guatemala per ICE, reportedly had access to the SUV and lived in the house’s bedroom where the killing allegedly occurred, investigators said. The home on Kembridge Drive was searched by police when a mattress propped outside was discovered.
Local station NBC 4 reported a woman who called herself Hernandez-Mendez’s cousin said she was unaware a crime was allegedly committed there. Evidence indicates Thompson was killed in a bedroom.
According to court documents, police believe Hernandez-Mendez, 35, threw Thompson’s body off a bridge. It’s unclear whether Hernandez-Mendez and Thompson, a St. Charles High School graduate who worked for a nonprofit service program for recent graduates, knew each other before Aug. 23.
Hernandez-Mendez remains in police custody without bond and investigators has received limited cooperation from him. The suspect was previously arrested and charged for a DUI in April, but was released pending trial. When asked by local news channel 7News why he was released, a U.S. Attorney for Maryland spokesperson said “no comment.”
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