Out of the kindness of his heart, a man took in an illegal immigrant who claimed to be an unaccompanied minor. Soon, police stumbled upon a gruesome murder, leading them to discover that the immigrant was hiding some dark secrets.
While crossing the U.S. southern border, 24-year-old Yery Noel Medina Ulloa told Texas border authorities that he was just 17 years old, the New York Post reports. He also gave them the fake name Reynel Alexander Hernandez, hoping it would help his chances of entering. With no identifying documents, officials simply took him at his word.
The Honduran national was placed in a shelter and given a “Notice to Appear” in court at a later date, which many illegal border-crossers fail to obey. Instead, he was somehow able to head to Florida, where 46-year-old Francisco Javier Cuellar, a local businessman and father of four, welcomed him into his family home.
Cuellar provided everything Ulloa needed, including a job at his store. Unfortunately, no amount of charity was enough. Just weeks after arriving in the country, police say Ulloa was caught on video brutally beating and stabbing Cuellar to death in his own home.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office confirmed that home security cameras captured Ulloa “stabbing the victim numerous times and repeatedly hitting him with a chair.” Detectives say he later called a friend and confessed to the murder and texted “that he had ‘killed Uncle Francisco.'”
According to his mother, she was told that after his arrest, “he cried and told them, ‘I killed him. I killed him.’”
Police arrested Ulloa after witnesses reported that he was covered in blood and walking into a nearby wooded area. He was found soon after and led police back to the home and Cuellar’s body, WKOV reports.
Cuellar’s 18-year-old daughter, Mary Carmen, told reporters that her father simply wanted to help out Ulloa. She explained that the murder is so shocking because her father treated the young man as part of the family.
“My dad told me one day he was going to the airport, and then this guy came out of nowhere and was at work the next day,” she said. “I didn’t really ask questions. My dad seemed like he was doing a favor for somebody because where [Ulloa] came from they are super poor. We feel that someone asked my dad to do it. My dad was really compassionate like that, he would help someone who needed it.”
Ulloa’s mother told the media that her son had confessed to her that he entered the U.S. illegally and had used a fake identity. She claims that he only had to tell officials his information to be immediately placed in a shelter.
“When he entered [the US] he told me, ‘Mommy, I didn’t go in with my name,’” his mother, Wendy Florencia Ulloa, told the Spanish-language Univision network. “‘I went in with the name of another person because right there at the shelter they helped me.”
Ulloa’s mother confirmed that her son was living with Cuellar at the time of the murder and was treated very well by him.
“‘Mommy, he is my Uncle Frank,’” his mother said he told her on the phone. Ulloa and Cuellar are not related, despite Ulloa’s use of the moniker. “‘I live with him. But don’t worry. He treats me like a son.’”
Yery Noel Medina Ulloa was initially placed in a juvenile detention facility since authorities still believed he was a teen. When they discovered his true identity, he was moved to an adult facility and charged with second-degree murder.
The case sheds light on the deeply flawed and dangerous immigration process. Illegal aliens are automatically allowed to enter, regardless of the government’s inability to identify them, and are quickly released into the public with nothing more than a promise to appear in court in the future.
