MS-13 gang member, 17, who murdered teenage girl in Maryland, allowed to enroll in high school after arrest

A known MS-13 gangster was allowed to enroll in a Maryland public high school while he was the prime suspect in the rape and murder of an autistic woman.

Walter Martinez, 17, was being investigated for the murder of Kayla Hamilton, 19, in July 2022, while he was enrolled at Edgewood High School in Harford County, as reported by Fox 45.

The El Salvadoran was in the U.S. illegally after entering through Texas as an unaccompanied minor in March 2022. He was detained by Border Patrol before being sent to a sponsor in a mobile home in Aberdeen, about a 40-minute drive from Baltimore, where he raped and murdered Hamilton.

According to Aberdeen police, the then 16-year-old was captured on surveillance footage and audio at the scene of the brutal strangulation murder.

Martinez was arrested and questioned, but was allowed to remain free for six months while authorities tried to confirm that his DNA was found at the crime scene.

“It’s the worst pain a parent can ever experience,” Hamilton’s mother Tammy Nobles told Project Baltimore.

“She was just found with a cord wrapped around her neck and her mouth. Then they just left her on the ground, like trash.”

Authorities were not concerned about Martinez’s status as a suspect and Martinez had enrolled as a student.

“It makes me angry,” Nobles added.

“You sit there and put this monster in high school with other people’s kids, and you’re putting kids in danger. Look what he did to Kayla.”

Martinez was eventually arrested in January 2023, after DNA results came in. He pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 70 years in prison in August.

Nobles is now demanding that the law be changed so that officials must inform schools about individuals under investigation for heinous crimes.

Harford County Public Schools said in a statement that “there was no information in our possession that would suggest he posed a danger to other students or staff. HCPS is not given unfettered access to information held by law enforcement that could suggest a potential student is dangerous, has gang ties, or is suspected of heinous and disturbing crimes.”

According to Aberdeen police, Hamilton, who was killed in her apartment, had just moved to the city to live with her 22-year-old boyfriend before she was gruesomely murdered.

Her mother, Nobles, filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming the government failed to stop Martinez at the border.

The lawsuit names both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as defendants and seeks $100 million in damages.

The lawsuit alleges that both agencies failed the woman by allowing the killer into the country without verifying his status by phone and by placing him in a detention center.

They also failed to find the incriminating gang tattoos that were said to be on the perpetrator’s body, and ultimately failed to confirm a verified sponsor for him.