FOX45: MS-13 gang member attends Maryland high school as murder suspect, school not told
A grieving mother has a powerful warning for Maryland parents after her daughter was murdered and the suspected killer was allowed to attend a public school.
“When I start from the very beginning and get to the very end, they’re like, ‘wow, that is a really crazy story,’” The victim’s mother Tammy Nobles told Project Baltimore. “And I say, ‘it is a crazy story. But it’s a true story.’ It’s the worst pain that a parent can ever get.”
Nobles’ daughter Kayla Hamilton was killed on July 27, 2022. For more than two years her death made headlines.
“She was just found with a cord wrapped around her neck and her mouth. Then just left her on the floor, like trash,” Nobles explained.
On the day Kayla died, Aberdeen Police quickly identified Walter Martinez — 16-year-old MS-13 gang member from El Salvador who was in United States illegally — as a primary suspect, according to charging documents, which showed Martinez was detained by police and questioned. Detectives had surveillance video and an audio recording that placed Martinez at the scene of the crime. Martinez was read his Miranda Rights.
“They knew he was guilty. They just needed that DNA to really lock it in,” stated Nobles.
When police sent out Martinez’s DNA, it took six months to process. And after Kayla was murdered, and while police were waiting for the DNA results, Martinez was allowed to enroll as a student and was attending Edgewood High School in Harford County.
“It makes me angry,” Nobles told FOX45. “You’re sitting there putting this monster into high school with other people’s children, and you’re putting children at risk. Look what he did to Kayla.”
According to information Fox45 News gathered from local and federal agencies involved in the investigation, this is the timeline of events surrounding Kayla’s murder.
In March 2022, Martinez entered the United States illegally through Texas as an unaccompanied minor. He was apprehended by Border Patrol and sent to live with a sponsor in Maryland.
By July 2022, Martinez moved to a mobile home in Aberdeen where he later killed Kayla.
By the fall of 2022, as police waited for the DNA results, Martinez had been placed in foster care with Child and Protective Services. He then enrolled at Edgewood High School.
In January 2023, the DNA results came back, and Martinez was arrested.
In August 2024, he pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 70 years in jail.
“Why did you put him in a public school? I want to know why,” said Nobles. “Somebody needs to be held accountable.”
Under Maryland law, even though Martinez was a suspect, since he had not yet been charged with murder, he could attend Edgewood High School, and authorities, including CPS, were not required to tell the school about his past. But Nobles believes someone should have.
Harford County Public Schools told Fox45 in a statement when Martinez was enrolled in October 2022, “There was no information in our possession that would suggest he was a danger to other students and staff. HCPS is not afforded unfettered access to information held by law enforcement which may suggest that a potential student is dangerous, gang-affiliated, or suspected of heinous and disturbing crimes.”
“We need to change the laws,” said Nobles. “If you’re a suspect, the main suspect of a felony, you should not be able to attend school with other children. They have virtual school and computers.”
Several organizations were involved in the investigation into Martinez, including the Aberdeen Police Department, Maryland State Police, the FBI, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Child and Protective Services.
Yet, when Martinez was enrolled in Edgewood High School, no one involved told the school that a teen suspected of murder was walking the hallways with 1,400 other students.
“Imagining what [Kayla] went through that day, how she felt — her last moments knowing that she was dying, and she wasn’t going to see me again — how scared she must have been,” said Nobles, who lives in Virginia with Kayla’s younger brother and sister. “I want to make sure that it doesn’t happen to someone else. People need to know what actually happened and what is going on. Her death is not going to be in vain.”