New Details Emerge in the Case of Angelina Resendiz, the 21-Year-Old Sailor Who Was Found Dead Near a Navy Base
A Department of the Navy memo, sent to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, confirmed that sailor Angelina Resendiz was last seen with another, unnamed sailor
'Angelina was a kind and compassionate young woman who brought light into our lives,' her mother previously said in a statementNew details have emerged in the case of the sailor who disappeared from her Virginia Navy base in May and was found dead days later.
Authorities previously said Angelina Petra Resendiz was "last seen at her barracks in Miller Hall at Naval Station Norfolk" on May 29. She was later found dead in an off-base wooded area days later on June 9.
Now, a Department of the Navy memo obtained and published this week by both CBS affiliate WTKR and NBC affiliate WAVY sheds more light on the timeline of events tied to Resendiz's death.
In the memo, sent to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the Navy confirmed that Resendiz — who was assigned to the USS James E. Williams prior to her death — was last seen at the barracks of an unnamed sailor around 10 a.m. local time on May 29 during a wellness check on another sailor.
Per the memo, Resendiz was on "authorized liberty" on May 29, meaning she had "no assigned duties" on the ship that day and was "not required to muster with her chain of command."
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The Naval Station Norfolk Base Police first conducted a wellness check at 5:45 a.m. that day when an officer "reported that he could not locate CSSN Resendiz after she contacted him requesting to be picked up at the barracks."
Police eventually entered her room, per the memo, and she was later located in the room assigned to another sailor hours later.
Resendiz was expected to muster, or check in for duty, at 7:30 a.m. the following day but did not report, the memo said.
At 9:30 a.m. on May 30, another wellness check was conducted on both her room and the room of the other sailor, whom she was last seen with, but "neither Sailor was located," according to the timeline of events provided by the Navy. The other sailor's name has not yet been released.
The new details come weeks after Marshall Griffin, an attorney who represents Resendiz's mother, told WAVY that the Navy confirmed a man named Jermiah Copeland was detained or confined "on suspicion" in the case following an initial review officer's hearing at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake.
At the time, Griffin and a spokesperson for the U.S. Navy did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
Griffin told WAVY that Copeland would remain in pretrial confinement and charges were not known at the time. Such hearings, Griffin added, determine 'whether the individual is a flight risk, or they're likely to engage in other misconduct, and consider the government's evidence whether a crime actually occurred.'
A spokesperson for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) also confirmed in a statement to PEOPLE last month that a Navy sailor had been placed in "pretrial confinement" in connection with the case.
Resendiz's body was found by the NCIS on June 9 in an off-base wooded area in Norfolk. The Norfolk Medical Examiner's Office verified on June 10 that her body was positively identified.
The young woman's remains have since been transferred to the Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas. They were returned home by military personnel, according to KVEO, a local NBC and CBS affiliate.
According to WAVY, Resendiz's mother, Esmeralda Castle, said that 'the person responsible for this horrific loss made deliberate choices that ended Angie's life." She added that their actions were "not a mistake."
'Angelina was a kind and compassionate young woman who brought light into our lives,' Castle said in a separate statement following her daughter's death, calling the loss 'a void in their hearts.'
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