LUMBERTON, N.C. (WBTW) — A new trial date has been set for a man accused of kidnapping, raping and killing a 13-year-old girl in Robeson County in 2018, according to a Robeson County court official.
A trial for Michael McLellan is scheduled for Feb. 5, according to Gwen Chavis, the Superior Court trial court coordinator in Robeson County.
He had been tentatively set to go on trial on Sept. 18, but a motion to continue the trial was granted in April by Superior Court Judge James Gregory Bell.
McLellan is accused of kidnapping Hania Aguilar from a yard in the Rosewood Mobile Home Park in the Lumberton area on Nov. 5, 2018, and then killing her.
Officials said she was forced into a stolen SUV and an Amber Alert was issued by state officials shortly after 10 a.m. on Nov. 5.
A body, which was later identified as that of Aguilar, was found off Wire Grass Road in the Lumberton area on Nov. 27, 2018.
An indictment returned on May 6, 2019, charged McLellan with first-degree murder, first-degree force sex offense; statutory sexual offense with a person less than 15 years of age; larceny of a motor vehicle; felonious restraint; abduction of children; concealing/failing to report the death of a child; first-degree forcible rape; statutory rape of a child younger than 15; and first-degree kidnapping.
In June 2019, WBTW learned that prosecutors would seek the death penalty against McLellan for Aguilar’s kidnapping, rape, and murder.