Friend says man’s bid for green card linked to marriage, woman’s killing in Raleigh
A friend of Christina Maria Matos says the man accused of murdering her is an immigrant who offered to pay Matos $15,000 to marry him so he could stay in the country, media outlets reported Friday.
Matos, 20, and Erick Gael Hernandez-Mendez, also 20, received a marriage license Feb. 12, 2021, and got married March 29, 2021, less than a week before the killing, according to county records.
Matos was found dead in the Signature 1505 apartment on Hillsborough Street that she shared with two roommates, near the N.C. State University campus, after police did a welfare check Sunday night. She had just turned 20 years old Friday.
Hernandez-Mendez, one of her roommates and a classmate of hers in last year’s graduating class at Clayton High School, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Police have not said how Matos died.
Hernandez-Mendez made his first court appearance Thursday, where he asked to be represented by the capital defender’s office. A judge told him, if convicted, he could face the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Marriage was way to get citizenship, friend says
Matos and Hernandez-Mendez were not involved romantically, friends of Matos told ABC 11, The News & Observer’s media partner. The marriage was a way for Hernandez-Mendez to obtain his Green Card.
Savannah Ferrell, a friend of Matos’, told ABC11: “He came to Christina in hopes that they could get married and he could be a legal citizen, and he promised, ‘okay if we marry, I’ll give you $15,000 and we kind of like, kind of go our separate ways and eventually get divorced in three years.’ Christina had the full intention, just to get divorced, get her check and be gone.”
Ferrell told WRAL that Matos planned to use the money to help her family.
The News & Observer was not able to reach Ferrell on Friday,
Another friend, Najiah Williams, told ABC11 that Hernandez-Mendez attended a vigil for Matos this week, before police charged him with her murder.
“He carried the balloons with me. He cried in the car with me. Like I couldn’t fathom that,” Williams told ABC11.
Laura Hourigan, a Raleigh Police Department spokeswoman, told The N&O Friday night that investigators do not know Hernandez-Mendez’s citizenship status.
Eric Curry, a spokesman for the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, said Hernandez-Mendez is not wanted on a detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and did not have a previous criminal record.
Hernandez Mendez is being held in the Wake County Detention Center without bail.
