HOME alone, Yhoana Arteaga, 12, texted her mother as soon as she heard the raps on the door of the family’s mobile home.
“Somebody is knocking on the door,” she wrote. Just over an hour later, Yhoana was dead.
Neighbours recall screams shattering the relative quiet of the Goodletsville trailer park at 6.45pm — the moment the girl’s mother, brother and sister returned home to find her lifeless body inside.
The 7th grader hadn’t stood a chance against her attacker. She’d been off school nursing an injured leg from a skating accident days earlier and couldn’t get around without a pair of crutches.
“This is a horrible, brutal thing,” Sergeant David Kautzman told reporters in front of the family’s home near Nashville, Tennessee. “I’ve never seen anything this brutal in my entire career.”
Police have refused to reveal Yhoana’s exact cause of death but have stated the youngster was repeatedly bludgeoned.
“An examination of the crime scene, as well as autopsy results, show that Yhoana was, frankly, brutally murdered,” Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) spokesman Don Aaron told the Tennessean. “Without being overly specific, it was blunt force trauma to her body. Her clothing was in disarray.”
Investigators won’t say if Yhoana was sexually assaulted, or whether they believe the family’s home was robbed.
The girl’s chilling final text message, sent at around 5.30pm, is being treated as a crucial clue in a case with very few leads.
The knock on the door, combined with no sign of forced entry, has led police to believe Yhoana was familiar with the person who killed her.
“We do believe the victim knew her assailant,” said Metro Nashville Police Lt. William Mackall, who is overseeing the case.