Illegal Immigrant Who Dragged a Teen a Mile After Killing Her Could Walk Free

Laken Riley died because a sanctuary city let her killer walk free.

Now a mother in Arkansas is fighting that same broken system all over again.

The man who killed her daughter and dragged her friend down the street wants out.

An 18 Year Old Coming Home For Dinner Never Stood A Chance

Hailey King was 18, riding on the back of a scooter through Fayetteville, Arkansas, on her way home for dinner on November 7, 2016.

Sergio Rodriguez hit her from behind, driving 36 miles per hour over the speed limit.

The impact threw her onto the hood of his truck, and he didn't stop.

King ended up in the street, bleeding internally from her brain stem, her skull fractured, her spleen ruptured, her liver torn open.

She died within hours.

She left behind a two year old daughter who will never remember her mother's voice.

Her friend, Osmin "David" Gutierrez, ended up underneath Rodriguez's truck.

"Trapped underneath the truck for over a mile," is how Kathy Hall, Hailey's mother, described it.

When Rodriguez finally pulled into an apartment complex, Gutierrez's legs came off, and Hall says he was "left in the driveway screaming for his life."

Gutierrez survived that night.

He died two years later from what it did to his body.

A Parole Board Makes Her Relive It Every Two Years

Rodriguez was convicted of manslaughter, battery, and leaving the scene of a crime.

He got 17 years.

He became eligible for parole after 18 months, and Arkansas puts him back in front of a board every two years to ask for the rest of it back.

Kathy Hall has to show up every time.

"You have to relive this right now every two years," Hall said.

"As soon as the pain dulls a little bit, you have to go back through the whole thing preparing to try to keep him behind bars again," she said.

None of this had to happen.

Rodriguez was in the country illegally, and Hall says immigration officials could have removed him before he ever got behind the wheel.

"If we would have informed ICE that he was here and he was illegal, they would have just picked him up and taken him down to Texas and sent him back," Hall said, "and he would have never had to deal with the death of her daughter."

Instead her family says they were "treated like we were the criminals when we'd go into court."

This Is Not An Isolated Case, It's A Pattern

Laken Riley was murdered by an illegal immigrant who should have been detained under federal law and wasn't.

Rachel Morin was murdered on a Maryland trail by a man who had crossed the border illegally years earlier and was never removed.

In Lakewood, New Jersey, prosecutors say Raul Luna-Perez drove a Dodge Durango into oncoming traffic last year, killing a mother and her 11 year old daughter, after two DUI arrests that never got him removed from the country.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin didn't soften it: "Governor Murphy and his sanctuary policies released this serial criminal into New Jersey communities."

ICE's own numbers show more than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide are living outside of immigration detention across this country right now.

Not accused. Convicted.

Congress finally passed the Laken Riley Act to force the detention of illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes.

That law exists because Hailey King, Rachel Morin, and families like them had to bury their daughters first.

What Fires Me Up About This

Kathy Hall already told you exactly how this should have gone: a phone call to ICE, a ride to Texas, a flight home, and Hailey alive today.

Instead a grieving mother has spent a decade rebuilding her daughter's case for a parole board every two years, fighting a system that made her feel like the defendant.

Every politician who spent the last decade calling immigration enforcement "cruel" owes Kathy Hall an answer for why her daughter's killer gets a hearing every two years and Hailey never got one.

The Laken Riley Act doesn't mean much if judges and parole boards keep handing early releases to men who never should have been here to hit the gas in the first place.

Sources:

• Fox News, "Exclusive: Grieving mom reveals deadly cost of illegal immigration as daughter's killer seeks parole," Fox News, August 2026.
• Fox News, "Illegal migrant with DUI rap sheet facing vehicular homicide charges after head-on crash kills mom, daughter," Fox News, 2026.
• Fox News, "Rachel Morin's family slams illegal immigrant killer at sentencing: 'He can't hurt anyone else,'" Fox News, 2026.
• NBC News, "More than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide are living outside immigration detention in the U.S., ICE says," NBC News, 2025.
• Time, "What Is in the Laken Riley Act?," Time, 2025.