12-year-old girl met her killer on Facebook

Police in Argentina said a 12-year-old girl who was beaten to death was murdered by a 26-year-old man she met on Facebook. The suspect reportedly admitted beating her up because she refused to have sex with him. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentine officials said Monday that a 12-year-old girl found murdered over the weekend was killed by a man she met on Facebook, where he posed as a girl her own age.

The girl, Micaela Ortega, had been missing for 35 days when police found her body during a late-night search Saturday at the residence of 26-year-old Jonathan Luna.

Luna, an escaped convict, confessed to killing her and brought police to her body, said Emiliano Alvarez, security secretary for the city of Bahia Blanca, where Ortega lived.

Prosecutors said Luna admitted to luring Ortega to his home in order to rape her, winning her trust by befriending her on Facebook via a fake account where he posed as a girl.

He picked her up at her parents’ house on April 23, purportedly to bring her to meet her friend.

“She was found with her hands bound, her legs crossed, in the same clothes she left home in,” said Alvarez.

Luna, who was found to have several false Facebook profiles, had been serving a sentence for aggravated robbery when he escaped during a furlough.

Outraged neighbors razed his home in Bahia Blanca when news of the killing emerged.