A hammer-wielding teenager who is in the country illegally has been charged in a brutal attack on a woman jogging in a Texas park.
Investigators arrested 17-year-old Sergio Noe De Nova Duarte, an illegal migrant from Mexico, hours after the reported assault on Thursday in Plano, Texas. Plano police said the victim is recovering after being attacked with a hammer while jogging in Bob Woodruff Park.
Duarte is behind bars, charged with aggravated kidnapping with bodily injury, a first-degree felony. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has lodged an immigration detainer against Duarte, who had prior arrests for alleged burglary and larceny in 2024, Fox News Digital reported.
He is in the country illegally on an expired B2 tourist visa, according to DHS. He arrived in 2016 and was scheduled to return to his home country of Mexico later that year.
The Biden administration also released Duarte in March 2024 after he was arrested for burglary and larceny. He was released on own recognizance with a notice to appear before an immigration judge in 2026, according to DHS.
“This criminal illegal alien should have never been loose in our communities to attack this woman jogging in a park with a hammer,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE lodged an arrest detainer to ensure this criminal illegal alien is never able to prey on innocent women in our country again.”
Plano police responded to an assault call around 5 p.m. Thursday and discovered the victim, who said she was jogging in Bob Woodruff Park when an unknown man hit her with a hammer. She reportedly fought back, and the suspect fled the scene, KDFW FOX 4 reported.
Police said she was hit in the head with a hammer several times and that it could have been a lot worse because duct tape was found at the scene.
“There was another witness who actually called in as well when we were en route and indicated that there was a female laying on the ground with serious injuries to her and she was bleeding,” Plano Police Officer Andrae Smith said in a report by NBC 5-DFW.
Smith also praised the victim’s courage for fighting back and preventing a kidnapping or something worse.
“She was not easy for him to display his madness and his evilness. She attempted to fight him off, and she did that, and he fled. And four hours later, he was in police custody,” Smith said.
Fox News correspondent Brooke Taylor was at the scene Monday and interviewed women walking in the park, described as “busy and popular.”
The woman received treatment for non-life-threatening injuries at a local hospital.
Within a few hours of the reported assault, police found and arrested Duarte. Evidence at the scene led investigators to Duarte’s home in Plano and tied him to the crime.
They recovered the hammer, along with duct tape and other items that are not being disclosed at this time, NBC 5 reported.
Smith said the attack is still under investigation as detectives work to determine a motive, and police will still submit their case for prosecution in Collin County.
The Plano assault is the latest in a string of violent assaults by illegal immigrants committed against women across the country.
Some stories garner national attention, such as that of Rachel Morin, a mother of five from Maryland who was murdered in August 2023 while on a walking trail.
Morin, 37, was raped and killed on a hiking trail in Bel Air, Maryland, by an illegal immigrant from El Salvador with a violent past. President Donald Trump highlighted Morin’s tragedy in his campaign for border security and mass deportations.
Her killer, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, was arrested after a 10-month nationwide manhunt and has since been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In another high-profile case, college student Laken Riley was murdered in February 2023 while on a run near the campus of University of Georgia. Her killer, Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan who unlawfully entered the U.S. in 2022, was found guilty of felony murder in November 2024 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
A young woman from Kentucky was savagely beaten, raped and left for dead during a Spring Break trip to Miami in April 2024. The man charged in the assault, Junior Joseph, 28, was an illegal Haitian with a long criminal record. He had entered the U.S. on a visa that had expired, records show.
In Chicago, a Nicaraguan migrant, Leyter Arauz-Medina, was charged in the brutal attack and rape of the 54-year-old woman in Chicago’s Belmont Cragin neighborhood in late August.
Arauz-Medina, 21, allegedly ran out of Blackhawk Park, grabbed the woman by the hair, and dragged her screaming across the street into an alley. The victim tried to fight back but was knocked unconscious, then sought help from a passing motorist who drove off. She walked—injured and naked—to a nearby food truck before receiving help.
