Woman used social media to track her mother’s killer all the way to Mexico. He got sentenced to decades in prison

Kiany DeJesus was 11 years old when her mother, Emilia Ignacio, was killed in Greenbelt, Maryland, according to News4. More than a decade later, DeJesus said she watched the man convicted of the killing get sentenced to decades in prison, after she used social media to help locate him in Mexico, where he had been living for years.

Juan Miguel Roman-Balderas pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in February, according to court records. He was sentenced Tuesday at a hearing in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, where DeJesus said she delivered a tearful victim impact statement.

The judge is said to have sentenced Roman-Balderas to the maximum term allowed under the plea agreement, stating in part that he had allegedly tortured Ignacio. Prosecutors claim Roman-Balderas took Ignacio to a Red Lobster for dinner before allegedly stabbing her 27 times. Prosecutors said he then fled to Mexico on a one-way ticket he is said to have purchased before the killing. Ignacio’s body was later reportedly found in her car.

DeJesus tracked down her mother’s killer after more than a decade on the run

Roman-Balderas is said to have spent over a decade hiding in Mexico, where he started a new family, purportedly leaving behind the 1-year-old son he and Ignacio had shared together. DeJesus said she used social media to find him.

She credited the Instagram account Crime Time Tea Time with giving the case the visibility it needed, which she says led to Roman-Balderas’ arrest. “Without her, we wouldn’t have been able to get the ball rolling at all. We tried. We pushed a lot, and she was the only person to respond to us, and as soon as we started, you know, connecting with her, everything just one by one by one started falling into order,” DeJesus told News4.

In her victim impact statement, DeJesus told the judge that Roman-Balderas had been abusive toward both her and her mother. She alleged that he burned her hand on the stove when she was a child after she took a few quarters, and that he also abused her dog.

DeJesus said she had not seen Roman-Balderas since she was a child. “It’s kind of like he’s a ghost, almost. Like he’s not even real,” she said. Cases where alleged abusers fled and evaded justice for years have drawn renewed public attention in recent years, with social media increasingly playing a role in surfacing them.

Roman-Balderas’s attorney argued during sentencing that his client had changed, had taken responsibility for the crime, and purportedly had no other criminal record, asking the judge for a sentence of just 20 years. 

DeJesus said delivering her victim impact statement brought her a sense of relief and closure. “I knew that if I didn’t get it out, I would probably regret it, so I’m glad that I did this and I’m glad that he got to hear it from my words too. It makes me really happy to finally get to close all of this,” she said.

She also said the judge’s words during the hearing meant a great deal to her. “The judge herself telling me that she was really proud of me – it made me really happy. It made me feel like all of the work that I did was, you know, for something good to finally come out of it,” DeJesus said. This case is among several high-profile true crime stories where a family uncovered a shocking hidden identity only after years of living alongside the deception. DeJesus said she is now considering a career in law or criminal investigation following the conclusion of the case. “I’m considering becoming a lawyer or detective,” she said.