21-year-old Navy sailor mysteriously goes missing in Virginia
Virginia State Police
(NORFOLK, Va.) — A 21-year-old Navy sailor has mysteriously disappeared in Virginia, leaving her mother desperate for answers.
Angelina “Angie” Resendiz was last seen on Thursday, May 29, at 10 a.m. at her barracks in Miller Hall at Naval Station Norfolk, according to the Virginia State Police.
“This disappearance poses a credible threat to their health and safety as determined by the investigating agency,” police said.
Resendiz, a Texas native, is a culinary specialist assigned to the USS James E. Williams, the Navy said.
Resendiz’s mother, Esmeralda Castle, insists that her daughter “does not miss work. Sick, snow, feeling down, she shows up.”
Resendiz joined the Navy in 2023 after high school “because she felt it was something that called her,” Castle wrote to ABC News.
As a culinary specialist, “She thought that one day she might be able to cook for the president and other world leaders,” Castle said. “She worked really hard on her ship.”
“She’s fun, loving, kind, compassionate, uplifting,” she added.
“People that care about Angie shared with me that the last person she was with was missing with her,” and “that person showed up Monday but not Angie,” Castle said.
“There are no answers for me,” she said. “I just want my kid, she doesn’t deserve to be missing.”
The Navy told ABC News in a statement that it’s “cooperating fully with the investigation.”
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service said, “Out of respect for the investigative process, NCIS will not comment further while the investigation remains ongoing.”
Anyone with information is urged to call NCIS at 877-579-3648.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Department of Education said Friday that it will proceed with withholding federal funds from Maine after officials in the state refused to sign a Title IX resolution agreement that would bar transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports in the state.
The matter will also be deferred to the Department of Justice “for further enforcement action,” the department said in a statement.
The actions come after the state informed the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in a letter on Friday that the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Office of the Attorney General will not sign the resolution agreement.
“Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams,” Maine Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster stated in the letter. “Your letters to date do not cite a single case that so holds. To the contrary, various federal courts have held that Title IX and/or the Equal Protection Clause require schools to allow such participation.”
Federal officials last month said they found the Maine Department of Education in noncompliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on Feb. 5 that bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.
In a final warning letter sent to the state on March 31, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights gave the Maine Department of Education until April 11 to sign the resolution agreement before moving forward with the consequences for noncompliance.
The Department of Education said Friday it will now “initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants,” as well as refer the case to the DOJ.
“The Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement on Friday. “The Maine Department of Education will now have to defend its discriminatory practices before a Department administrative law judge and in a federal court against the Justice Department.”
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills “would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom — be careful what you wish for. Now she will see the Trump Administration in court,” he added.
Mills previously told Trump she would see him in court over the matter at a White House event with a bipartisan group of governors in February.
As Trump discussed his executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports, he asked Mills directly, “Are you not going to comply with that?”
She responded that she would comply with state and federal laws.
“Well, I’m — we are the federal law,” Trump said, adding, “Well, you better do it. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
Mills responded: “See you in court.”
“Good,” Trump replied. “I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be an easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
After the White House gathering, Mills responded to Trump’s threat to withhold federal funding in a statement, saying, “If the President attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of Federal funding, my Administration and the Attorney General will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides. The State of Maine will not be intimidated by the President’s threats.”
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie, Alexandra Hutzler, and Jack Moore contributed to this report.
The relatives are slamming the Los Angeles County Attorney’s Office for their “cruel” presentation in court on Friday and said they’re taking formal action to demand DA Nathan Hochman’s office be removed from the case.
Lyle and Erik Menendez — who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez — are fighting to be released after 35 years behind bars. Over 20 of their relatives are pushing for their release, arguing they endured horrific abuse, have admitted guilt and apologized, and have used their decades in custody to help others.
Baralt, who is Jose Menendez’s sister, is battling colon cancer. But she traveled from her home in New Jersey to Los Angeles to support her nephews at their hearing, where the family said she was forced to — without warning — witness grisly images, including her brother’s body.
“No physical pain has ever kept her from being there for her nephews,” the family said in a statement on Sunday. “But the display put on by the DA’s office pushed her past the brink.”
Baralt was found unresponsive on Sunday morning and was hospitalized in critical condition, the family said.
“We are devastated,” the family said.
“Terry may not recover from what was done to her — and to all of us — in that courtroom,” the family said. “We deserve better. We firmly believe that if the DA’s office had shown even an announce of consideration for us, as victims, we would not be hoping for one more day with Terry right now.”
The family said the graphic display violated Marsy’s Law — California’s bill of rights for victims — specifically noting it states that a victim is entitled “to be treated with fairness and respect” and be “free from intimidation, harassment, and abuse.”
“Being tough on crime is important, it’s good,” Menendez family attorney Bryan Freedman said. “But that’s tough on crime — not creating fear and pain and trauma in family members.”
The DA’s office apologized “for not giving prior warning,” saying in a statement Sunday, “We never intend to cause distress or pain to individuals who attend a court hearing.”
“However, by design, these hearings are intended to be a place where the truth, no matter how painful, is brought to light,” the DA’s office added. “That truth starts with the abject brutality and premeditation of the murders themselves. … There has never been an objection to describing this highly brutal, murderous conduct in words, nor did anyone object to this office when such crime scene images were recently shown on a Netflix documentary.”
“We caution anyone attending a hearing in person to be prepared for some of the difficult details and images surrounding these tragic circumstances,” prosecutors added.
“[The prosecutors] have shown again and again that they are incapable of handling this process with the fairness, care, or neutrality required by law,” the family said Sunday.
Friday’s hourslong hearing was regarding Hochman’s motion to withdraw the brothers’ resentencing petition — submitted under the previous district attorney, George Gascón, who supported the brothers’ release. Hochman, who defeated Gascón in the November election, has argued Lyle and Erik Menendez haven’t taken responsibility for their actions and he called their claims of self-defense part of a litany of “lies.”
The judge on Friday denied Hochman’s motion and said the brothers’ official resentencing hearing will proceed as planned on April 17 and 18, bringing them one step closer to potential freedom.
ABC News’ Matt Gutman and Lisa Sivertsen contributed to this report.
