ICE arrests suspect in Goochland child murder, sexual battery case

ICE took Raul Ortiz Moran into custody after he was charged with second-degree murder and aggravated sexual battery in the death of a 2-year-old girl.

The case began when the child’s mother brought her to the Goochland County Sheriff’s Office at about 3:10 p.m. on July 4 after traveling from a home in the 1500 block of Owens Creek Road in Louisa County. The girl received emergency care before dying at a hospital.

The Louisa County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation involved murder and sexual assault allegations. Later reporting identified Ortiz Moran as a 29-year-old man from Mexico, and the federal immigration arrest followed the local criminal case.

On July 22, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE had arrested Ortiz Moran and used the case to press its argument for tougher immigration enforcement in Virginia. That put the Goochland and Louisa County investigation at the center of a larger fight over how much state and local police should cooperate with federal immigration authorities when violent crimes are alleged.

That policy fight intensified after Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration rescinded former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 47 in February 2026. Youngkin’s order had required Virginia State Police and the Virginia Department of Corrections to enter into 287(g) agreements with ICE, but the rescission did not immediately end all state or local cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

For Goochland and Louisa County residents, the immediate facts remain the same: the child died after the July 4 emergency response, Ortiz Moran faces second-degree murder and aggravated sexual battery charges, and ICE now holds him in federal custody while the criminal case moves forward.