Mirjana Puhar: Top Model Career, Charlotte Murders, and Sentences

Mirjana Puhar was a 19-year-old model and Cycle 21 contestant on America’s Next Top Model who was shot and killed on February 24, 2015, in a Charlotte, North Carolina, home, along with her boyfriend and his roommate. Police called it a drug-related robbery. Two men, Emmanuel Jesus Rangel and Edward Sanchez, were later convicted of the murders and sentenced to consecutive life terms without parole.

From Serbia to Charlotte

Puhar was born in Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia. Her family fled the country when she was about five, in the aftermath of the Kosovo War, and arrived in New York as refugees with almost nothing.¹ They eventually settled in Charlotte, where her father found work as an electrician.

She attended East Mecklenburg and Queen’s Grant high schools but dropped out at 16 during her sophomore year, a decision her parents were initially unaware of and later blamed on the influence of her friends.¹ Puhar later described herself as a “wild child” during that period.² She enrolled in a GED program at Central Piedmont Community College and finished her diploma in the fall of 2013.

Getting on America’s Next Top Model

Puhar started modeling at age 12, taking classes at Barbizon and John Casablancas and walking in Charlotte Fashion Week.¹ She worked retail jobs at Guess, Hollister, and Abercrombie & Fitch, and at McDonald’s. On July 27, 2013, her 18th birthday, she applied for America’s Next Top Model.

She kept the casting process from her parents until two days before she had to leave.¹ She was cast on Cycle 21, which aired on The CW in 2014, and was eliminated in the 10th episode.³ Executive producers Tyra Banks and Ken Mok later called her a “vivacious and promising young woman.”⁴ After the show, she returned to Charlotte and told friends she hoped to move to Los Angeles or New York to model full-time.

The Killings on Norris Avenue

On February 24, 2015, Puhar was found shot to death at a home on Norris Avenue in Charlotte. Killed with her were her boyfriend of about two months, Jonathan Alvarado, 23, and Alvarado’s roommate and best friend, Jusmar Isiah Gonzaga-Garcia, 21.⁵ Puhar had recently moved into Alvarado’s home.⁶

A friend who heard gunshots went inside, saw two bodies and money scattered around the residence, and called police.⁶ Autopsies showed all three victims had been shot; Alvarado and Puhar had also been beaten.⁷

Prosecutors said the motive was a robbery targeting Alvarado, who had been selling heroin, and that Puhar opened the door to two robbers.⁸ Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Lt. Alex Watson said the killings were “not a random act of violence” and that the suspect had targeted the victims.⁹

The Arrests and a Second Murder

A confidential informant led police to Emmanuel Jesus Rangel, then 19. He was arrested by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on February 25, 2015, and charged with three counts of first-degree murder.⁶ Investigators recovered spent .380 and .45 caliber shell casings at the scene, indicating two guns.¹⁰ Alvarado’s Air Jordan collection had been stolen; police later found nine pairs of Jordans and a pair of Adidas at the home of the suspect’s mother.

A second suspect, David Lopez, turned himself in on March 19, 2015, and was also charged with three counts of first-degree murder.¹¹ Investigators soon tied the Norris Avenue killings to another murder two days earlier, on February 22, 2015, at a motel parking lot in Matthews, North Carolina, where Rasool Jaleel Harrell, 22, was shot and killed outside the Microtel Inn during what prosecutors called a botched Xanax robbery. A companion, Zakee Avent, was wounded but survived.¹² Rangel and a third defendant, Edward Sanchez, were charged in that killing as well, and a fourth defendant, Emily Isaacs, was accused of driving the group to both scenes.¹³

Prosecutors said the same firearms were used in both incidents and that in both cases the defendants targeted drug dealers to rob them.¹⁴

Convictions and Sentences

Sanchez was tried first, in March 2017 in Mecklenburg County Superior Court before Judge Eric Levinson. A jury convicted him of four counts of first-degree murder (for Puhar, Alvarado, Gonzaga-Garcia, and Harrell) and one count of attempted murder for the shooting of Avent.¹³ Judge Levinson sentenced him to four consecutive life terms without parole plus an additional 157 to 201 months for the attempted murder.⁷ The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in June 2018.

Rangel’s trial began May 14, 2018, before Judge Nathaniel J. Poovey. On May 25, 2018, the jury convicted him of three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Puhar, Alvarado, and Gonzaga-Garcia but acquitted him on the Matthews charges.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁴¹⁷

Emily Isaacs cooperated with prosecutors and testified at both trials. On August 16, 2018, she pleaded guilty to robbery and received a sentence of slightly more than four years.¹⁸ Charges against David Lopez and another co-defendant remained pending as of the most recent available records.¹⁶ The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office confirmed it would not seek the death penalty against any of the defendants.¹³

The DACA Controversy

The case drew national political attention when it emerged that Rangel had been a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status. He had been arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession in March 2012, prompting Immigration and Customs Enforcement to place him in removal proceedings. Those proceedings were dismissed in December 2013 after his DACA application was approved.¹⁹

Whistleblowers alleged that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved the application even though Rangel was flagged as a known gang member in a federal crime database known as TECS. In April 2015, USCIS Director León Rodríguez acknowledged in a letter to Senator Chuck Grassley that the DACA request “should not have been approved” under the agency’s own procedures.²⁰ The agency never publicly clarified whether its background check unit had missed the gang records or an adjudicator had approved the application anyway.

Grassley and Senator Thom Tillis pressed the Department of Homeland Security for data on how many other DACA recipients had similar red flags. Federal authorities identified 13 additional individuals approved for DACA who appeared in the same crime database; those cases were flagged for reconsideration.²¹ Grassley argued USCIS staff faced “intense pressure to approve every DACA application”; Tillis called the program’s implementation flawed. Other commentators countered that the error was an administrative outlier, noting that more than 600,000 people had received DACA protection and work permits.

After Puhar’s death, Tyra Banks posted a tribute: “The Top Model family is deeply saddened by the tragic news of Mirjana Puhar. We love you, Mirjana. Forever.”¹

1
WBTV. Mirjana Puhar Seeking Her Break When Life Ended
2
CBC News. Mirjana Puhar, Former America’s Top Model Contestant, Killed
3
Television Academy. Mirjana Puhar
4
NBC News. Mirjana Puhar, Ex-America’s Next Top Model Star, Found Murdered
5
CBS News. America’s Next Top Model Contestant Among Dead in Drug-Related Triple Homicide
6
The Hollywood Reporter. America’s Next Top Model Mirjana Puhar Killed
7
FindLaw. State v. Sanchez, No. COA17-1135
8
Refinery29. Mirjana Puhar America’s Next Top Model Killer Life Prison
9
ABC7. America’s Next Top Model Star Killed in Triple Murder
10
WCCB Charlotte. Search Warrants Released in Homicide That Killed America’s Next Top Model Contestant and Two Others
11
TIME. America’s Next Top Model Murder Mirjana Puhar
12
Charlotte Observer. Details Released in Killing of Rasool Jaleel Harrell
13
WCCB Charlotte. DA’s Office: No Death Penalty for Defendants Charged in Murders
14
FindLaw. State v. Rangel, No. COA19-131
15
WBTV. Man Gets Three Life Sentences for 2015 Triple Murder in Charlotte
16
Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office. Press Release: Emmanuel Rangel Conviction
17
FindLaw. State v. Rangel, No. COA23-966
18
RDS Law. Client Receives 4-Year Sentence for Role in Murders
19
Senator Thom Tillis. Tillis, Grassley Confirm Charlotte Murder Suspect Received DACA Despite Alleged Known Gang Ties
20
Senator Thom Tillis. Man Charged With NC Murders Was Erroneously Shielded From Deportation Despite Gang Ties
21
Fresno Bee. Man Charged With NC Murders Was Erroneously Shielded From Deportation