A 21-year-old woman is dead and another is recovering after a stabbing early on August 30 inside a home on the 300 block of Orchard Avenue in Staunton, Virginia. The man charged in the attack, 32-year-old Freddi Chigo Mil, remains jailed without bond at Middle River Regional Jail, facing second-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding charges. Federal officials identified Mil as a Mexican national who entered the country illegally. The case is unfolding amid a dispute over Virginia’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
According to court records reported by The Daily Progress, Mil confessed to police officers at the scene that he fatally stabbed Andrea Venture Reyes inside the home where he had been present with two women and another man. Staunton police had responded to an open-line 911 call shortly before 4 a.m. that day, according to the seed report from WOAI, and officers found two women suffering from stab wounds. One victim was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other was transported to University of Virginia Medical Center and is listed in stable condition.
ICE Detainer Already Filed, Case Still Pending
Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer with Middle River Regional Jail on the day of the stabbing, asking the facility to notify federal immigration authorities before Mil's release and to transfer him to federal custody if that becomes possible. The detainer is intended to allow federal authorities to assume custody if Mil becomes eligible for release. He has not been convicted of the charges, and his criminal case remains pending.
Middle River Regional Jail, a 212,020-square-foot Augusta County facility, serves Staunton, Waynesboro, Harrisonburg, Augusta County, and Rockingham County, according to the jail. The jail opened in 2006 to relieve regional overcrowding. Its rated capacity is 396 inmates, though it has historically housed average daily populations exceeding 900. The jail says its population includes local inmates as well as state-responsible inmates awaiting transfer to the Virginia Department of Corrections. It was already a focal point for federal detainer disputes before the stabbing: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported in August that ICE had lodged detainers there for three other foreign nationals, from Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, each charged with child sex crimes after being arrested by local law enforcement in late July.
What the jail's capacity figure means
The Virginia State Board of Local and Regional Jails defines rated capacity as the design capacity assigned when a facility is built, and says the figure remains constant. That means the jail’s rated capacity of 396 is a design measure, not a count of its current population; the jail’s population also includes state-responsible inmates awaiting transfer to the Department of Corrections.
Federal Officials Criticize Spanberger's Approach
The case has become part of the Trump administration's dispute with Governor Abigail Spanberger over state and local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed Spanberger's policies for public-safety risks and characterized Virginia as a sanctuary state, according to WOAI's report. That label is a disputed political characterization.
Randy Sutton, founder and chairman of the Wounded Blue and a retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department lieutenant, criticized Spanberger's approach to federal immigration enforcement, saying it is absolutely irrational for the governor to take this position. Sutton argued that reducing cooperation with ICE can make immigration arrests more dangerous, explaining that a detainer asks a correctional facility not to release an inmate until ICE can do its work, and that releasing individuals into the community instead requires ICE or other authorities to recapture them. Sutton attended the Wounded Blue's National Law Enforcement Survival Summit in Las Vegas, where he said he met more than 20 officers who had been shot within the last few years.
What Spanberger's Directives Actually Changed
On her first day as governor, Spanberger rescinded former Governor Glenn Youngkin's Executive Order 47, which had directed state law enforcement agencies to enter agreements for certain federal immigration enforcement duties. In February, she directed the Virginia State Police, Department of Corrections, Conservation Police, and Marine Police to terminate their existing Section 287(g) agreements with ICE, saying Virginia law enforcement should focus on state law, criminal activity, and public safety rather than federal civil immigration enforcement. In May, she issued a separate executive order restricting the use of state property for federal civil immigration enforcement, which her administration said was designed to preserve public trust.
But as Cardinal News has reported, Spanberger's February directive applied only to state-level agencies, leaving nearly two dozen local Virginia sheriff's offices—whose sheriffs are independent constitutional officers—and regional jail authorities free to maintain their own 287(g) partnerships with ICE. Under amendments Spanberger proposed in April, the Department of Corrections and local sheriffs and jails can still honor ICE detainers and transfer custody of people convicted of felonies, and Virginia officers can participate in joint federal-state criminal task forces or cooperate under valid judicial orders.
Federal Court Has Already Paused State Restrictions
The legal landscape around these policies shifted again just before the stabbing. Senior U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne issued a preliminary injunction on August 31, blocking Virginia from enforcing key provisions of state legislation, SB 783 and HB 1441, that had placed statutory restrictions on local law enforcement agencies entering or maintaining 287(g) agreements with ICE, according to 13News Now. The lawsuit, brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, alleged the state law violated the Supremacy Clause and interfered with federal contracts. That ruling came weeks after Payne separately blocked a different Virginia law, SB 352, which had made it a Class 1 misdemeanor for federal officers including ICE agents to wear identity-protecting face masks while on duty, with the Justice Department arguing the ban endangered federal agents.
That legal friction is part of a broader national expansion. As of October 1, 2026, at 9:18 a.m., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement listed 2,608 287(g) agreements spanning 39 states.
Staunton's Broader Public Safety Picture
Staunton's public safety picture extends beyond this case. The Staunton Police Department serves the city of Staunton. The FBI also maintains the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted program, with preliminary 2025 crime data covering more than 17,000 agencies representing about 96% of the U.S. population.
For now, Mil remains incarcerated without bond as his case moves through the courts, with no trial date yet announced. The broader legal fight over Virginia's immigration cooperation policies, playing out in federal court and in dueling statements from Richmond and Washington, remains unresolved even as the Staunton case proceeds on its own track.
