A 22-year-old man accused of assaulting a Muslim teenager after she left a mosque on Sunday morning may have been in the country illegally.

Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, appeared in court on Monday to face a murder charge after he got into a dispute with the 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen and a group of her friends in Sterling, North Virginia, the Fairfax County Police Department said.

Martinez got out of the car, assaulted the girl, and beat her with a metal baseball bat, her mother said. Police later found a body believed to be Hassanen's in a Sterling pond about 25 miles outside of Washington DC.

On Monday afternoon it was reported by NBC4: 'ICE has lodged a detainer against (Torres) meaning they believe he's here illegally.'

Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, appeared in court on Monday to face a murder charge after Nabra Hassanen was found dead in a pond. Police are not investigating her death as a hate crime

Earlier, police said there were no indications the death was the result of a hate crime.

Police said: 'This tragic case appears to be the result of a road rage incident involving the suspect, who was driving and who is now charged with murder, and a group of teenagers who was walking and riding bikes in and along a roadway.'

The statement added the: 'investigation at this point in no way indicates the victim was targeted because of her race or religion.'

Hassanen and her friends were dressed in abayas, or robe-like dresses worn by some Muslim women, when they left All Dulles Area Muslim Society for a breakfast break during an all-night prayer session on Sunday, prompting fears that the victim was targeted because of her faith.

Martinez got out of the car and assaulted the girl in a bout of road rage, according to police, who found a body in a pond in Sterling (above, general view)

Hassanen was going for breakfast before starting her fasts at sunrise during the holy month of Ramadan. She and her friends got into a dispute with a man who assaulted Hassanen, police said

Hassanen didn't usually opt for traditional Muslim clothes, but her mother Sawsan Gazzar gave her an abaya to wear on Saturday night, according to the Washington Post.

According to Gazzar, a detective said Hassanen tripped over the robe and fell just before the man struck her.

'I think it had to do with the way she was dressed and the fact that she's Muslim,' Gazzar said. 'Why would you kill a kid? What did my daughter do to deserve this?'

But Fairfax police said in a statement on Monday morning that they were not investigating the murder as a hate crime.

Fairfax County Police Spokesman Don Gotthardt told AP, detectives have so far found no indication of a link 'between the victim's faith or religious beliefs or the mosque and the crime itself.'

They later attributed Hassanen's death to a bout of road rage.

According to statements from police and the mosque, the girl and her friends were walking back to the mosque from a McDonald's between 3 and 4 a.m. Sunday when a man drove up.

They got into a dispute with a man in a car, who then stepped out and assaulted Hassanen, police said.

The 17-year-old was separated from her friends, who ran back to the mosque before realizing Hassanen had disappeared, WRC-TV reported.

During an intense search for the girl, an officer stopped a car being driven suspiciously on Sunday and the driver, later identified as Martinez Torres was taken into custody, police said.

WRC-TV reported that Martinez Torres was questioned near the scene of the attack, and led officers several miles away to a retention pond across the street from his apartment complex where a female body was found at about 3 p.m. Sunday.

Police believe the body belongs to Hassanen, but a chief medical examiner's office will confirm the identity and cause of death.

'What investigators told the father and the mother, he hit her in the head and put her in the car and he threw her in the water,' said family friend and spokesperson Abas Sherif.

The 17-year-old was separated from her friends, who ran back to the mosque (file photo above) and notified authorities at around 4am

It was not immediately clear whether Martinez had a lawyer and whether he had entered a plea to the charge of second-degree murder.

The county prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to questions.

The mosque issued a statement saying: 'We are devastated and heartbroken as our community undergoes and processes this traumatic event.

'It is a time for us to come together to pray and care for our youth.' It said the society was enlisting licensed counselors to assist anyone in need.

'I can't think of a worse instance to occur than the loss of a 17-year-old on Father's Day as the father of a 17-year-old myself,' Loudoun County Sheriff Michael L. Chapman said.

A statement by Madihha Ahussain, special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry at Muslim Advocates, said: 'We urge both local and federal authorities to conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation into all possible motives for this gruesome crime.'

An online fundraiser for Hassanen's family has already raised more than $155,000.

The incident sent shock waves through Muslim communities, just three weeks after a man who launched an anti-Muslim tirade against two girls on a Portland light rail train fatally stabbed two men who intervened.

In London, a man drove a van into a crowd of people leaving late-night prayers at two mosques on Sunday.