Wichita ? Sandy Martens said she had concerns about her teenage daughter’s relationship with a 24-year-old man now suspected in the killing of a college student but allowed it to continue anyway.

However, Martens said, accusations that she or her 16-year-old daughter, Victoria, could have done something to prevent the killing are unfair. Sandy Martens said her main concern now is supporting her daughter, who is eight months pregnant.

“I just want her to have the baby … and have as good a life as possible,” she told The Wichita Eagle on Wednesday in a telephone interview from Hays.

Israel Mireles, the man believed to be the father, is charged in Ellis County with aggravated indecent liberties with a child involving Victoria Martens.

Mireles also is charged with capital murder, rape and aggravated criminal sodomy in the death of Emily Sander. The disappearance of the 18-year-old Butler Community College student drew nationwide attention after it was discovered that she also led a secret life as an Internet porn model named Zoey Zane.

Mireles was arrested last week in Melchor Muzquiz, Mexico, where police say he had fled with Victoria Martens.

“We are victims of circumstances,” Sandy Martens said.

Martens said she is convinced that her daughter knew nothing about Sander’s death and thought she was on a vacation with Mireles.

Victoria Martens initially had refused to return to the U.S. but eventually called her father, who lives in Arkansas, to pick her up at the border and bring her home, Sandy Martens told The Hays Daily News, her employer. The girl was apprehended at the border, and her father did not get to see her or talk to her, Sandy Martens said.

Victoria Martens now is in temporary juvenile custody in Texas.

Sandy Martens said her daughter will likely be brought back to Hays and be questioned by El Dorado authorities investigating allegations against Mireles.

Martens, a single mother of three, described her youngest daughter as affectionate and pleasant but also headstrong and troubled.

About five years ago, the family moved from Illinois to Kansas.

Her daughter learned over the summer that she was pregnant and told her mother that she was positive Mireles was the father.

Martens said her daughter resisted her efforts to discourage the relationship.

“This was her first serious relationship,” Martens said. “They were planning on getting married.

“He was her life.”

Mireles displayed no violent tendencies during the two months Martens allowed him to live with her and her daughter, Martens said.

She acknowledged that she and her daughter didn’t tell Hays police about the identity of the father when they asked in October. Martens was 15 when she became pregnant – too young to legally consent to sex.

Martens said she feared talking to police would widen the rift between her and her daughter. She said she was also concerned that stress would harm the baby and her daughter, who had a miscarriage scare in June.

Mireles became a waiter at an El Dorado restaurant in the fall, and Victoria Martens went with him. The couple moved into the same motel room where authorities say they found a lot of blood after Sander’s disappearance Nov. 23.

Sander’s body was found six days later, about 50 miles east of El Dorado.