Youth soccer coach Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino faces murder charges with special circumstances in the death of Oscar Omar Hernandez, 13, of Los Angeles, on March 28.
The district attorney included “a special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of lewd acts with a child, making him eligible for the death penalty.”
Law enforcement found Hernandez’s body in Oxnard, CA, on April 2.
Oxnard is located around 70 miles north of Los Angeles.
Hernandez’s parents reported him missing on March 30 when he did not come from Garcia Aquino’s home:
The teen, who lived in Sun Valley, had taken a train to the Antelope Valley the day before he was reported missing. When the boy’s brother tried to phone him later that day, the coach answered the boy’s cellphone and said the boy was busy and could not talk.According to the family and investigators, Daniel Hernandez, the boy’s father, later called the coach and insisted he drop the teen off near the family’s home.After the boy’s disappearance, investigators used data from cellular devices, cellphone towers, and other tracking systems and determined that the suspect visited the Oxnard area near McGrath State Beach and the Santa Clara River, according to law enforcement sources, who were not authorized to discuss the probe.
“We had that person at our home,” Hernandez’s sister Alejandra told KTLA through a translator via The Los Angeles Times. “He even helped us look for Oscar.”
I’m glad RedState’s Jennifer Van Laar wrote about this story because we haven’t heard anything about it.
Also because The Los Angeles Times buried an important fact: “Multiple law enforcement sources who said they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case said that Garcia Aquino was an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.”
As Van Laar said…the story gets worse because Garcia Aquino allegedly sexually assaulted other teenagers. Let’s see if I can keep this straight. More from The Los Angeles Times:
Garcia Aquino was also the subject of an LAPD investigation into sexual assault of a minor in 2022 but was never charged because at that point the alleged victim declined to testify against him, according to multiple law enforcement sources.—-At Monday’s press conference, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said he was seeking additional victims in the child sexual abuse case.Luna said that case stemmed from accusations that Garcia Aquino “befriended a Sylmar family who allowed their juvenile son to stay with him at his residence in Palmdale. The family subsequently filed a criminal report with the Palmdale Sheriff station alleging sexual abuse of their child.” The victim was a 16-year-old boy, Luna said.During the investigation, detectives learned that there was another unrelated child sexual abuse case being handled by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill division involving Garcia Aquino, Luna said. The sheriff encouraged people to come forward and said immigration status is not an issue.
Last week, law enforcement brought in Garcia Aquino for alleged sexual assault accusations in 2024.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the office only recently filed charges in the 2024 case because investigations take time.
Hochmann’s office charged Garcia Aquino “with assault with intent to commit rape in connection with that Feb. 22, 2024 incident.”
The office added “one felony count each of assault with the intent to commit a sexual offense and lewd act upon a child 14 or 15 years old” to the list of charges against Garcia Aquino.
Jasmin Martinez, a former neigbor of Garcia Aquino, told NBC Los Angeles that he often had young boys at his house to play soccer.
Martinez then said “she felt he often made up excuses to visit her and her four children.”
Oh my goodness: “Most of the time, he was always trying to, like, be around children.”
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