Welcome back to the Path went Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. May first, two
thousand and two, San Francisco, California. After finishing a phone call with
one of her sisters, twenty four year old Evelyn Hernandez and her five year
old son, Alex Hernandez vanished without explanation. At the time, Evelyn was
only six days away from giving birth to her second child, but and she
fails to resurface by her due date, She's officially reported missing. Over three
months later, Evelyn's torso and legs wash up on shore along San Francisco Bay,
but neither Alex nor the fetus for Evelyn's unborn son, Fernando, can
be found. It turns out that Fernando's biological father is a married man whom
Evelyn had been having an affair with, but no evidence is ever found to
link anyone to this crime. After that, the path went chilly. So
today we're going to be exploring a cold case involving a mother and a son.
The two thousand and two murder of bevil And Hernandez and the disappearance of
her five year old son, Alex Hernandez. And I'm sure many elements of
this story will sound very familiar to you, as it involves a pregnant woman
who went missing in California in two thousand and two before her remains were found
in San Francisco Bay months later, and a man who conducted an extramarital affair.
But no, this is not the saga of lace in Scott Peterson,
though that case would wind up being linked to this one the following year.
Evelyn Hernandez was actually an immigrant from Al Salvador who was raising her son Alex
as a single mother, and at the time she went missing, she was
less than one week away from giving birth to a second son named Fernando.
The father of this child was herman Aguilera, whom Evelyn had been having a
relationship with, but it turned out he was actually married to someone else.
Now, on the surface, it sounds like there would be a good reason
to be suspicious of this guy, but unlike Scott Peterson, it does not
seem like there is much in the way of evidence against him. And what
further complicates this case is that there are two additional victims. Alex, who
was still a missing person and Fernando who was technically not confirmed to be dead
since his fetus was never found. So today's episode will be a very unique
one as we're simultaneously covering an unsolved murder and missing person's case, and given
the numerous similarities between this story and the Lacy Peterson murder, which is one
of the most famous crimes of the modern era, we are going to explore
the issue of the media's tendency to favor coverage of one case over another.
This is really interesting, Robin. You just hit an amazing point. I
was seeking it the whole time you talked about it. Why was this case
not as popular as Lacey? So we can dive into that later. But
what's very fascinating is it this storyline is not just familiar to Lacy and Scott
Peterson, or to Evelyn Hernandez. It's quite common actually, when there are
extramarital affairs. You have an unexpected pregnancy and there's an expectation by a mother
to one follow through with the birth right of the child she's pregnant with,
and also the potential of her exposing the affair to the other spouse or perhaps
using that as leverage, asking for money or child support. I mean,
this is almost like one of those scripts you see when you're saying, Okay,
let's talk about murdered dynamics and how you typically know who your killer is.
This is a recipe for disaster. And so I'm heartsick for so many
reasons. Evelyn's body was so discarded and abused in the process, right her
torso washes up, So for me, that shows such a disregard for her
remains. I'm interested to know if Robin or Jewles do you know if the
baby had actually been removed from Evelyn or if they just simply couldn't locate it,
Like, was there any kind of evidence that the baby had been removed
by the killer? Wasn't it just a torso? Yes, it was just
a torso. So. There was no definitive evidence to suggest that she had
given birth or had the baby forcibly removed, So it is possible that it
could have just been the result of decomposition that after her torso dissolved, that
the fetus just disappeared in the ocean and has never been found. The other
thing that's incredibly disturbing, as it's not Evelyn and the unborn baby. It's
also Evelyn her child who's five years old, who's also missing, And to
me, it seems like as a killer, wouldn't you discard the bodies together?
Do you think that they would actually take time to spread the remains out,
or is it possible that someone wanted the five year old and simply got
rid of mom and potentially also mom and the unborn baby, or even more
disturbing, we've seen cases where someone's murdered in their unborn child is actually taken
alive out of their body. So this case has so many potentials for what
actually happened to Evelyn, this unborn baby, and her son. It's mind
boggling. Our story begins in San Francisco, California, in two thousand and
two. One of our central figures is twenty four year old Evelyn Hernandez,
who originally hails from El Salvador. Evelyn emigrated to the United States at age
fourteen to live with her who had previously fled the country during the salvador In
Civil War. Three years after her arrival, Evelyn became pregnant and gave birth
to her son, Alexis, who went by the name alex Alex's biological father
was enlisted in the Navy at the time, but he would cut ties with
Evelyn and did not play any role in his son's life. By this point,
Alex is five years old and Evelyn is raising him as a single mother
while they lived together in an apartment in the Crocker Amazon neighborhood. While Evelyn's
mother has since returned to Al Salvador, she still has two sisters residing in
the United States, Na who lives in the nearby city of Richmond, and
Olivia, who lives on the other side of the country in Virginia. Evelyn
has also been involved in a relationship with thirty six year old Herman Aguilera,
who works as a mechanic for United Airlines at San Francisco International Airport and is
also employed at a limousine company. Evelyn would become pregnant with Herman's child and
learned that the baby is a boy, whom she is planning to name Fernando.
In fact, even though she's previously worked as a vocational nurse and was
employed at the Cliff Royal Sinesta Hotel, Evelyn has been forced to stop working
and go on disability due to issues with her pregnancy. Okay, so do
you guys remember how I said One of the things that is very risky when
you're engaged in an affair and then become pregnant. Is that kind of weight
of saying is she going to tell my wife? Right? Is she going
to expose me? And I believe, especially at the point that you get
pregnant and hopefully you know herman is secretly helping care for her or take her
to appointments or things like that, there would be an expectation too. I'm
having this baby and I want to have some connection to you right, especially
here because she's going to name the baby after No, she's not. That's
a lie. That's a lie. When you said Fernando, I was like,
that's his name, that's a lie. Let me start over to me.
It feels like in an affair, when you are having relationships with somebody
else and then you get pregnant, there's that fine line of are you expecting
to have a lifelong relationship with this person and have them raise your child or
do you have this kind of idea that I had an affair. I knew
this was not going to be a long term relationship and I'm going to have
this child and raise them by myself independently. I feel like the longer you
would go on, the more there would be that nesting need to have someone
have a role in that baby's life. And so for Evelyn, she's working,
she's very qualified, but then she goes on disability. She's going to
have this child. I can sense a potential for her really looking at herman
and saying it's time for you to step up. And was there a risk
of him feeling as though his spouse was going to find out and him snapping.
It's a week before the babies do That's when the pressure would be the
highest. It's very, very scary to think about. I feel like I
when I hear this story, and just when I hear any case about a
pregnant woman who goes missing. I see in Nancy Grace's face when she's yelling
about Lazy Peterson's case, and she's thinking, it's the most dangerous time for
a woman when she's pregnant. It's when she's likely going to be victimized,
if at all, by an intimate partner violence, or she's going to be
murdered. So I think that there has to be something to that. I
bet that herman had to feel those walls closing in on him where he thought
if this, you know, birth comes to comes to term, and baby
Fernando is born, what are the chances that I'm going to continue to keep
this family separate without my wife finding out. I think it's pretty slim denied.
Like we hear of men having two separate families one doesn't know about the
other. But here Evelyn is very aware that herman is married, right,
so it's not that she's unaware, it just doesn't know where he goes.
I think that you hit the nail in the head, ash, and that
there's got to be this deep emotional need because she most likely has to feel
kind of isolated and that most of her friends and family may have some kind
of judgment, so she probably really wants him to be closer to her and
to be close to the baby. And sometimes people take these rash steps like
I'm just gonna share this really quick story about my husband's friend and how they
ended up getting busted for having an affair, because this is absolutely crazy,
and these are the types of things that sometimes women or i'm sure men will
do when they're pushed too far. Is There was a dinner party. His
friend had been having an affair on his wife for many, many years,
and I guess eventually the mistress grew tired of it. They two had had
a baby together, and she showed up at this dinner party where his wife
was there and knocked on the door and said, I'm here to get you
know his name, let's just call him Bob. I'm here to get Bob.
And the wife opened the door and called for the husband and was like,
Bob, you better go with your mistress. And she left with him.
There was a whole dinner party full of people sitting there going WTF,
like what actually happened? And he laughed, He's like whoop, whoop.
He left. He's like, I guess she doesn't want me anymore. And
she was probably fed up with his crap, you know, in all areas
of life, because they've been married for a really long time, was like
just go, and he left and they ended up divorcing and he married his
mistress. So those are the types of situations that had to have been swirling
around in herman's head, the types of scenarios that could have been very probable,
not to sit common a romantic comedy situation come to life. I know,
right, it sounded unreal when you told me, I'm like that legitimately
happened. How is that real life? Have you guys ever heard of the
Reina Maraquin murder? It was back in the sixties. Yes, that's the
one where like she was having an affair with a married man and murdered and
they found her body buried decades later. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
So what's that one? The same kind of thing, though. I
think they had gotten into a fight, right, you know, like,
and she said, I'm tired of it, I'm tired of be making me
false promises. I'm tired of you not taking care of me. I'm gonna
call your wife. And I think she did phone her, and then she
was dead like forty five minutes later, and so it was like, oh
my gosh, a m I missed the time. But it was very shortly
after that phone call or threatening to make the phone call, that he came
over and murdered her. And it's like, I's it's so scary because you
really are your playing with so many lives in that moment, and there's so
much control and secrecy where you can't ask for help when you need it,
and oh my gosh, I just I'm very suspicious at this point of herman
the timing right like one week before she's due to give birth, it seems
improbable, you know, given all the other factors that we have, like
when a woman is murdered and give me ask. You probably are more familiar
with the statistics from you know, being a doctor of criminology, that when
a woman is killed, it's typically by somebody that she knows, right,
absolutely, absolutely, yeah, it's it's for anybody you're typically you know,
when you see stranger murders, those are the ones as public we're fascinated with,
but they're the most rare kind. It's very commonly a familial relationship or
at least an acquaintance or work you know, uh, colleague or something to
that extent. It's very rare, just like sexual assault, that you are
going to be victimized by someone you do not know it happens, but it's
very It's far more rare when you'll get relationships to be a stranger offender than
a known associate. But I think our perception because of all the true crime
on you know, social media, YouTube, podcasts, every streaming platform,
all the things that we watch are typically stranger perpetrators. And so I think
we have this perception that this happens far more often than it actually does.
Whereas there's some shows like Snapped right where it shows somebody usually within your life,
who snaps and this happens, and there are some true crime shows that
focus on people you know, But I think the vast majority of the stuff
that fascinates people is strangers. And what's interesting when you look at statistics,
it's about ten percent of ten to twelve percent given the year, right,
is a stranger who does the killing. Now, there is a large percentage
each year of murders where it's an unknown relationship because it's unsolved. Remember we
have up to forty percent of cases go unsolved every year. But when you
look at the breakdown, it's typically this like I don't know, it's about
forty percent or someone you know. There's a ten percent stranger identification, and
then there's this cluster of unsolved murders where people say, well, obviously we
didn't solve it, so we don't know the relationship there. But it's far
more common, like like I said anything, I'm getting attacked or assaulted or
sexually assaulted. It's very much more probable you're going to get assaulted or hurt
by someone walking you home to protect you from that stranger in the bushes than
you are from the stranger in the bushes. So in the morning of me
the first six days before she was scheduled to give birth to Fernando, Evelyn
called her sister Olivia and said she was experiencing pain in her abdomen and wasn't
feeling well. Evelyn was about to take Alex to one of this to elementary
school where he was attending preschool, but when Olivia asked if she had someone
who could take Alex to school four, Evelyn said she didn't, it would
still have to take him herself. It was confirmed that Evelyn dropped Alex off
at the pre school later that morning, but after picking her son up and
returning home that night, Evelyn had a phone conversation with her sister Raina and
spoke to her about a baby's shower she was planning to attend. The call
ended in around nine p m. But this would be the last contact Evelyn
ever had with her family. The following morning, Alex failed to show up
for preschool, and they did not hear anything from Evelyn. On May the
seventh, which was Fernando's scheduled due date, herman Aguilera went to the police
and reported Evelyn missing, claiming that he had not heard from her in over
a week, even though he made repeated attempts to contact her and called a
number of local hospitals to see if she had given birth. Police performed a
search of Evelyn's apartment and found no sign of her or Alex. There was
initial speculation that Evelyn may have left the area with her son because she had
a dispute with herman and wanted to have her baby in private. However,
she did not on a car anne Aside from her cell phone, virtually all
of her personal belongings have been left behind. Evelyn and Alex's passports were still
inside their apartment, as well as a suitcase that Evelyn had packed in preparation
for upcoming hospital state. The investigation also turned up no reports if anyone matching
Evelyn's description having given birth following your disappearance. There's no way that she was
going to leave. She had her family close by, she had this relationship
that was going on, and she had plans to stay in town. She
also had this little one who's situated she's about to give birth. We're not
going on the run five days before we give birth while we're experiencing stomach pains.
It's just not the time to do that. You're exhausted, you're emotional,
you're just clinging to like, please let me have this baby and be
done. So that was a silly assumption. I'm sure a bunch of guys
were sitting on the table. I bet she left on her own, right,
No, she didn't. I also find it very very interesting that you
have herman as the one who comes forward to report her missing. I'm wondering
if he ever confirmed with police that there was a dispute, did he tell
anybody what had happened with he and Evelyne over the course of the last couple
of months. Well, this is going to come up later when the interview
herman and his wife and they finally do learn the truth about the nature of
their relationship. And even though it's never been confirmed that Herman or Evelyn had
any sort of dispute before she went missing, it became apparent that he wasn't
telling everything that he was supposed to. I find it highly unlikely that she
would go away to have her baby, because it seems more likely the fact
that she knew the sex of the baby and it already named the baby Fernando.
So that leads me to believe that she'd gone to multiple appointments with an
obgyn. So she probably had an ob gyn who would have been scheduled to
be delivering her baby. Do you know if that is true, Robin,
I was able to confirm that information, But that does sound logical because if
she knew the sex and she was planning to name him, then obviously she
had had some appointments beforehand and was probably seeing like a regular doctor. And
I really do not thinking nine month pregnant woman is just going to say I'm
about to give work, I'm about to give birth, road trip, let's
go somewhere else that I'm not familiar with. The last known paper trail for
Evelyn occurred after she dropped alexoff at preschool on May first, and then took
a bus to a bank in order to make a deposit and use their ATM.
That same day, she went to a nearby Ross Dressed for Less store
and was believed to have purchased a new wallet well two weeks after Evelyn's reported
missing. This wallet would be found in a fence dirt parking lot located on
Lynden Avenue in South San Francisco and turned over to police. It contained a
disability benefits check made out to Evelyn, as well as forty dollars in cash.
It was believed that Evelyn received this check when she picked up her mail
while arriving home on the evening of May first, which is why it was
never cashed. The parking area where Evelyn's wallet was found was next to a
canal, but a search of it turned up no additional evidence. Interestingly enough,
this area was located only two blocks away from the location which was connected
to herman Aguilera, though differing sources give conflicting information. Some sources say it
was close to the limousine company where herman worked well. Others say it was
near a gas station the limo company frequently used, goodness and it's next to
a body of water. Do we think this canal could be a location where
her body was actually placed and then it was obviously floated somewhere else? But
is that believed to be where she was also put in the water. Good
question. I have no idea if this canal actually floats out into San Francisco
Bay, But if it does, then that's a logical solution because the place
or body was discovered was not necessarily the same place where she was dumped in
the bay. Yeah. Absolutely, I'm sure that it was. I'm sure
that's a very big Possibility's God, she has this plan where she's going through
this just normal day, right, She's getting things, she's buying a new
wall of herself. She has her check that she grabs on the way into
the house, and then all of a sudden you find this wallet, which
signifies a big deal. There's an uncashed check, there's cash, and then
it's close to this location of herman Aguilera or a place he's associated with.
The hair on my arms is standing up. I'm frustrated because I need to
know more about herman, and I want to know how his wife finds out
about all of this and what she thinks. Well, you know, it's
definitely not a robbery because to find the wallet with not only the disability check
in it, but to also find it with cash, it's sort of discounts.
You know, that option of there being some perpetrator that may have had
an opportunistic abduction because they needed cash, or they needed a quick fix or
something like that or some other motivation. It just like almost hits it home
for me, even more, especially given the location is tied to herman Aguilera
in some way, whether it be the gas station or it'd be close to
the limousine company. The fact that that forty dollars was still in that wallet
speaks volumes well. Ashe wanted to hear more information about herman and his wife,
So I'm going to share that right now. It wasn't long before suspicions
started to be directed towards herman, as it turned out that he was married
to another woman, and Evelyn never even found out about this until she was
four months pregnant with Fernando. When Evelyn originally told herman about the pregnancy,
he did not seem thrilled about it, so she called herman's mother to ask
if anything was wrong with him. He was here when Evelyn finally learned that
herman was married, but in spite of this, she was still planning to
raise Fernando on her own. According to Evelyn's sister Raina. Shortly before she
went missing, Evelyn had told her that she wanted to end the relationship with
herman because she appeared to have no intention of leaving his wife, though she
would allow him to visit Fernando after he was born. At the time,
herman was still paying for Evelyn's apartment and she wanted to be able to keep
staying there, but he did not appear to want to do anything to support
Fernando, so Evelyn was considering the possibility of seeking legal action to receive child
support. During an interview with the media, Raya described herman as being quote
unquote unlikable, though she stopped short of accusing him of being responsible for Evelyn
and Alex's disappearances. Can you imagine his poor mom when she gets this call
from a woman who's like, listen, where's your son. I'm pregnant and
he hasn't contacted me, And she's going, are you kidding? Like what
in the world? You know, she specialted at both parties. You know,
she probably has a lot of frustration and anger towards what he's doing to
his wife. And this is how she finds out that this guy's married.
So it's very disturbing because clearly herman's not forthright. There's no kind of honesty
there like having an affair in general. Don't get me wrong, there's no
honesty there at all. But but there are people who have very open relationships.
There are people who will start a relationship and say, this is the
reality of my situation, this is what you can get with me. This
is what you can't get with me. That is clearly not what herman did.
Herman sets Evelyn up to think he's single, to probably tell her there's
going to be this great life, or he'll take care of her, help
her. He is part of the process of getting her pregnant, and then
all of a sudden it's like, oh, by the way, four months
in, I'm married, and you had to find out from my mom.
Like, this is even more of a recipe for disaster compared to a situation
where he had entered into the relationship and said you will never have a more
than a sexual relationship with me, right, Like, I'm married, I
have no intention to leave with my wife. This is what I'm willing to
do. This what I won't be willing to do. It seems like herman
dea full manipulated and got what he wanted, and then that sets him up
to be in a position to say, I don't like the consequences now,
and how do I keep control? Well, one action is to get rid
of the problem, and that's what really makes my stomach term. He's duplicitous
and he lacks integrity. That's what his actions are telling us. And I
question if Evelyn had never called herman's mother, if she would have ever known
the truth now he would he have come, you know, forward and said,
hey, like, I have a whole other family, or would he
have just kept her separate and only she would have only been privy to like
certain details until the point where you know, she probably exploded and decided to
follow him and then maybe discovered it. Yeah, this is very similar to
the situation Jules just described earlier with her friend, where Evelyn just thinks that
she's in a monogamous relationship with herman, but then she phones up his mother
and then surprise, surprise, learns that oh, he's already married and that
his mother had no idea that he was seeing another woman in that she was
pregnant. So he can only imagine the shock that went through with her when
she found this out. When questioned by police, Hermann claimed that he had
last seen Evelyn on April thirtieth, the day before she vanished, as he
went shopping at Ikea to buy a new bed for Alex before meeting Evelyn at
San Francisco General Hospital for a routine prenatal exam. Hermann's wife provided him with
an alibi, claiming that he came home from work on the evening of May
first and was with her the entire night. Hermann did confirm that he attempted
to call Evelyn multiple times that evening but she never picked up, and later
went to her apartment to look for her, but she was not there.
Hermann's wife was aware of the affair with Evelyn and believed he had broken off
the relationship, but she did not actually find out that Evelyn was pregnant with
Hermann's child until the police told her during questioning. As for Alex's biological father,
he was living in Puerto Rico by this point and was not considered to
be a suspect. Well, this is really interesting because when he actually talked
to the police, he says, hey, I saw her a week ago
and we were shopping at Ikea to buy this new bed for the little boy,
the five year old, and that he was also taking Evelyn to this
routine prenatal exam. And so what's wild is how deeply engaged Herman's expressing he
was in both Alex and Evelyn's life. Now, was he that supportive and
was he helping her? Or was this like you talked about earlier, Jewels,
was this the pressure point where this baby's about to be born in a
week and I don't like the consequences of that, right, I'm going to
become too liabele for her? And did he do something about it? I
find it odd that he's portraying himself such a wonderful man to have an affair
with. And it's also a big red flag now that we found out that
even though his wife was aware of the affair, she was not aware that
Evelyn was pregnant and giving birth to his child. So that gives more motivation
now where he's obviously not worried about the affair being exposed, but I'm sure
he didn't want his wife finding out that he had gotten another woman pregnant.
And also she had thought that the affair was off now, So I mean,
this man's a mess. Like we talked about earlier, he wasn't open
with Evelyn at all about his marital status or what he could offer her.
His wife finds out he's having an affair, and he lies to her.
He can't even admit and to be responsible for what he did. He says,
oh, it's done, Oh it's done right, and no, there's
nothing going on anymore. She's pregnant and supposedly you're being this night and shining
armor, taking care of she and her baby while she's awaiting her second child
with you. So it's very frustrating. When his feeter held to the fire
and she's aware of the affair, then of course he admits what he has
to admit, but he also continues to lie to her by not talking about
the baby that's in the picture and then going further and saying it's over.
So I don't think that you can really rely on anything that herman is saying
to be a full truth. And it's very clear that the way that he
treats women is degrading and demeaning, right, like you only deserve a little
bit of the truth, even though you are my wife. And I have
completely screwed you over by having this affair. He probably like excused unjustified why
he gave her partial information by saying he was protecting her emotionally or something like
that, because people tell themselves crazy lies when they want to continue doing something
and not get caught. Well. In July to twenty fourth, nearly four
months after Evelyn and Alex originally went missing, a pair of legs, as
well as a badly decomposed female torso which was clad in a maternity blouse,
washed up on shore at the Embarcadero Waterfront beneath the Bay Bridge. The remains
appearing who have been floating in San Francisco Obay for months, and there was
immediate suspicion that they belonged to Evelyn. A month and a half later,
after the victim's DNA was compared to DNA found on a toothbrush in Evelyn's apartment,
testing positively confirmed that the remains were hers. However, when dive teams
performed a search of San Francisco Bay, they failed to find the rest of
Evelyn's body, including the fetus of her unborn son, Fernando, and there
was no trace of Alex either. According to the autopsy report, there was
no evidence of sharp or blunt force injuries on Evelyn's remains, but our exact
cause of death was listed as undetermined. During the initial stages of the investigation,
the case was handled by the San Francisco Police departments Missing Persons Unit,
so Herman was cooperative with them, but after I was handed off to their
homicide unit, Herman hired an attorney, refused to provide investigators with a formal
statement, and ceased all communication with them. Herman also never spoke with the
media, and following the discovery of Evelyn's remains, his attorney simply issued a
statement that Herman was quote unquote deeply saddened by the news of the death of
his close friend. Well, police have never ruled out Herman as a suspect,
they have never officially named him as a serious suspect either. Anyway,
the story would take an interesting turn by the end of the year when one
of the most sensational true crime stories of all time hit California. Oh my
goodness. Well, okay, so the idea that her exact cause of death
is undetermined, right, we simply don't know the way that she died but
we know the manner. Clearly she was murdered, and it seems like there
again was such little regard for her. So the fact that she was cut
into pieces, and you know, she was so close to giving birth,
it's to me, I don't know, to me, that's like an act
of really not wanting that child, not just to hurt Evelyn, but to
make sure that child didn't come into this world. And to me, that
is so depraved and so just sturbane. I would you know, doesn't even
help to know the cause of death. The only reason it helps is so
investigators know what weapon they're looking for. But the family, you know,
she's I don't know. It's horrific. This is absolutely horrific. And then,
like you said, all of a sudden, months are fast forwarding.
We have no answers in this case, and bam, this bombshell case is
going to come about. And I'm assuming you're alluding to Lacy and Scott Peterson.
Absolutely. I'm sure most of you are probably already familiar with this case
because Ashley just mentioned it. But here are the basic details. On Christmas
Eve in two thousand and two, twenty seven year old Lacy Peterson vanished from
r suburban home in the city of Modesto, located about ninety miles east of
San Francisco. At the time, Lacy was married to her thirty year old
husband, Scott Peterson, an eight months pregnant with their unborn son, Connor
Well. The story instantly became immediate sense, especially once it was discovered that
Scott had been conducting a secret affair with a woman named Amber Fry, which
helped turn him into a prime suspect in Lacey's disappearance. On April thirteenth,
two thousand and three, a late term male fetus was found along the Point
Isabel Regional shoreline in San Francisco Bay, and the following day, the decomposed
and decapitated body of a pregnant woman washed up on the same shoreline about a
mile away. Within days, DNA testing positively identified the victims as being Lacey,
Connor Lacey and Connor Peterson, and Scott was immediately arrested and charged with
their murders. After a long and highly publicized trial the following year, Scott
was found guilty and convicted a first degree murder in Lacey's death and second degree
murder in Connor's death, he received the death penalty and wound up on death
row at San Quentin State Prison. But even though Scott's death sentence was overturned
by the Supreme Court of California in August of twenty twenty, his actual conviction
was upheld, so he will remain in prison indefinitely now. The massive publicity
surrounding this case wound up bringing extra attention to Evelyn Hernandez. There were a
number of similarities between her death and the murder of Lacy Peterson, as their
remains had both been found in San Francisco Bay, approximately twenty miles apart from
each other. Before Scott's trial, his defense team pushed forward the theory that
an unknown third party was responsible for murdering both women and made a formal subpoena
for all police records from the Hernandez case. However, the San Francisco PD
and the City Attorney's office filed court papers to reject the subpoena, as they
believed that turning over the files to the Peterson defense team could jeopardize an open
case. They feared that if certain details about Evelyn's death went public, it
could reveal the identity of witnesses and tip off potential suspects. Since the file
contained information that only the killer would know. A superior court judge ultimately denied
the Peterson defense team's request to access the Fernandez file as he believed that any
link between the two cases was highly speculative, though the defense was allowed to
view Evelyn's autopsy reports. This is to me, it's frustrating, right.
I do understand where you would say, hey, these are very similar cases.
But unfortunately, like we discussed early in the episode, this narrative is
not one that is unfamiliar to the true crime public, to homicide narratives and
to homicide investigators. You had a pregnant woman who was part of an affair
situation and she winds up deceased, as do potentially her children. And then,
like you talked about, we have Scott Peterson's case where Lacy Peterson is
this happy mom who's super excited. She's talking to her parents and she's planning
the arrival of their first child, and once she's killed, Amber Fry comes
forward and says, hold on a second, I was having an affair with
this man. I had no idea what all was going on, didn't Scott
say his wife was dead. Didn't he tell her she was dead? Yeah?
That was one of the biggest pieces of evidence against him is that weeks
before Lacey was murdered, he had told amber Fry that his wife was deceased
because she had no idea that she was having an affair with a married man.
And that was I mean, it was pitiful. People shamed her and
got all over her, but she came forward as a hero in that case.
She said, hold on, my name's Amber Fry. I was having
a relationship with Scott and I thought his wife was deceased. And you know,
his wife was pregnant and about to give birth, just like Evelyn was.
Now do I think there's any connection to Evelyn's case? Absolutely not.
What I think is that this is the exact script that we see all too
commonly because the pressure cooker's happening. I don't have the desire to have a
responsibility of a child with this person. I want a different life. This
is an inconvenience, this is a burden, this is a tool that could
hurt me, and so I'm going to eliminate it. Scott Peterson is,
in my opinion, quite guilty and I'm not convinced of Herman being an innocent
individual. I know the sister said, you know, he's an unlikable character,
but to me, he's a very disturbing person. He's narcissistic, he's
only out for himself, he isn't honest with anyone, even when he's faced
with a time to be accountable and responsible, and so he seems like the
type of human being just like Scott who's selfish and wants what he wants and
doesn't care about removing something that isn't inconvenient, or someone who's an inconvenience.
Oh, these cases just make me so angry. There are a lot of
parallels between the two cases, for sure, and I see the similarities between
Herman and Scott, but I also agree I think that Scott is the responsible
party. But one thing that really sticks out to me is just how shameful
the portrayal of women in the media around this time. Like you think back
to even people like Monica Lewinsky who was completely vilified in the media or something
that there was an unhealthy power dynamic at play, like that was the president
and she is treated like this, like Harlot or something like that, and
it completely impacted her career. This isn't a very intelligent woman who I think
is getting you know, her justice. Now in the things have been reframed,
and I think Amber Fry has been reframed as well. I think at
the time the recording on who she was, what she was all about,
was like, oh, she's tawdry, she's having an affair with him,
when the reality was there. She had no idea. She thought that he
was coming into this relationship with her after, you know, dealing with what
he was dealing with, and she was there to make it all better.
She didn't know that he had a wife who was due to give birth any
day, and that he was lying about everything, pretending he was like in
Paris and like overseas while he was searching for his wife. He just lied
about everything. So yeah, there are so many parallels between the two cases.
But I just really hate how the women were treated in the media.
It's really shameful that we as the public allowed that to happen. But thankfully
the conversation is shifting. So unfortunately in the Chris Watts case, you will
sometimes see more vitriol display towards Shennand and Chris's mistress at the time from people
who think she was personally involved in the murder, and they sometimes get more
blamed than Chris, the actual murderer does, so sadly, it's does happen
to this day. People always think that like Scott Peterson and Chris Watts are
like quote unquote hot and like that just makes me really sick to my stomach.
And I think that's why a lot of the vitriol gets directed towards the
women, because it's like, he's so good looking, he didn't know better,
couldn't have been him. It's just so tross, don't you think Also,
too though, it makes people feel safe like that if I can look
at someone who has a lot of similarities with me, right mom, a
wife, or you know, like a working woman, whatever, I can
see similarities in parallels and then they're murdering. If I can vilify her or
blame her, doesn't it make me feel safer than it wouldn't happen to me,
Like I'm better than her. Oh yeah, you've got to get some
dirt on her, you've got to make her like quote unquote bad. But
it also when you've got a perpetrator who's good looking, you have the halo
effect. So I think those things combine. Like the halo effect is just
when you assume somebody is good because they are good looking. It's like Ted
Bundy, you know, where it's like you can look at from a subjective
point of view, like on an attractiveness scale, right, But people become
obsessive like he's an he's idolized to a point. You know, it's this
person who is McComb and violent and horrific and the way he doesn't even see
human beings, right, and yet you're worried about how attractive he is.
And almost it's a sexualized version. It's not just like, oh, yes,
he is an attractive man. I could say that it's a subjective observation,
right, Yes, on a scale of one to ten, that's an
attractive human being. But it's a sexualized attraction to these people where it's like,
oh he's so hot, oh my gosh, right, like he couldn't
do something like that, right, And it's I don't know, I don't
know what it is in our human brains that have people do that, and
and then to put blame on a victim when there's literally my cost in.
My crime was I trusted you and I got pregnant and I decided I was
going to bring a baby into this world. Like that was the that was
the consequence her wife in these two cases. And that's it's unbelievable to even
think about. We expect to see monsters when you hear that somebody is this
cool blooded murderer, like you know, somebody like you know it? Which
there's two picked in brothers? Is it? Which picked in? You expect
to see somebody that looks like that, you don't have anybody going, but
he's so good looking with him, right, he murdered so many sex workers.
And that is basically like in my backyard. Not really it's like,
you know, forty five minute drive away or hour drive away out of the
city center, but it's close to where I live, and it was a
big deal. But when you look at somebody like that, nobody is excusing
their behavior because they're sexually attracted to him. I mean, they're sure there's
somebody out there who is, but the vast majority of people are going to
look at him and go, that's exactly clee. Would I expect to be
looking at when I think that I'm going to be confronting a monster, and
you don't see that with Scott Peterson, and you don't see that with Chris
Watts. So I think it's so complex, but it's yucky that we as
humans will go nobody's so cute. He couldn't be responsible. Let's blame the
women. While law enforcement does not believe the two cases are connected, the
media has often drawn parallels between them, sometimes referring to Evelyn as the quote
unquote other Lacy Peterson. According to Evelyn's sister, Olivia, quote, the
police and journalists ignored my sister because she was poor and from Al Salvador.
She wasn't middle class and married like Lacy Peterson end quote. On the one
year anniversary of Evelyn and Alex's disappearances, a memorial service was held at the
spot in the Embarcadero where Evelyn's torso was discovered, and attended by around one
hundred people. It was a purification ceremony, which involves singing Spanish songs and
burning incense over flowers that were tossed into San Francisco Bay. However, as
I was also put on display there featuring Alex's photograph, and it read quote
where is Alex? Wasn't this investigation important? End quote? Over the years,
the reward for information in this case has increased to one hundred thousand dollars,
but the investigation has remained at a sandstill. After two decades, there's
still no answers a book who was actually responsible for Evelyn's murder? And Alex
continues to remain a missing person. So I guess you could say the path
went chilly. You have Evelyn's sister Olivia saying, listen, why is my
sister not getting paid attention to? And it's God bless Olivia. Right.
It's one of these things that I've looked into when I'm researching cold case homicides
and murder cases. It's that quote valuable victim and how we look at who
is going to be portrayed on the cover, Right, it's going to be
those Jeanbene Ramsey, It's going to be the Lacy Peterson. It's going to
be these individuals that typically have higher incomes. They have that quote purity,
that sainthood about them. Right. They're not sexually active, they don't use
drugs, they're very beautiful physically girl next store type of look, and it
draws attention. And what's wild is it that's the least likely kind of individual
who's going to be murdered, right it's typically male victims, which we don't
see covered nearly as much as we see female victims. It's more common for
it to be a victim of color, which we also don't see tons of
documentaries or headlines about a person of color. And so Olivia's sister simply asking
a basic question, why not my sister, She's hitting on this massive concept
of where as a society we do not truly represent what crime looks like here
in the United States. People aren't interested in hearing about black on black crime
in a gang ridden neighborhood. They're not interested in hearing about a drug dealer
who's killed right by due to drugs. They're not interested in the sex workers
who are murdered. They want to see that kind of oh my god,
the stranger in the night or the glorified, beautiful woman who's murdered. And
that's simply not what happens when you look at true crime statistics, and yet
they're the ones who get ninety five percent of the coverage. It's sad because
it's an injustice not only to the victims, but it's also an injustice our
society. We are losing perspective of who we should be looking for, of
cases that demand attention, of cases that can be solved if they received media
coverage, thus protecting all of us from future attacks and violence. And so
oh, I could talk about this on a whole podcast. It makes me
furious. I'm with Olivia, why not my sister? And why not that
base who was five years old and isn't here now right? And the baby
who was lost when Evelyn was killed, because that was a that was a
nine month old child in her stomach about to be born. So there's two
missing children, in my opinion, that we should be demanding answers about.
And because they were not that picture perfect, white, blonde, typically victim,
they were not given the attention that they so desperately deserved. Not to
worry. We're going to talk more about this subject right now, because I've
got them a lot more to say about it. Let's go well. As
I'm sure you're well aware, one of the primary goals of both The Trail
Went Cold and The Path When Chili has always been to cover lesser known cold
cases why. It's just why you'll likely never see us do an episode about
a case like the Lacy Peterson murder, as it has already gotten extensive media
coverage and been analyzed to death. However, I'm always on the lookout for
lesser known stories which just happened to have a connection to the super famous cases,
and this is a primary example of that. If you do a search
for Evil and Hernandez online, the vast majority of the material will find are
sources which compare to Lacy Peterson, and you can definitely understand why. I'm
sure most of you are probably familiar with the phrase missing white woman syndrome,
the social phenomenon where the media will focus most of their energy on cases which
involve the young, attractive white women who hail from a middle or upper class
background. In fact, if you browse the Wikipedia page on missing white woman's
syndrome, you'll find a chart citing numerous examples of it, and of course
one of them is a comparison between Lacy Peterson and Evelyn Hernandez. Now,
I will add the disclaimer that even though she has been portrayed as the poster
child for missing white woman syndrome, Lacey was technically the child of a Portuguese
father in a Caucasian mother that as a pregnant's middle class housewife who lived in
an upscale, suburban neighborhood and was often described as the quote unquote all American
girl next door. You can see why she'd be treated as such a sympathetic
victim by the mainstream media. By comparison, Evelyn Hernandez was a Salvadoran immigrant
and single mother who did not have a lot of money and had gotten pregnant
during an affair with a married man. And that's where the most interesting difference
between the two cases comes in. Scott Peterson practically became America's most hated man
once it was uncovered that he was cheating on his pregnant wife with Amber Fry,
and the fact that he told Amber his wife was deceased before Lacey even
went missing was pretty damning. Technically, Scott and Amber had only been dating
for just over a month, whereas Evelyn and herman Aguilera were having an affair
for about a year and she was about to give birth to his child,
so their relationship was definitely a lot more serious. However, much like Amber,
Evelyn was completely unaware that she was dating a married man and did not
find this out until after she was four months pregnant. Evelyn technically didn't do
anything wrong, but you can see how the media and the public might be
inclined to treat Lacy as the more sympathetic victim. Oh. Absolutely, when
you compare these two cases, Lacy was quote innocent and Evelyn was quote at
fault for getting involved with a married man. But like you pointed out,
Robin, she was told he was single. She didn't know until she was
four months pregnant after a pretty long affair and calling his mother to simply check
on her boyfriend, and she finds out, oh gosh, this is a
married man, right, I just called this woman and she informs me he's
home with his wife. And so it is exactly what Jules was discussing,
where we do villainize individuals to excuse the fact that we look away or that
we don't give them the resources that they need. It's awful, it's wrong,
and yet I don't know. People ask me when I talk about it,
you know, at a conference or if I'm talking in class, or
like, so, how do we fix it? And I'm like, I
don't know that you can in the media because it's what sells. They are
out for a financial profit, to make money off of a documentary, to
make money off of the front page of that magazine, or you know,
the cover of a magazine, of the front page of a newspaper. And
so how do you get a financially driven industry to do what's ethically right and
sound and how do you give coverage to every single case? I'm not sure
a solution. I just know that there's a massive problem and misrepresentation that,
like I said earlier, cost us as a society, not just on a
case by case basis. Well, I think that's one of the benefits of
independent podcasts that don't have to answer to like a major media conglomerate or a
network, because we kind of have free rein to cover whatever cases we want
and give a lot of missing person cases exposure that otherwise would never receive them
from the mainstream media. So I think this would now be a good time
to bring an end to Part one. But join us next week as we
present part two of our series about Evelyn and Alex Fernandez. Robin, do
you want to tell us a little bit about the trailment Cold Patreon. Yes,
the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we
offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send
out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on
Patreon. If you join our five dollar tier Tier two, we also offer
monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the
trail went Cold's original feeds, so they're exclusive to Patreon and if you join
our highest tier tier three, the ten dollar tier. One of the features
we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaw Mysteries, where
you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsaw Mysteries episode
on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the
background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this
episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary over
was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary
track in which I make more smartass remarks about Juwel Kaylor than be sure to
join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit about
the Jewels and Ashley patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path
Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili minis, which are always over
an hour, so they're not very many, but they're just too short to
turn into a series and we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll
check out those. Patreons will link them in the show notes. So I
want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share
us on social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciate
it. You can email us at The Path Went Chili at gmail dot com.
You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time,
be sure to bundle up because cold trails and Chili pass Call for warm
clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy