Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
murder of Evelyn Hernandez and the disappearance of Alex Hernandez. Robin, do you
want to catch everyone up on what we talked about in our previous episode?
Well, this case takes place in San Francisco in two thousand and two.
Evelyn Hernandez is a thirty six year old immigrant from Alex Salvador who has a
five year old son named Alex, even though she's raising him as a single
mother, and she's currently nine months pregnant with a baby boy that she is
planning to name Fernando. She wound up going missing after failing to drop off
Alex at his preschool and was not officially reported missing for about six days,
and it turned out that the father of her unborn child was a man named
Herman Aguilera, who also happened to be married to another woman. Evelyn did
not find out that herman was married until she was four months pregnant, and
even though she was not interested in having a further relationship with him, she
did say that she was still going to raise Fernando and allow herman to have
visitation because he was the child's father, but before she could give birth,
she went missing. And it also turned out that even though herman's wife was
aware of the affair, she did not find out until the police told her
that Evelyn was pregnant with herman's child. A couple months later, they finally
found Evelyn's torso floating in San Francisco Bay, and even though they could not
determine the exact cause of death, it was obvious that she was the victim
of foul play. They never found any trace of Alex, and they also
never found any trace of the fetus, which would have been Fernando, so
they can't say with certainty that she did not give birth before she was murdered.
But I know there's an assumption that Alex and Fernando are still in San
Francisco Bay and they've just never found their remains. But the case didn't get
any media coverage at first. But as I'm sure you're well aware, at
the end of two thousand and two, Lacy Peterson went missing from the town
of A Desto, California, and it became a huge news story, and
Lacy and her unborn son, Connor, were both found in San Francisco Bay
three months after she disappeared, and Lacy's husband, Scott would be charged with
their murders and sent to prison, and it became one of the most famous
true crime cases of all time. And of course this led to a discussion
about why would Lacy Peterson's disappearance and murder gets so much coverage from the media,
whereas Evelyn Hernandez and Alex's disappearances barely got any coverage at all, and
it was mostly in comparison to the Peterson case. So we're going to talk
more about this subject in part two. So at the end of our last
episode, we were making comparisons between the media coverage in the Evelyn Hernandez and
Lacy Peterson cases, as well as the public perception of each victim. The
primary source for most of the coverage in the Hernandez case was a San Francisco
Chronicle, but even they admitted that during the four month time period between Lacy
Peterson's disappearance and Scott Peterson's arrest, they published thirty two articles about this story,
and four of them made the front page. By comparison, the Chronicle
only published four articles in total about Evelyn and Alex's disappearances, and none of
them were front page news. The first press conference from police to publicize the
Hernandez case did not take place until over one month after they originally went missing,
and while a five hundred thousand dollars reward was raised and posted in the
Peterson case within a few weeks of Lacy's disappearance, there was no reward offered
for information on Evelyn and Alex until one year after the fact. At one
point, Evelyn's family attempted to get her story featured on America's Most Wanted,
who were rejected because there was no active arrest warrant for a suspect. Yet
during the same period, the show ran a segment about Lacy Peterson's disappearance,
even though there was not yet an arrest warrant for a suspect in her case
at that point. America's Most Wanted did finally do a segment on Evelyn and
Alex during the summer of two thousand three, but of course, this was
an entire year after they originally vanished. But while it's easy to criticize the
media for favoring one case over the other, you have to remember that Lacy
Peterson's family had a lot of money and resources to spread awareness about her case,
and were always speaking to the press in order to keep Lacy in the
spotlight. By contrast, Evelyn's friends and family had nowhere near as many resources
at their disposal, and there was no one who could function as her spokesperson.
She had two sisters in the US, but one of them lived in
Virginia, and even though her other sister, Raina, did live in the
Bay Area, she could not actually hear or speak and had to communicate with
reporters using sign language and an interpreter. Evelyn herself spoke limited to English,
and many of her friends only spoke Spanish, so it was very difficult for
anyone to be an advocate for her in the media. Ironically enough, it
was Hermann Aguilera, the person who would later be suspected of causing Evelyn and
Alex's disappearances, who officially reported them missing to the police. Now, once
Scott Peterson became the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance, every single aspect of
his life was investigated and analyzed, but the same cannot be said for herman.
He has never given any interviews to the media, and we only note
the most basic details about him, so it's tough to gauge Herman's involvement with
such limited information. This is what really frustrates me about what we talked about
on the episode one, about that kind of ideal victim or the way that
the white woman's syndrome, right in the way that we do give so much
attention to Lacy's case. Herman is a potential murder. He's also potentially innocent,
but he's a potential murderer. And because of who Evelyn was and because
she was quote the other woman, nothing was really looked at with Herman.
Right. They took his statement basically at face value and didn't do much digging
into who he was, even though he presented as a very dishonest and controlling
person. Right, we always wanted to control the narrative. So you're letting
somebody potentially off the hook because of the judgment and attention that you failed to
give to Evelyn in this case. And so it's kind of this full circle.
Not only did you fail Evelyn and Alex and that unborn child, but
you're also giving a pass to someone who's a potential perpetrator. Case by saying
there's not a whole lot to look at here and moving forward just kind of
glossing over the case as a whole. It is really frustrating, the whole
anecdote about America's Most Wanted where they're like, well, we can't feature her
case because no one's technically wanted, and so it doesn't really fit the show.
Yet they're more than happy to do that for Lacy Peterson's disappearance, even
though Scott was not yet an active suspect with an active arrest warrant. But
you can understand why America's Most Wanted would want to capitalize on that because it
was the biggest true crime story in the nation at that point. So you
can just understand like all these obstacles where like the media is just clamoring to
get every single detail about Lacey, but Evelyn's story is just falling through the
cracks, and the potential suspect, the potential killer, Herman, is not
getting any attention at all. But of course, the key difference between the
Hernandez and Peterson cases is that Evelynce five year old son Alex disappeared alongside her,
and sadly that poor boy has often been overlooked in this whole saga.
Well, most people involved in this case don't hold up my hope that Alex
is still alive. Without a body, we can't be one certain And while
the fetus for Lacey's unborn son, Connor was found in San Francisco Bay,
the fetus for Evelyn's unborn son, Fernando was not. It's most likely that
Fernando did not survive and his fetus has simply not been found. But because
Evelyn was less than a week away from giving birth and her torso was not
discovered until over three months later, we technically cannot say with one percent certainty
that she did not give birth to Fernando before she was killed. Now,
I know there's been a lot of controversy about Scott Peterson in recent years,
as he does have his fair share of supporters who believe he is innocent,
and in twenty seventeen, the A and E Network released an extensive multi part
documentary series titled The Murder of Lacy Peterson, which attempted to cast doubt on
his conviction. Well, I'll stay right up front that even though the case
against him was circumstantial, I still believe that Scott Peterson is guilty as sin,
and the sheer amount of circumstan angel evidence against him is far too damning
for me to believe that he was innocent of his wife and unborn sons murders.
And in spite of what his supporters might say, I want to discount
the idea that this crime has any connection to the Hernandez case, even though
both victims were found in San Francisco Bay, the Peterson's lived ninety miles away
at Maddesto. Though I have considered the possibility that Scott might have intentionally made
the decision to drive to Berkeley and dump Lacey's body in the bay in order
to give off the false impression that both she and Evelyn were murdered by the
same killer. However, the Hernandus case got so little coverage in the media
that I doubt that Scott would have even heard of it. No, no,
no, no, And doesn't it make you sick when you hear Scott
Peterson's supporters like all the evidence is overwhelming, his behaviors, his statements,
Amber FRI's testimony, all of these different things that we know about Scott and
what happened after Lacey went missing, and you'd you have a whole band of
people, you have documentaries out, you have things that are quote trying to
prove his innocence, and it's it has become almost like we talked about in
episode one, this sexualization is glamorisation of Scott as this innocent man and hero
in the story, right, this grieving husband and oh, I just I
cannot His name shouldn't even be said. It should be Lacy's and they're unborn
baby, and you know, now Scott's back in the line mine getting this
attention. It's wild. Yeah. I recently watched this documentary. I can't
remember what it was called. It was something like The Case for Scott Peterson
or something along those lines. And I think it was on Netflix, but
don't quote me. It could have been on Prime. And it went through
the perspective of Scott potentially being innocent, and it went through that there could
have been killer who was targeting pregnant women, and also the break in and
all these different inconsistencies, and we see lots of errors in cases, and
I think when that happens, it's easy to be like, oh, there's
all these hidden variables and there's so much mystery. Attached to this case.
But the reality is you've got a bunch of human beings working on it,
and human beings are fallible. We can't look at police and investigators and assume
that they're going to do everything perfectly in every single case. And obviously they
had to get little things wrong here or there. This happens. We saw
that in the John Boney Ramsey case, and that's why I believe so much
mystery swirls around that even though for a long time I personally believed it was
somebody in the family, and now I look at it and I'm like,
how could I ever believed that. I believe it's an intruder. And I
think the fact that people believe that it was Scott. He's very fortunate,
and that he is good looking. People think that he's attractive. He has
that whole halo effect going, and that people assume because he's good looking,
he must be a good person, even though we have his actions that seem
to be proving to the cause contrary. He seems to have a callous disregard
for his pregnant wife and also for Amber in the way that he's treating her
and continuing to lie to her. So he also has the fact that those
brakens were happening next door, and that it leaves some ambiguity there. People
believe that maybe Lacey was walking the dog and she was abducted. She's thought
too much, and then people also connect cases like Evelyn hernandez Is and think,
well, maybe there was a serial killer who was targeting pregnant women.
So I think there's a lot of things that are working for Scott Peterson and
that he got lucky, and that it causes doubt for some people. Oh
yeah, I watched that series about Scott Peterson, and they put a lot
of emphasis on that group of burglars who broke into the house across the street,
but they failed to mention that police did look into them and cleared them
as suspects relatively quickly. And even if Lacey saw something she wasn't supposed to.
I don't think these burglars are going to go to the trouble of like
dismembering her and driving her ninety miles to damp her body in San Francisco Bay.
So it's all just smoke and mirrors, like somebody saw you committing a
robbery or a burglary and you're going to then what put a pregnant woman in
your van and murder her. I don't think that whatever jail time you could
potentially get when she's likely not going to recognize your face, because if it's
during the day, like I mean, I don't know, is she going
to be able to draw a composite sketch of you and you're, you know,
co defendants if you guys are brought to trial. I don't know.
I think it's possible, But is that what she's really going to be focusing
on. She's super pregnant. How many people are going to unless they're absolute
psychopaths go oh, I don't want to get busted for this robbery. I
better abduct and murder a woman. It's just not very logical. No.
If you think that burglar theory is ridiculous, wait till you hear what Jewels
talks about next. Oh my gosh, bring it on, Jewels. So
I think the Scott Peters and defense team kind of lucked out into the fact
that such a similar cry occurred in the Bay Area earlier that same year,
which gave them the opportunity to point the finger at an outside third party.
But the problem is that some of Scott's supporters decided to bring an old relic
from the nineteen eighties into the mix you guessed at ashe it's Satanic panic.
One of Scott's defense attorneys was Matt Dalton, who was removed from the case
prior to trial for violating a judge's order not to speak with the media.
He would later publish a book titled Presume Guilty, which attempted to cast out
on Scott's conviction, but one of his alternate theories was that Lacey was murdered
by a Satanic cult from the Berkeley area who had been responsible for the disappearance
of seven pregnant women over a three year period. Dalton made mention of Evelyn
Hernandez and pointed out that she went missing on the date of May first,
which the Satanic calendar apparently refers to as the Grand Climax aka a day of
sacrifice. Well, a retired California congressman named William A. Danemeyer read Presumed
Guilty, and in September two thousand and six, he decided to send a
letter to the California Attorney General stating quote both Lacey and Evelyn disappeared on Satanic
holy days according to the Satanic calendar, and they both ended up in the
San Francisco Bay with their hands, feet, and heads missing. I began
to read everything I could have a vote, Satanism, Satanic cults, and
ritual abuse. With this mountain of evidence not used to the trial, evidence
that would have cleared Scott Peterson. Why was it not used? End quote?
Oh my god, Oh my god. No, he's innocent. I
didn't know this. No, Okay, William's crazy. He might be a
very accomplished congressman. But when you look at stuff like this, like,
is it something to consider if you're investigating the case ab solutely? Like would
you want to know as a detective these kinds of facts? Sure? Do?
You also have to make sure that you don't buy into exactly what Jules
said. The Satanic panic that was happening at the time, we saw this
with all kinds of different kind of misunderstandings about certain populations. You had the
San Antonio for the for lesbian women who were targeted for sexual abuse, the
daycares that were targeted for sexual abuse that were not accurate, and you know,
the Satanic groups being blamed for all kinds of things. Look at the
West Memphis three and how Damien was passed as a Satanic worshiper, right,
and that's why he had to kill these kids. We can go too far
with information that we received. So should detectives have looked at this? And
do we know that they didn't? You know, like, it's very possible
they saw this date and said, oh, it's interesting that it happens to
be a Satanic holiday. But is this completely ignorant on the congressman's fault to
then make an assumption of innocence That makes no sense In this case. There's
a million and one reasons why Scott Peterson was found guilty and this one ironic
coincidence doesn't change that fact. I'm sorry, William, but you're wrong.
And so is this crazy man who writes the Matt Dalton who says, oh,
let me write this presumed guilty and make all these assumptions. Because as
an author, I feel like we have an obligation to be accurate when we
portray books like a true crime book, right, you need to be very
diligent and what you put forth because not everybody is as educated on the topic.
And when you make these broad claims, and you make these links,
and you draw these assumptions. I don't know, he's way off base.
Scott Peterson's guilty. You can't convince me otherwise. Supporter of his or not,
people, it was fun to hear Jewels say the phrase the grand climax
with this faced whatever. That's exactly right, Okay. I don't think it's
going to come as a complete shock for you to hear me say this.
But no, I do not believe a Satanic cult was responsible for the murder
of Evelyn Hernandez, and I certainly don't believe they killed Lacy Peterson. But
on the other side of the coin, I do not believe Scott Peterson was
responsible for killing Evelyn, even though I have seen that pushed forward as a
potential theory. After Scott was charged with his wife's murder, I know attempts
were made to paint him as a remorseless serial killer and link him to other
unsolved cold cases from California. For instance, you might be familiar with the
disappearance of nineteen year old Kristen Smart, who vanished from the campus of California
Polytechnic State University in May of nineteen ninety six, it turned out that Scott
just happened to be a student at the same university during that time period.
But even though rumors briefly spread that he might have some sort of connection to
Kristen's disappearance, a suspect named Paul Flores was finally convicted of her murder last
year, So the whole thing is nothing more than a coincidence. Since Scott
lived in Modesto, there is nothing at all to link him to Evelyn Hernandez
or suggesting he was in San Francisco in May of two thousand and two when
she went missing. So again, it's likely just a coincidence that two murdered
pregnant women were adopted San Francisco Bay during that particular year. So I think
we can now officially close the books on the Hernandez Peterson connections and start focusing
out what really happened to Evelyn, Alex and Fernando. Yes, please,
because let's go back really quick to Scott's case and then move on. Or
actually it's Lacey's case. But when Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife, he
did so because it served an important purpose for him. And so when you
say Okay, listen. He killed Lacey because he wanted to have this life
with Amber Fry and he had gotten in so deep with Amber. Remember he
had told her that his wife was dead. She had been to support system.
She had held his hand while he was grieving. She had helped him
mourn Lacy. Right, This was an important part of their relationship. I'm
a widow. I get that connection. When you have someone who loves you
enough to let you love your late spouse, lets you grieve and lets you
love them at the same time, it's a very unique intimate relationship. That's
what Amber was for Scott, and she had no idea the monster she was
actually dealing with. But Scott solely killed Lacy so that he could pursue the
life he wanted. Right, She was worth disposing of, as was his
own blood and child to pursue this life with Amber. What would he have
to benefit from killing Evelyn. It was such a directed killing that he did
towards Lacey and his unborn child. He has no need to kill Evelyn.
Right, This is to me, there's not a motivation. You can see
that Hermann did have the same motivation that Scott had. Get rid of my
problem. And so when people try to link Scott as the actual killer of
Evelyn, I think it's I don't know, I don't know what's dumber that
more dumb, right, is it Scott killing Evelyn? Or is it a
Satanic panic actually the Satanic worshipers being responsible for their deaths. I don't know
which is sillier. I actually think that connecting Scott Peterson to Evelyn's is worse
than the Satanic panic because at least with the Satanic one, you've got some
dates, and they seem to have cases where they're making these connections. They're
obviously looking for connections. But connecting Scott Peterson, you're what then is doing
that Scott Peterson got together with Lacy, got her pregnant so he could then
murder her because he's then a serial killer that targets pregnant women. It doesn't
even make any sense, Like that is just the most preposterous thing that I've
ever heard. It was clearly a very personal crime, and that he killed
his pregnant life. Why would he be going and looking for a woman who
someone else got pregnant to then murder her. Are we supposed to believe that
he first murdered Evelyn, and he enjoyed it so much that he decided to
murder his own pregnant wife. Like I don't understand, this doesn't not make
any sense, and the satanic panic one is also a ridiculous theory. But
I think that trying to link Scott Peterson to Evelyn Hernandez is just crazy.
On the surface, the explanation might seem pretty obvious. We have a woman
that became pregnant with a child of a married man, and he was not
overly thrilled about the whole situation, and she reportedly told him that she wanted
to end the relationship a short time before she disappeared. However, herman Aguilera
has never formerly been named as a suspect, so unlike Scott Peterson, it
doesn't sound like there's much in the way of actual evidence against him at all.
And obviously, the murder of a woman, a five year old boy,
and an unborn child is an incredibly monstrous act. Yet we know so
little about herman's background that it's difficult to determine if you would be capable of
something like that. But here's what we know about the timeline. The last
time Evelyn was confirmed to be alive was at around nine pm on the evening
of May first, when she finished a phone conversation with her sister. Even
though she was not reported missing until six days later, the first sign that
something was wrong was when Evelyn failed to drop off Alex at preschool on the
morning of May second. For this reason, investigators believe that something happened to
both of them during this window of approximately nine or ten hours. It has
to be Evelyn was hurting so badly. Remember she had called her sister and
said, like, I don't know if I can drive, Like my stomach's
really hurting. She could have been thinking she was in an early labor or
going into labor, and Olivia says, well, like, do you have
anyone that can help you? And she goes, no, I'm just going
to take him myself. And she drives her baby in pain to daycare.
The day before she's able to run some errands and go pick him up and
bring him home, and she's planning things with Olivia on the phone. She's
saying, Hey, I'm going to this baby shower right I'm making plans for
the next couple of days before I give birth. And then she doesn't bring
that baby to school the next day that it is incredibly scary. It's a
definite sign that's something had already happened to them. This is the kind of
case where it goes like I now am desperately concerned about what happened to Alex
because this person clearly didn't dispose of Evelyn in a very effective manner or right
Evelyn her torso was wash up and discovered. So would the killer have actually
hidden Alex to a point where he was never discovered. I don't see them
doing an excellent job with Alex, but not Evelyn. And I also have
to go back to where Jules you mentioned we know very little about Herman's background,
so could he became pable of something like this? I'm gonna say this.
I think many people are capable of far more than we want to give
them credit for, or we want to acknowledge so that we're not horrified of
human behavior. But I think a lot of people are capable of a lot
of depraved things. We just have two bigger consequences to do those, or
it's like beyond what our current circumstances offer. But I don't know. I
think human nature is a very scary thing to look at. Herman has shown
that he is the most important. He has shown that he does not have
much regard for human life with the people around him, because he was willing
to ruin his wife's his wife's life by having an affair, by not being
accountable when called out on that, by continuing to manipulate in line to her.
So clearly he's not concerned with his wife's well being whatsoever. Because have
an affair, many people are able to look at their spouse and find tools
to move forward, and if they do, bravo. But you have to
have accountability and responsibility. You have to be the one who has to step
back and say I'll do whatever you need me to do to earn your trust.
And that is not lying to me yet again, which is exactly what
Herman did. He said, I'm done with her. We don't have a
relationship. And he then says, oh, I was buying her son a
bed and taking her to a doctor's appointment the last time I saw her.
Like Herman can't have it both ways, but he will always have it to
where he's in control, where he's the victim. He's the good guy,
he's the hero. Do I think people like that are capable of getting rid
of a human being because they're an inconvenience or a danger to their narrative.
Yes, I think those are the most dangerous type of people. Herman was
the most important person in his world. He got what he wanted when he
wanted it, and he never was accountable for his mess ups. He always
had an excuse. He was always the good guy, and so I think
he's very capable. Did he do it? Who knows? But is he
capable? Yeah? I think he is. I think we know so little
about him, but like you said, we do know that there is a
pattern of deception and that he acts without integrity, and I think we can
kind of extrapolate from that that when the walls are closing in on him,
he may take extreme measures. And I do think that somebody like him is
a very destructive person. He's being destructive to his wife, his relationship with
her, and he's also being destructive to Evelyn and Evelyn's life. So somebody
who is an incredibly destructive person, I think for them to then go and
do the most destructive act, well, to me, that's plausible. And
I'm not saying I am not saying an adulter equals a murderer. I'm saying,
does character lend itself to be willing to slip down moral and ethical and
sound reasoning. Yes, especially when you're doue deceitful things over and over again
with that very controlling and manipulative behavior. I've met people who have had an
affair and are truly humbled and broken by it and become a better spouse after
the fact. Like that is also very possible, But that is not someone
who is willing to continue the deceit. That's not somebody who is more important
than the person that they broke and hurt. You know. It's they put
that other person first after that, and they're able to say, I mess
up and I owe them my life for giving me another chance. You know,
that's a very different person than the one who continues to manipulate and lie
after they've been caught. Another key clue is the disability check that was inside
Evelyn's wallet when it was found later that month. Evelyn did not received that
check until she picked up her mail on the evening of me the first,
so it's reasonable to assume that if she had been alive for any length of
time on me the second she would have deposited it. Since the check and
forty dollars in cash were left in Evelyn's wallet, that would seem to indicate
that rob was not the motive for what happened to her. But it makes
you wonder why the wallet was found in that particular parking area. I mentioned
on her last episode that there are differing sources which state that this location was
two blocks away from either the limousine company were Herman worked, or a gas
station that the company often frequented. But of course that's hardly conclusive evidence that
herman was involved. But it makes you wonder if Evelyn's wallet was intentionally planted
in that parking area or if she just happened to drop it there when something
happened to her. Now, we've been critical of the media coverage of this
case, but the original police investigation wasn't handled much better, since they initially
assumed that Evelyn had left on her own to give birth to her child in
privacy because she recently had a fight with herman. Of course, that assumption
was completely ridiculous since all of Evelyn's personal belongings, including a suitcase she had
packed for her upcoming hospital state were left behind and she did not even own
a car, So where exactly was she planning to go to give birth and
how would she get there? She wasn't She wasn't going anywhere to run away
and give birth. She again, was making plans. She was fighting to
make sure to spite her own ailments as she was getting that baby to school,
and she was getting Alex situated and safe, and you know, she
had her bags packed to take to the hospital. Her passport was sitting there.
It's insane. It's absolutely insane to think that Evelyn had any intent other
than to bring another little one into the world and continue to work hard to
provide for them. It's also unfortunate that Evelyn and Alex had not been seen
for six days before they were reported missing, so crucial time and evidence may
have been lost. Since Evelyn was on disability and not working at this time,
she did not have a job to show up for, which might explain
why no one really noticed she was missing. It's a bit weird that during
her final phone call with her sister, Evelyn mentioned a baby shower she was
planning to attend, But we still have no idea who was holding the shower
and when it was supposed to take place. If the shower happened sometime between
May sec and to seventh, did no one become concerned when she didn't show
up? Of course, Hermann reported Evelyn missing on the seventh, which makes
sense since this was her due date and he claimed he had no luck getting
in touch with her. If Hermann was involved in what happened, I'm sure
he realized that it would look awfully suspicious if he didn't make any attempt to
find Evelyn on the day that she was scheduled to give birth to their son.
Hermann claimed that he last saw Evelyn on April thirtieth, when they met
at the hospital for a prenatal exam. Even though Evelyn's sister Raina said that
Evelyn was ending her relationship with Herman, she apparently told him she would still
allow him to have visitation with Fernando, so I could see why Herman would
attend this appointment even if things were not great with their relationship. But it
sounds like Herman was supporting Evelyn financially and she was going to seek additional child
support payments from him, so this could definitely be a potential motive for him
wanting to get rid of her. Oh my goodness, that's executor. I
was thinking as you were describing once she told her sister that she was going
to end things with herman, but also keep him in the child's life,
or at least allow him acts such the child's life. Immediately, I thought,
m custody of formal child support payments, or at least expected financial payments,
And that's very hard to keep from your wife. Unofficially, if herman
was taking care of Evelyn and was providing for her, was it these little
purchases that he could explain away, or was it something he could say,
oh, I bought that for business, or you know, oh that charge,
you know, you don't even don't worry about that. But if he
was ordered to pay money for that child, if she said I expect X
amount of money and he thought, oh my god, that's too much.
My wife will automatically know that money's missing, that would definitely be a motive
to silence that demand. Finances, especially finances within a marriage when you're having
an extra marital affair, that's a big it's a big scary scenario. And
I still don't understand the whole baby shower thing. It makes me wonder if
this could have been like a ploy of some sort to lure somewhere. I
mean, I don't know if Herman would have done it, but what if
he said, Oh, I have like a sister, or I have a
female friend who's going to hold a baby shower for you tomorrow, so I'll
take you there and then use this as an excuse to kill her and dump
her body. Now could it have been a friend's baby shower. Could she
had been like, Hey, I'm gonna go attend this baby shower and it
wasn't for her. Yeah, I have no idea about that, because no
one has ever come forward to confirm that, yes, Evelyn was supposed to
attend a shower this week for herself or for one of her friends. And
like we said earlier, like it's kind of surprising that when she didn't show
up that no one became concerned or attempted to record her missing. So I
still don't know if this shower actually existed. However, it's was like the
biggest stumbling block against making any sort of case against Herman is that his wife
provided him with an alibi, maintaining that he came home from work on the
evening of May the first and spent the entire night with her. Now,
of course, since Evelyn and Alex were not reported missing for six more days,
this does not clear herman, but once again says Alex did not show
up her preschool the following morning. Investigators seemed to believe that the disappearances had
to occur during a window of time when herman's whereabouts or accounting for. Of
course, you could easily assume that herman's wife lied to police and fabricated an
alibi in order to protect him. But the problem is that we know virtually
nothing about her, not even her name. We know that when Amber Fry
learned about Lacy Peterson's disappearance, she showed no hesitation about being transparent and coming
forward to share everything about her affair with Scott. By the sound of things,
herman's wife did find out about his affair with Evelyn, and he had
assured her he was ending it, But she had no idea that Evelyn was
pregnant with herman's child until she was questioned by police. If she had been
lying for herman in order to cover for him, you would think that revelation
might have been the turning point which prompted her to come clean and admit the
alibi was false, but it sounds like she continued to stand by him.
We really don't know anything about the circumstances of their marriage, so I have
no idea what kind of person Herman's wife was or if she would have been
willing to be complicit in a crime. Hell, for all we know,
Evelyn and Alex's disappearance could have been her idea to begin with, but without
any more details, that's nothing but brash speculation. If Herman's wife already knew
about his affair with Evelyn, then there would be no reason for Herman to
kill Evelyn in order to cover the whole thing up. But if she was
legitimately unaware of Evelyn's pregnancy, that might have given him the motivation. That
might have given him the motivation to take the extra step to get rid of
her, and Alex could have been nothing more than collateral damage. I guess.
One of the major issues is that the most information we know about Evelyn
and Herman's relationship was delivered second hand by Raina, and since Herman is elected
not to speak with the media, and there's no longer talking to the police.
We really can't hear his side of the story. I also have no
idea what herman has been up to these past two decades, or if he's
even still married to his wife. You know, I see a big difference
though, in amber Fry's position and in his wife's position. Like, yes,
both women were deceived, Yes both women were betrayed. Yes both women
could be married or in a relationship with a monster. But amber Fry was
truly this kind of like, what in the heck is happening? I had
this angel in my life, and all of a sudden I discover he's a
devil. And I'm pretty sure he killed his wife an unborn child after telling
me they were already dead, right, Like, it's this horrible, awful
thing. Now, herman has put his wife in a very difficult position because
he has manipulated and abused her and just kind of taken advantage of the dynamic
of having a trusting wife who believes you to be loyal and what a husband
is supposed to be. Right, She's been put in a position where she
finds out he's unfaithful and she stays, and that's a very difficult position for
a wife to be in. I cannot imagine being in that position. But
it's very possible she's financially dependent on him. It's very possible herman's reminded her
she's nobody without him, right, and that she needs him in her life
right, just quote as much as he needs her. So I could very
much see a broken, hurt woman who's trying to have integrity and society,
not just thinks she's this horrific human being herself, try to protect and believe
that herman has nothing to do with this, right, And if he went
to sleep with her, and if he woke up next to her, I
could see someone convincing themselves. I will never question whether or not he left
the bed that night. He was here when I went to sleep, he
was here when I woke up. I'm going to say that he was here
all night because I have to believe that if I'm going to survive the situation
that I've got myself into. So I don't know, I just see a
very different dynamic that would be happening there. There would be this almost if
this is all true, then what does that mean about me? I could
see that being a psychological kind of torture for his wife, if that makes
sense. Human beings are incredibly complex, and I think you brought up a
really important point, Ashley. There's a very real possibility that she was dependent
upon herman financially. And also we don't know how good her English skills were
either. We don't know anything about her because we know that Evelyn spoke very
little English. We can't assume that herman's wife was a proficient English speaker either.
Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. But it could be further isolating
if you're then going to come to terms with the fact that he may have
done this, and you're going to tell the police this, and then you're
left to fend for yourself. Well, he's charged with murder and you've got
nobody to support you financially, and your options are limited because of a language
barrier. We don't know what she was dealing with, but there are a
myriad of reasons why somebody who is not a bad person may, in a
situation such as that, try to protect their own interests, and that's potentially
what we're seeing here. So are there other alternate scenarios which don't involve herman?
Being the perpetrator. Well, with a limited information that we have,
that's certainly possible. Another theory is that Evelyn could have been a victim of
a fetal abduction. As horrifying as that whole concept is, there are documented
cases of pregnant women being murdered and having their unborn fetus forcibly extracted from their
body through a crude cesarean section. In some of these cases, the perpetrator
turned out to be a woman who wanted a child and actually went to the
of committing murder in order to steal another woman's fetus to pass off as their
own. Of course, there's no evidence that this is what happened to Evelyn,
but since the fetus of her unborn son, Fernando, was never found,
I guess you can't completely discount the possibility. However, it's worth mentioning
that there were no signs of noticeable injuries found on Evelyn's torso, and while
her exact cause of death was never determined, it sounds like investigators have leaned
towards the idea that her body came apart in the San Francisco Bay because of
decomposition, not because she'd been cut up and decapitated. As much as I
would like to believe that Fernando was removed from Evelyn's body before she died and
that he's outliving his life somewhere under a new identity, I do think the
most likely explanation is that his fetus was separated from his mother's torso via decomposition
and is still out there in the water somewhere. It's insane for me to
think about ever in someone's life. But then when you add the fact that
whoever did this right clearly did something with Alex and that unborn child as well.
So you're talking about three human lives that were so valueless to you that
not only did you kill them, but you also then or let's we know
Evelin was killed, but you also tortured their body as well. Her torso
was found, which means she was cut in pieces. I just can't imagine
when a human loses such value to somebody. So it's so depraved, it's
so sad. I my god, in a fantasy world, I would pray
Alex and this baby or living some life with some amazing human who found them
and is raising them. That's just not the case. I think three people
lost their lives that day, and my got the fact that someone has not
been arrested in this case is horrified because who else did they hurt, whether
it was death or not. Who else did they run into that they were
so able to hurt with no regard. Well, let's talk more about Alex.
While investigators have never disclosed much about the condition of Evelyn's apartment after she
disappeared, they haven't mentioned there being any signs of forced entry, struggle,
or foul play. So I have to wonder if Evelyn or Alex left their
apartment voluntarily before something happened, even though most of their personal belongings were left
behind. Evelyn's wallet was discovered in a parking area, and her cell phone
has never been found, and those are two items she likely would have had
on her if she stepped out. It's worth noting that Alex's preschool, Juana
Vista Elementary School, is located just over three miles from the Crocker Amazon district,
but since Evelyn did not own a vehicle, it would have taken over
an hour to walk there. I get the impression that Evelyn usually took the
bus in order to drop off Alex at school, but what if someone showed
up at their place during the early more hours of me the second and offered
them a ride, and then instead of driving to the school, the perpetrator
took Evelyn and Alex to another location to harm them. If that's what happened,
that seems a lot more likely that they would have accepted a ride from
someone they knew. However, like we said numerous times already, certain details
about this case are just too vague in order to come up with a concrete
theory that implicates Herman or anyone else as being responsible for this. You know,
if Herman is innocent, I don't really blame him for not speaking with
police anymore or not speaking to the media, because, my goodness, we've
seen even throughout some of the unsolved mystery cases, Robin that you pointed us
towards, where people that likely don't have a whole lot to do with the
case still present themselves in a very questionable, bizarre way. Or they lack
of an affect that we expect them to have, they lack a grief reaction
that we expect them to have. So once you tell your story, I
could see stepping aside and saying, you know what, I told you everything
I know. I told you quote the truth, which I don't think Herman
is capable of. But if he told him, you know what he knew,
I could see anybody stepping aside and saying, you'll have to talk to
my attorney. If you're still going to have to talk to me, because
I've told you everything I know, and that's all I'm gonna say. Right,
it doesn't benefit you necessarily as an innocent person to come forward and talk
about that. And in Herman's case, the more coverage he would have on
this case is more and more disrespect to his wife. Let's say he is
innocent and he and his wife did stay together. I don't need for years
to be talking about my pregnant lover who was killed. You know. It's
like I don't know, it's this is a very complicated, messy, messy
case for every single person involved is horrific. Not every person who we likely
think is guilty is like Jewel kaylor Right. They're not out there and like
sharing everything just so confidently saying how much better their life is. I mean,
we would know more about her and if he was out there saying,
you know, my life's actually been pretty great since Evelyn went missing, but
we don't have that, So maybe he had the good sense to avoid the
media, or he's just somebody who really wanted to repair his relationship, which
I think he likely personally, my opinion, wanted to avoid the media because
if you're guilty, you're better to say nothing. We're lucky that he even
went to the police, because it looks like Evelyn didn't have a lot of
ties with English speakers who were local. Who knows how long it could have
taken if he didn't do that much, but I guess it's not surprising that
he didn't go further and like give interviews. Yeah, Like technically, I
don't know what herman Aguilare looks like. I don't think there are any photographs
of him on the internets. We don't know what his wife looks like,
we know nothing about even know her names. So they've been able to go
on living their lives for the next twenty years and obviously do not get hounded
about being potential suspect in a murder. Whereas, as a comparison, jul
Kaylor has his own personal Facebook and people spam it all the time with equal
comments. Because of that interview. He did it unsolved mysteries over thirty five
years ago, so regardless of whether he's guilty or innocent, I think Herman
definitely made the wise choice by neglecting to speak with the media. Now,
since Alex is technically still a missing person, I'd like to hold out hope
that maybe he was sold, given away, or raised by someone else.
Given the circumstances, he theoretically could have been smuggled across the border into Mexico,
which is why it's been so hard to track him down. But until
evidence emerges that he's still alive somewhere, sadly, I think it's most like
that his body was also disposed of in San Francisco Bay and has just never
been found. But if either of Evelyn's children survive, Alex and Fernando would
currently be twenty six and twenty years old, respectively. Whatever happened, this
is a horribly tragic story in which there are no less than three victims,
and it would be nice to get a resolution at some point. If you
happen to have any information on the murder of Evelyn Hernandez or the disappearance of
Alex Hernandez, please contact the San Francisco Police Department at four one three five
three one zero seven one. That's four one three, five five three one
zero seven one, Jules Ashley, any final thoughts on this case. It's
a complex one that I'm very grateful you guys decided to cover on this podcast.
It's it's one of those that hits on so many issues, right that
are bigger than Evelyn and Alex and Fernando. It's this idea of victimization of
pregnant women. It's the idea that win, secrets and manipulation occur within the
dynamics of a relationship, and when pregnancy is added into relationship, how dangerous
that becomes for all parties involved and even you know, extra extra partners who
are involved, how scary that can become. And it's also this conversation about
why Evelyn and her beautiful five year old baby and her incredible unborn child who
was weeks away from entering this world are our days away from entering this world
did not get incredible coverage of their deaths and missing status. Right would we
be talking about this case had they been the Lacy Peterson of that day,
Right, if they had been on the front cover of a newspaper, if
we had given the resources at the department to them, if the community had
been vigilant and demanded answers, if herman had been questioned more, would we
be talking about this case? I don't think so. And like I said,
I could do an hour too long podcast simply talking about the ideal victim
and the media coverage that they receive and how inaccurate and how much that misrepresents
violence in our communities. But the reality is is, how do you provide
every family and every victim with justice. How do you provide them with the
resources they deserve? Because every single one of them is someone's wife, daughter,
son, husband, brother, best friend. They're all somebody to some
body, and so we don't have the ability to solve that problem. But
could we do better as a media, as a society, Could we do
better at providing more accurate representation and utilizing the limited resource we have in a
better way. There's got to be something that we can do. And so
my heart is broken for Evelyn's family. My heart is broken at the fact
that it's likely these two little boys had their whole futures taken away from them.
Most likely, in my opinion, because of selfishness and because of a
narcissistic desire to have what one wanted right and not what was the right thing
to do. Oh man, it's one of those of my blood's got to
calm down when we stop recording, because it's inconceivable to think that this is
a reality and not just some mystery that I'm reading. It's a real case
where Evelyn lost her life, where Alex and Fernando likely lost their life.
So I guess, at the end of the day, if it be a
miracle if someone came forward with information dynamics change time does allow for answers and
cases, Man, would it be very powerful to see an arrest made in
this case. But even more than that, thank you guys for bringing attention
to these incredibly important conversations. One thing that really strikes me with this case
is, like you just said, Ash, Fernando and Alex likely lost their
lives too, even though we don't know what happened to their remains, but
personally I believe they're likely in the San Francisco Bay, just like their mother.
But what really gets me is that little Alex was a little human.
He was in this world, He was of this world and people interacted with
him, and I really wish that we knew more about him as a little
boy. I think it would add so much. And I think we know
so little of each of the individuals in this case, and that's really heartbreaking.
But I think we know so much more about Evelyn because she was an
adult. But we see this so often in cases with children, where we're
given such limited information and all we want is to be able to tell all
of you about who this little boy was and how he likely would have benefited
this world. And it's such an injustice that we have this lack of information.
That somebody decided to take him from this world before he could become an
adult and have all of those experiences like kissing a girl for the first time,
going to prom, you know, getting his first job, and the
same things were likely taken from Fernando, and that is just is so heartbreaking.
And I think that we have somebody like Herman, who we've discussed throughout,
is a destructive and potentially dangerous person. I think the walls were closing
in on him and he did something that was an act of desperation, most
likely because he wanted to keep his wife from finding out about the affair,
And we don't know if Hermann told his wife about the affair, if she
found out about the affair, and what was the timeline for that. Maybe
after he went to police he told her about the affair because he was trying
to get ahead of it, but he only told her just enough information,
not about the pregnancy. It seems that we aren't privy to those exact details.
But either way, it seems likely that the wife could have potentially given
a false alibi for a myriad of reasons, because if she is financially dependent,
she would want to continue that support and her life would change catastrophically if
she told the police they know he wasn't there or yes, he may have
potentially done this, So I can understand the reasons that would underlie a potential
decision to fabricate certain details to the police, and also maybe wanting to distance
herself from the fact that her husband could have potentially been capable of doing such
a heinous act. This is just such a travesty. I do not think
that Scott Peterson had anything to do with it, and I think the connections
to the two cases are so so tenuous and very very weak, and it's
just it breaks my heart anything that involves children and involves pregnant women and people
that are so vulnerable, they're the hardest to cover and the hardest to listen
to. Yeah, we had a lot of discussions on our episodes about the
comparison between this and the Lacy Peterson case. By one case got more media
coverage than the other. But in a way, I think one of the
silver linings is because of the tenuous connection to the Lacy Peterson case, that's
why Evelyn's story and Alex's story wound up getting any coverage at all. Because
I have a feeling that if Lacey had not been murdered nine months later,
we might not have heard of this at all, like it would have.
They probably would have reported on Evelyn's torso being found, but we would have
learned very little about her background, very little about Alex, very little about
her affair with herman So. At the very least, even though it's completely
ridiculous that Scott's defense team was trying to blame like a serial killer or a
satanic cult on murdering Lacey and Evelyn in a group of pregnant women, at
least it did put Evelyn's case on the spotlight, and that's one of the
main reasons we know about it today. But still it has gotten nowhere near
as much coverage as it deserves because we've talked about there are so many pieces
of the puzzle missing. We don't know a lot about Herman himself, We
don't know a lot about his wife, and we don't what are many details
missing about his relationship with Evelyn, And like Jules says, we don't know
much about Alex as a boy, as a person, and that's kind of
the sad thing is that this case has been out of the spotlight for many
years. We don't know Herman's current whereabouts. Police have found pretty much no
evidence at all linking to any specific suspects, and even though I do think
that Herman probably is the most likely suspect he was the one who had the
motive to murder not one, but two, but three people, there is
just nothing to officially implicate him because there was such a delay reporting Evelyn and
Alex missing, So who knows how much evidence could have been cleaned up.
I mean, maybe the big breakthrough is one day, maybe Herman's wife will
break up with him and decide to come forward. For all we know,
maybe she knows incriminating information about him that could break this case wide open,
but until that happens, it's nothing more than speculation. But it is a
horrific case because not only did Evelyn and Alex likely lose their lives, but
Fernando probably did as well before he had the chance to be born. So
we have technically one murder and two missing children who are probably dead. And
I just hope that one of these days we will get the full truth about
what happened and that all three of these victims will get justice. Robin,
do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went 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 dollars. 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 track over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want
to download a commentary track in which I make more smartass remarks about Jewel 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
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which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, 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
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So until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chilly
pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy