Oscar Omar Hernandez’s cause of death at hands of soccer coach revealed
A 13-year-old boy allegedly murdered by his illegal migrant soccer coach before his body was dumped in a ditch died from alcohol poisoning, California authorities revealed last week.
Oscar Omar Hernandez was last seen alive on March 28 after leaving his Sun Valley home to meet his soccer coach, Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino, 43, according to a complaint from the district attorney’s office.
Hernandez’s family reported him missing two days later after he didn’t return from his coach’s in the Lancaster/Palmdale area and stopped answering calls.
The teen’s body was discovered alongside a road in Ventura County on April 2.
His cause of death was listed as acute ethanol intoxication — or alcohol poisoning — by the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office, as reported by NBC Los Angeles.
Garcia-Aquino, who had already been under investigation for two other alleged sexual assaults, was charged with murdering Hernandez in April.
The soccer coach faces one count of murder with the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of lewd acts with a child.
He is eligible for the death penalty.
Hernandez’s family said they dropped the teen off at a train station in the San Fernando Valley so that he could help his coach make soccer jerseys at his Lancaster home.
The pair were introduced to each other through an after-school soccer program.
“His soccer coach made soccer jerseys,” Oscar’s sister, Alejandra Hernandez, said. “He had taken other soccer teammates to help him, and that’s why my brother went.”
Hernandez’s relatives called him that night to check on him, but Garcia-Aquino answered the phone instead, and said the boy couldn’t speak to them because his hands were full of paint, Alejandra said.
Garcia-Aquino was expected to drive the boy home the next morning, but when he never arrived, he told worried relatives that he had dropped the boy off.
Calls to Hernandez’s phone went unanswered, but a response was sent from the phone saying “I’m going to a party,” according to the family.
Garcia-Aquino, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, faces a separate charge stemming from an alleged sex assault against a 16-year-old boy in Palmdale, Calif., in February last year.
He allegedly “befriended a Sylmar family who allowed their juvenile son to stay with him at his residence in Palmdale,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a press conference in April.
He also faces child sexual abuse charges stemming from a case in 2022 investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Garcia-Aquino pleaded not guilty on June 18 to murder, including special circumstances for lewd acts with a child.
He is due back in court in August, per CBS News and LA Times.