Posted on 04/20/2003 1:08:30 PM PDT by tessalu
Yeah, a woman who could give better massages than 8 mo. pregnant, Laci.
This article was posted in today's San Jose Mercury News...
A pregnant woman vanishes. Part of her body, clad in maternity clothes, is found months later in San Francisco Bay. Family and friends wait for forensic science to confirm their worst fears. It's Evelyn Hernandez.
Her disappearance last May was not, like Laci Peterson's, an instant public sensation -- despite their similarities.
With so much attention again focused on the Peterson case, family as well as friends in San Francisco's Mission district say it is time for Hernandez's story to be told.
Both Peterson, 27, and Hernandez, 24, were eight months pregnant with sons when they disappeared. Both women were reported missing by someone they loved. And in both cases, foul play was suspected early on. But on the day Peterson's husband was arrested in her death, Evelyn's killer remained unknown.
``This is something we are still going through,'' said Berta Hernandez, no relation, a friend who mentored her in a drama program. ``They haven't found the person who did this.''
Evelyn Hernandez and Peterson shared similar, tragic deaths. But their lives were starkly different.
Evelyn was an immigrant and poor. She spent her teenage years in the Mission district, a heavily Latino neighborhood where she rented a small house with her mother. Most of her family, with the exception of a sister in the East Bay and another in Virginia, are in their native El Salvador.
When Evelyn was an infant, her mother left her behind when she escaped the civil war in El Salvador. She worked odd jobs in San Francisco to save enough to someday bring her daughter to America. Fourteen years later, Evelyn, the youngest of five daughters, joined her mother. But the union was troubled.
``To grow up without your mother, it's as though your mother is like a ghost,'' Berta Hernandez remembered Evelyn saying. ``It was very painful for them.''
But Evelyn found an outlet in the after-school theater program taught by Berta Hernandez. Always punctual and serious, Evelyn helped write adaptations of ``Romeo and Juliet'' to reflect an immigrant's struggles, recalled Carlos Petroni, who coached the amateur actress.
When she was 17, Evelyn became pregnant for the first time. Her mother did not approve and Evelyn moved out. The boy's father, a Navy man, left San Francisco never knowing about his son, Alex.
``It was very hard for her,'' Berta Hernandez recalled. ``In a sense she was alone again, in this new country with her new baby.''
Determined to survive
But Evelyn was determined to survive, she said. She worked as a drugstore clerk, a nurse's assistant and as a restaurant server in the tony Clift Hotel. She and Alex lived out of small rented bedrooms in cramped flats and homes. But everything she did, her friends said, was motivated by her love for her son.
``She was very focused on being a good mother,'' said Berta Hernandez, whose daughter attended Buena Vista Elementary School, where Alex was in kindergarten and Evelyn volunteered.
And she was excited about her second pregnancy.
On the night of May 1, Evelyn called her sister, Reina, to talk about a baby shower planned for her, according to police. She was expecting another son, whom she was going to name Fernando. Evelyn, who didn't have a car, was wondering how she would get to the East Bay for the party. During the conversation, she complained of labor pains.
Later that night, Reina, worried that her sister had gone into labor, tried to find her, Berta Hernandez said.
A week later, Evelyn's new boyfriend, Herman Albert Aguilera, reported her missing, police said.
The days and nights passed with the whereabouts of Evelyn and Alex not known. Alex's teachers grew concerned. They hadn't seen the punctual mother with her son. They were beginning to think something was wrong. So was Evelyn's small circle of friends, who'd heard about Aguilera, an older man who turned out to be married.
``We started to call everybody,'' Berta Hernandez said. ``We called her sister in the East Bay. She was crazy with desperation. She didn't know what to do.''
Evelyn had apparently told her sisters that she was leaving her boyfriend and would raise his child on her own. But Reina told her friends she didn't believe, as police did, that her sister had left town after a fight with him.
`Not possible'
Frantically communicating through a sign-language interpreter, Reina, who is deaf, said `` `No, that's not possible,'' Berta Hernandez recalled. ``She was not going to disappear. She was going to give birth.''
Their fears grew when police found Evelyn's wallet near a South San Francisco channel, a few blocks from where Aguilera worked occasionally as a limousine driver.
Two months later, on July 24, a badly decomposed torso was spotted in the bay along the Embarcadero, near Folsom Street. A worn elastic waistband clung to the body; the label read ``Motherhood.''
By September, forensic tests identified the remains as those of Evelyn Hernandez, said Holly Pera, San Francisco police homicide inspector. Alex has never been found.
Aguilera was initially interviewed by police, but has since refused to cooperate, Pera said, adding that he was adamant about hiding Evelyn's pregnancy from his wife. The 37-year-old airline mechanic has not been named as a suspect.
Aguilera, who is still married, could not be reached for comment.
But the homicide case is still open. Every week, Pera walks along the Embarcadero, showing fliers to passersby, asking if anyone remembers this woman.
One of their own
People in the Mission district do. She was one of their own, Berta Hernandez said. They would see her walking by the shops on 24th Street, at the panaderia -- the bakery -- or on the No. 48 bus. They had watched her blossom from a young, naive girl into a confident young woman and mother. When she disappeared, they posted fliers on street posts and laundromats.
In October, when police seemed no closer to a solution, hundreds of friends, neighbors and people who knew of her demonstrated near the police station, demanding more attention be paid to the investigation.
``This cannot be forgotten,'' said Berta Hernandez. ``She was not traditional, but she was a great woman, a great girl.''
I remember reading that Scott is the youngest of 7....sounds like the spoiled youngest child syndrome (my own psychology) to me.
"Scott did not do this thing....superpower of Al Capone did"
Jackie Peterson: She called it a piece of shit. The only time I ever heard a bad word out of her mouth.
That makes Scott sound more guilty. He's working hard, they're struggling financially, and she's complaining about her car being "a piece shit".
I can't link you to a previous thread, but I can tell you that there was one that ran which totally discredited the older couple claiming to have seen Laci.
There were major problems with their recollections. I read the thread with interest, but left it believing that they were just two people who had waaaay too much time on their hands, and were looking for their 15 minutes of fame.
He was in a densely populated area and any number of people could have seen him (and perhaps did and have submitted statements to the police detectives). He could have been cocksure that the body would not surface because he wrapped it in a tarp, tied concrete blocks to it, and dumped it way out in the bay.
I am guessing because he was worried someone might have seen him at or around the scene and might remember having seen him, and he was covering that potential situation. Also he didn't expect Laci's body to break loose from the concrete he had it tied to. That's what I would guess. All accomplished liars mix fact in with their fiction to make the fiction more convincing.
Actually, now that I think about it, you're probably right, the family might have requested it to get out their side of the story and to explain how Scott was framed.
What I was trying to say in my first post was that grieving families may make compelling TV but they don't always make sense. Like the one where the soldier was killed and the media went around crowing about the father blaming Bush for his son's death. Grief is a horrible emotion and I usually change the channel when I see someone distraught from it since I just wish they'd leave these poor people alone to grieve. I think some news outlets exploit it for ratings and/or to support their slant on whatever the subject is.
Thanks for the welcome. I've been around a long time, and had to get a new name because I moved. (If you change phone number and ISP--local ISP, that is--you have to "re-up.")
Why did you have to get a new name? I was able to keep mine when I went from dialup to cable although I tried to sign on from a different computer last week and couldn't remember my password to save my life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.