A Los Angeles-area youth football coach’s allegation was the killing of the body of a 13-year-old boy who discovered new questions about an earlier criminal investigation along Oxnard’s road to understand the defendant’s contact with the minor and his immigration status.
Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, 43, was charged with murder in a special case and Oscar Omar Hernandez died. Police records show Garcia Aquino is the subject of two early investigations into alleged misconduct with children.
Here is what we know:
Booking photos of Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, 43
(Jessica Foster/ courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s author)
Earlier situation
Garcia Aquino was charged this week with assault with the intention of rape in the February 22, 2024 incident. The coach allegedly “used trust and confidence to commit the attack’s position”, according to the criminal record filed in court. Authorities said the crime involved a 16-year-old boy.
Los Angeles County. Atti. Nathan Hochman said this week that the delay in the lawsuit filed in the 2024 attack was because the crime must be investigated thoroughly.
According to multiple law enforcement officers, Garcia Aquino was also the subject of a LAPD investigation into sexual assault by minors in 2022, but was never charged because the victims allegedly refused to testify against him.
Prosecutors charged Hernandez with one felony charge of sexual offence and obscene acts of a 14- or 15-year-old child on Tuesday. Prosecutors accused Garcia Aquino of sexual assault at the home of Silma on December 10, 2022.
Sources said both victims were linked to his football coach.
Authorities say Garcia Aquino is a youth travel football coach at Hurricane Valley Boys Football Club in the Silma region and works with different age groups.
Los Angeles County. Atti. Nathan Hochman announced the murder charges of Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino as a relative of Oscar Omar Hernandez.
(Richard Winton/Los Angeles Times)
Immigration Status
Several law enforcement sources said they had no right to speak publicly about the case, saying Garcia Aquino was an undocumented immigrant to El Salvador.
Garcia Aquino has not entered the request yet and cannot comment.
Although Garcia Aquino has not been convicted of the killing and attack, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on X, calling him a “degenerate illegal foreigner who has never been in this country.”
It is unclear when Garcia Aquino was in the United States and how exactly he got here.
Oscar Omar Hernandez kills
Hernandez’s family reported that the teenager disappeared on Sunday, March 30 because he failed to return home from his coach’s Lancaster residence.
The day before the reported disappearance, the teenager, who lived in Sun Valley, took a train to the Antelope Valley. When the boy’s brother tried to call him later that day, the coach answered the boy’s cell phone, saying that the boy was busy and could not speak.
According to family and investigators, the boy’s father, Daniel Hernandez, then called the coach and insisted that he sent the teenager down.
After the boy disappeared, investigators used data from cell phone devices, cell phone towers and other tracking systems and determined that the suspect visited the Oxnard area near McGrath State Beach and the Santa Clara River, according to law enforcement sources.
A search by LAPD investigators and FBI agents resulted in the discovery of the boy’s body along with North Harbor Avenue north of West Gonzalez Road. Investigators did not specify a cause of death.
