The youth soccer coach, who police say is “the person of interest” in the death of a 13-year-old Los Angeles boy, has been charged with sexual assault in an unrelated case, authorities say.
Mario Ed Gardo Garcia Aquino, a soccer coach at Whitzel Park in North Hollywood, was arrested by Los Angeles police on Wednesday. On the same day, LAPD detectives working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered the body of Oscar Omar Hernandez along a desolate stretch in Ventura County.
Detectives from the LAPD Robbery and Murder Division made an arrest. They say it is linked to a 2024 sexual assault involving another suspect.
Hernandez’s family reported missing on Sunday, March 30th.
A teenager who lived in Sun Valley was on a train in Antelope Valley the day before he was reported missing. When the boy’s brother tried to call him later that day, the coach answered the boy’s cell phone and said he was too busy to speak. Family members and investigators said the boy’s father, Daniel Hernandez, later called the coach and insisted that the teen would be dropped off near the family’s home.
The day after the boy was reported missing, investigators began tracking the movements of the coach and boy after leaving his home in the San Fernando Valley.
Authorities also found that Garcia Aquino was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office last year regarding the sexual assault allegations.
Last Wednesday, when investigators searched the teenager, Garcia Aquino was accused of assault with intent to commit rape in connection with the February 22, 2024 case, according to criminal records filed with court. Garcia Aquino missed the scheduled arrest Monday.
It is unclear why the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office did not request him previously.
Multiple law sources that said they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case said Garcia Aquino was an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.
Garcia Aquino was also the subject of an investigation into LAPD for sexual assault on minors in 2022, but was not charged at that time as the victim refused to testify against him, according to multiple law enforcement agencies.
After the boy’s disappearance, investigators who used data from cell phone devices, cell phone towers and other tracking systems determined that the suspect had visited the Oxnard area near McGrath State Beach and the Santa Clara River, according to law enforcement agencies that were not authorized to discuss the probe. A search for the foot by LAPD investigators and FBI agents found the boy’s body alongside North Harbor Boulevard, north of West Gonzalez Road. Investigators did not specify a cause of death.
On Thursday, the boy’s family stayed up all night at the location where his body was found. “We had that person in our house,” his sister Alejandra told KTLA through a translator. “He helped us find Oscars.”
The boy’s mother, Gladys Bautista, wore a soccer jersey and her son “there was no need to be treated like an animal. That was my son,” she said in Spanish.
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