Trial delays boost agony for parents of slain New Mexico Tech student
When we lose a child, we lose our footing in all that we think we know. The ground gives way, the sand shifts and we tumble heart first, like falling off a brittle cliff into a dark, lonely valley where nothing is familiar and everything hurts.
Eventually, we begin to learn the contours and the paths through this strange new valley of ours. We feel the sun again over the hilltops. We learn to go on.
But when you lose a child to violence — if he or she dies at the hand of another — the cliff is higher, ribbed with more jagged outcrops, the complications of a slow, ponderous and often cruel criminal justice system.
It’s like that for Maria and Jorge Hernandez.
They had a son, a brilliant young
man with soulful eyes and bounteous dark hair who at age 26 had accomplished more than many do in a lifetime.
Alex Hernandez, Albuquerque born and raised, was called a Renaissance man, versed in chemistry, computers, philosophy, physics, psychology, filmmaking, activism and ethics, dogs and dubstep, the arts, the heart, the world.
He volunteered at animal shelters, played in drum circles, philosophized with friends into the late hours about politics, peace, the environment, music, life.
“He was so curious and caring about the world and his place in it,” his father said. “He always thought about, and challenged others to think about, why more was not done for the good of humans, animals and nature.”
On Jan. 9, 2016, Alex was just months away from graduating from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, about 80 miles from his parents’ home in Albuquerque. He was already being courted by big corporations such as Google when he was struck from behind and killed by an SUV.
Charged with first-degree murder is Elijah Otero, 23, a onetime New Mexico Tech student who, according to a criminal complaint, admitted to deliberately and angrily slamming his green Ford Explorer into Alex on U.S. 60 in Socorro.
After numerous delays, including an eight-month pause to determine Otero’s competency, trial was finally set to begin this month. That date was vacated when Socorro County trial Judge Kevin Sweazea was appointed as a U.S. magistrate judge last month. A new trial date is set for Oct. 2.
The delays, the confusion and the sometimes callous treatment the Hernandezes have endured over the past 17 months have made Alex’s death all the more agonizing.
“It shouldn’t have to be this hard,” Maria Hernandez said, dabbing tears from her eyes as we talked.
It was harder than it should have been from the start.
Alex lay dead in the state Office of the Medical Investigator morgue for two days before the family was notified of the fatal crash — a slip-up as to who was supposed to notify the family.
More time passed before family members were allowed to view their son’s body to confirm his identity — a matter of OMI policy and confusion by an OMI investigator over Alex and another motor vehicle fatality whose face the Hernandezes were told was “deformed” by the crash.
“That was traumatic and inhumane, imagining that,” Jorge Hernandez said.
More traumatizing than that, they say, was being initially told their son had committed suicide by purposely darting in front of the vehicle. But the death certificate, which took eight months to obtain despite repeated pleading by the family, and the autopsy report both indicate that Alex’s manner of death was homicide.
“We knew Alex would never kill himself,” Jorge Hernandez said. “But we weren’t sure what had happened.”
Neither were Socorro police at first. The story as told by Otero kept changing.
According to the criminal complaint and police reports, Otero initially told police he had gone to a friend’s house to fetch his roommate’s dog, which had been hit by a car. He was driving south on U.S. 60 when he saw Alex get hit by a silver car.
Otero later modified his story to say that the dog had been hit on the highway by a silver car and that after he retrieved the dog he saw Alex lying near the roadway.
The story changed again when an officer asked him about the front damage to his SUV and Otero said he had struck Alex, who “looked like he got in front of his vehicle on purpose.”
Alex, Otero told them, was someone he said he had seen at social events but did not know personally.
It was not until three days later that surveillance video from a nearby auto shop was uncovered.
In the video, Alex is seen emerging from the front passenger’s side of Otero’s car parked on the highway’s north shoulder. The two appear to exchange words, Otero drives off but makes a U-turn and heads back toward Alex, who walks and then runs to the edge of the highway, where he is struck from behind.
When confronted with the video, Otero told police he struck Alex with his car because he was mad at him for not getting out of the car so that he could tend to the dog (which is never mentioned again in reports) and that Alex wanted to be struck.
A roommate later told police she had tried to get Otero help because he talks to himself and thinks cellphones are spying on him, but Otero refused counseling and said he was fine.
Otero remains in the Socorro County Detention Center.
In May 2016, Alex was posthumously honored with his bachelor’s degree in computer science from New Mexico Tech. In January, the Hernandezes handed out the first two “Alex Award” scholarships to two Tech students who, like Alex was, are dedicated to changing the world for the better.
They listen to the stories told by the many people who knew their son, how he loved his life and the possibilities he thought were just ahead of him.
They work toward finding their footing in this strange new valley. They go on.
Up Front is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/ letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.