A Southern California youth soccer coach has been charged with the murder of a 13-year-old athlete, and is now also accused of sexually assaulting another teenage boy just one year earlier.
Oscar "Omar" Hernandez was last seen on March 28, when he boarded a train to Palmdale, California, to help his soccer coach, Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, with team-related tasks, People reported.
When the boy failed to return home, his family reported him missing on March 30. Police and federal agents launched a large-scale search that ended tragically on April 2, when Hernandez's body was found in a ditch near McGrath State Beach in Oxnard, nearly 100 miles from where he was last seen.
Garcia Aquino, 43, has been charged with murder with special circumstances, which prosecutors allege occurred during the commission of another violent felony—raising the stakes to either life without parole or the death penalty.
Authorities have not yet released Hernandez's cause of death. At the same time, Garcia Aquino is facing a separate felony charge for allegedly attempting a lewd act on a 16-year-old boy in February 2024, when the teen stayed with him in Palmdale.
The boy's family reported the alleged abuse, prompting an investigation by the LA County Sheriff's Department's Special Victims Bureau. Detectives have since reportedly uncovered an additional, unrelated child abuse case involving the coach, which is being handled by LAPD.
