A jury began deliberations Thursday in the trial of a Oceanside probationer accused of choking his girlfriend to death and dumping her body.
Hugo Lionel Hernandez, 46, is charged with murder for the slaying of Katherine Mary Neitzke, 33, of Romoland. He is accused of leaving her remains along the boundary separating Riverside and Orange counties, where they have yet to be found.
The prosecution and defense delivered closing statements Thursday at the Riverside Hall of Justice. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Steven Counelis then sent jurors behind closed doors to weigh evidence from the two-week trial.
Hernandez is being held on $1 million bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.
According to an arrest warrant declaration filed by sheriff’s investigators in January 2022, the defendant and Neitzke had been dating for just under a month when he allegedly killed her on July 26, 2019.
At the time, Neitzke was residing in a barn that had been converted to a living space south of Perris. Hernandez was staying with her.
Neitzke was reported missing by her sister-in-law in the late summer of 2019, and the case was initially treated as a missing person’s investigation. However, within a few months, detectives, suspecting foul play, initiated a homicide investigation.
A friend of the victim, Andrea Bailey, told detectives that she had received a “frantic call” from Neitzke on the night of July 25, 2019, during which she asked Bailey to pick her up at the converted barn. However, Neitzke then told her friend that she would call her back, but never did, according to the affidavit.
In the ensuing months, detectives spoke with other witnesses, culminating in a conversation with Edilberto “Eddie” Avena, who had been dating the defendant’s sister. Avena ultimately told sheriff’s Investigator Travis Gilbert that Hernandez had enlisted his assistance “to get rid of” the woman’s body, according to court papers.
According to Avena, Hernandez allegedly admitted manually strangling the woman, saying “she was a rat, and I had to take her down,” the affidavit stated.
Avena went on to describe how he reluctantly helped wrap the victim in a carpet and loaded her body into the back of his Chevrolet Yukon. Investigators allege the witness and Hernandez proceeded to drive toward Orange County via the Ortega (74) Highway, stopping two to three miles east of San Juan Capistrano.
Avena explained that he parked his SUV in the hills, and Hernandez and he carried the body an unspecified distance into the woods, dumping it, according to court papers.
Sufficient evidence was gathered to charge Hernandez with murder and Avena with being an accessory after the fact. He pleaded guilty to the felony count in March and is slated to be sentenced in February. He’s free on a $50,000 bond.
Despite several attempts to locate Neitzke’s remains by law enforcement and volunteers, her body has never been found.
Hernandez has prior convictions in another jurisdiction, but prosecutors did not offer specifics in court documents.
– City News Service
