A youth soccer coach was ordered Friday to stand trial on a murder charge stemming from a 13-year-old boy’s death, along with sex-related crimes involving two other teenage boys.
Following a hearing that lasted about 2 1/2 days, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli found sufficient evidence to allow the case against Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino, 45, to proceed to trial.
The defendant is charged with murder involving the March 2025 death of Oscar “Omar” Hernandez, along with the special-circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office opted not to seek the death penalty against Garcia-Aquino, according to Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson. The defendant could now face a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted as charged.
He is also charged with a dozen other counts, including one count each of assault with intent to commit a lewd act involving the two surviving alleged victims, along with one count of lewd act on a child involving one of the teens at a home in Sylmar where the defendant was living in 2022.
In February, prosecutors added eight new counts of sodomy of a person under 16 and one new count of oral copulation of a person under 16 involving the second alleged surviving victim between September 2022 and July 2023 in Palmdale.
Hernandez — who was reported missing two days after he traveled to Lancaster to see his soccer coach on March 28, 2025 — was found dead less than a week later by the side of a road in Oxnard.
Dr. Christopher Young, Ventura County’s chief medical examiner, testified that he determined the teen’s case of death to be acute ethanol intoxication — alcohol poisoning — and that he determined the manner of death to be a homicide.
He noted that there was no evidence that Hernandez was an experienced drinker and that the cause of death is very unusual for someone his age.
Los Angeles Police Department Detective Sean Hansen told the judge that he examined records for a cell phone belonging to Garcia-Aquino and determined that his phone had traveled to the Oxnard area on March 31, 2025, saying that led him to believe the area should be searched. He acknowledged on cross-examination by one of Garcia-Aquino’s attorneys that the data only showed the location of the phone, but not any particular person.
An FBI special agent — who went to the area April 2, 2025, after receiving information about the cell phone data — testified that he found the teen’s body lying in the grass and initially thought the person was sleeping. He said he approached the body and realized the person was dead and matched the description of the missing boy.
LAPD criminalist Forrest Yumori testified testing done on a sexual assault kit done on the 13-year-old boy’s body indicated that Garcia-Aquino was included as a possible contributor of DNA recovered on two swabs collected from the teen.
One of the other alleged victims testified Thursday that he trusted Garcia-Aquino, who took him to his trailer after a December 2022 shopping trip. The now-17-year-old boy said that Garcia-Aquino told him that he would pay him for every shot of tequila he drank, punched him in the face, touched his genitalia and offered to give the boy money to touch him. He said that he resisted the defendant’s advances..
That teen said he had never drank alcohol before and didn’t understand how each shot would affect him.
One of the teen’s friends said the boy had told him what happened upon arriving home to the apartment complex where the two each lived, and that “He didn’t look OK at all.”
The other boy’s mother testified that her son began living at his father’s request with Garcia-Aquino as a result of family issues, and that she “never trusted this man.” She said her son called her in February 2024 and asked her to pick him up because “that man was sick” and that he had touched him. She said she told her son to call the police.
“He was scared. He hugged me and cried,” she said of her son’s demeanor upon her arrival to pick him up.
LAPD Detective Adam Futami testified that he and his partner watched Garcia-Aquino digging in the dirt at a location near his Lancaster home shortly before his April 2, 2025, arrest. He said police subsequently discovered a cell phone inside a white paper bag that had been buried in the dirt.
Now-retired LAPD Detective Victor Marin told the judge that an examination of the phone’s data turned up child sexual abuse materials involving the teen named in the charges involving the alleged crimes involving one of the surviving alleged victims named in the charges from September 2022 to July 2023.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna told reporters last year that Garcia-Aquino was a youth travel soccer coach with the Hurricane Valley Boys Soccer Club, working with different age divisions in the Sylmar area and had no reported criminal history.
In a statement posted on X, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated, “13-year-old Oscar `Omar’ Hernandez was an innocent child who was exploited and killed by this depraved illegal alien who should have never been in this country.”
Hernandez’s family said in a statement released last year that they were “devastated by the unimaginable loss” and “heartbroken that someone entrusted with his care could commit such a horrific act.”
Hernandez’s mother was in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom for portions of the hearing, during which other family members testified about the boy’s disappearance.
Garcia-Aquino remains jailed without bail pending arraignment April 24.