A 13-year-old Sun Valley boy who was allegedly murdered by his soccer coach died of acute alcohol poisoning, according to a civil attorney for the victim’s family.
The finding raises new questions about what happened in the hours before seventh-grader Oscar Omar Hernandez, known as Omar, was found dead — time allegedly spent with his soccer coach, a man previously accused of sexually abusing a teen.
“It’s so many puzzle pieces that are coming together,” said civil attorney Michael Carrillo, “but at the end of the day, [the Hernandezes’] son is gone forever.”
Youth soccer coach Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, 43, was charged with murder with special circumstances in early April, making him eligible for the death penalty.
Garcia Aquino is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, multiple law enforcement sources told The Times in April. The sources were not authorized to speak publicly about the case. About two months before President Trump launched widespread raids targeting immigrant communities in Los Angeles, the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media about the alleged crime, describing Garcia Aquino as a “depraved illegal alien who should have never been in this country.”
It is unclear how long Garcia Aquino had been in the United States and the circumstances of how he came here.
Attempts to reach the Ventura County medical examiner’s office on Sunday were unsuccessful, but Carrillo confirmed that they were told Omar’s cause of death was “acute alcohol intoxication.”
“The tragedy and trauma with the release of information continues for this family. First he was missing then he was found in a ditch and now they come to discover it was alcohol intoxication,” Carrillo said.
Omar took a train to the Antelope Valley in late March to visit Garcia Aquino, a youth travel soccer coach with the Hurricane Valley boys soccer club in the Sylmar area. When Omar failed to return home, his family reported him missing. Los Angeles Police Department homicide detectives, working in tandem with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, found his body in a roadside ditch in Oxnard in early April.
On April 7, Garcia Aquino was charged with murder, including a special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of lewd acts with a child. Officials declined to state how Omar was killed at the time.
Garcia Aquino pleaded not guilty during a brief court appearance earlier this month. He is due back in court in August, according to court records.
He is represented by the Los Angeles County public defender’s office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Subsequent reporting revealed that Garcia Aquino was the subject of two earlier investigations into alleged misconduct with children.
He was not charged in a 2022 allegation of sexual assault because the alleged victim declined to testify against him, law enforcement sources told The Times.
However, nearly a year before Garcia Aquino was charged with murdering Omar, he was accused of sexual abuse by another teen. But he wasn’t charged in that case for 10 months, and an arrest warrant wasn’t sought for Garcia Aquino until three days before Omar was slain.
The delay in filing charges was blamed on a backlog of nearly 10,000 cases because of a court staffing crisis as well as a decision by former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascon to centralize criminal filings electronically, according to current Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman and Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Erlich, the president of the union that represents rank-and-file prosecutors.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
