LOS ANGELES (KABC) — A devastated family is seeking justice for a 13-year-old boy after learning a backlog of cases at the Los Angeles County DA’s Office may have allowed the boy’s alleged killer to continue his crimes.
Oscar Omar Hernandez was found dead last month on the side of a road in Oxnard.
His family said he boarded a Metrolink train to Palmdale to help a soccer coach at a complex there. When he didn’t return home that night, the family reported him missing.
Since then, Mario Garcia Aquino, 43, has been charged with killing the boy. Prosecutors claim Garcia Aquino killed the 13-year-old and dumped his body in Ventura County.
He was also arrested in an unrelated case in which he is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy in Palmdale on Feb. 22, 2024.
Garcia Aquino was charged with one felony count of assault with the intent to commit a sexual offense and faces a possible maximum sentence of six years in state prison in that case.
This week, Eyewitness News obtained a memo from the DA’s office sent to staff members, calling for the immediate processing of family violence and sex crime cases filed for arrest warrants.
The move comes after serious questions were raised about why sex abuse charges were not filed against Garcia Aquino nearly a year before Hernandez’s death.
“They should have never let that criminal roam the streets,” said Luis Carrillo, the attorney representing the boy’s family. “They should’ve charged him with the other two cases.”
“This is an enormous stain on the district attorney’s office and an enormous stain on the city of Los Angeles,” he added.
The DA’s office said it has been working on the backlog of cases inherited from former DA George Gascón.
There’s reportedly 10,000 cases, and among them is the case against Garcia Aquino in which he’s accused of sexually assaulting another teen.
The DA’s office says it has now reduced the number of backlog cases to roughly 8,000, saying in a statement, “Any unaddressed case is one too many, and this office will work diligently to address them all in as timely a manner as possible. We owe it to the victims and their families to bring them justice for the harm they have suffered.”
For Hernandez’s family, one backlogged case is one too many.
“You never know who will be roaming the streets doing these kinds of horrible, horrible things,” said Carrillo. “They let this log jam continue, and meanwhile that monster was out.”
Garcia Aquino is being held without bail. He’s due back in court in June.
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