Who Gets Remembered? Evelyn Hernandez and the Media Divide

In May 2002, 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez vanished from San Francisco just days before giving birth to her second child. Her 5-year-old son, Alex, disappeared with her. Months later, Evelyn’s partial remains were found floating in the Bay, her unborn child never recovered. Her case remains unsolved. Her son is still missing. And hardly anyone knows their names.

Just seven months later, another pregnant woman — Laci Peterson — would go missing in Northern California. Her story dominated national headlines. Search teams, press conferences, candlelight vigils, and a media frenzy followed. But Evelyn’s story? It barely made local news.

In this episode, we walk through Evelyn Hernandez’s life, disappearance, and the chilling details of a case that never got the attention it deserved. We examine the differences in how the media — and the public — responded to two nearly identical tragedies, and what those differences reveal about race, class, and whose stories we choose to care about.

This is a story of three lives lost, justice denied, and the powerful question at the heart of so many missing persons cases:

Who gets remembered? And who gets left behind?

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

Thank you so much for listening to Vanished Voices. We truly appreciate you!

Transcript

evelynherandez1(2).2 - Mic2

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hi, welcome to Vanished Voices. We're your hosts. I'm Jenna. And I'm Shannon. I have a really tragic case for you today. On May 1st, 2002, 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez vanished from San Francisco along with her little boy Alex. Evelyn was from Salvador. She was a loving, single mother who was just days away from giving birth to her second child. Her disappearance and the discovery of her mutilated body months later barely made the news beyond local reports. Even as an eerily similar case captivated the nation. Only five months after Evelyn went missing, another young pregnant woman named Lacey Peterson would also disappear in Northern California. Lacey's story became a media sensation and household news, while Evelyn's case remained largely in the shadows. This is a difficult and heartbreaking story involving the murder of a young mother and the likely death of her two children. It's an important one to tell. Evelyn's case highlights the disparity in how missing persons' cases are treated, a disparity often falling along lines of race, class, and media appeal. Why did one pregnant woman's story dominate national news while another pregnant woman's similar tragedy barely registered? The answers aren't easy, but examining them can shed light on larger issues in true crime and missing persons investigations. So let's dive into the unsolved case of Evelyn Hernandez. She was much more than just a victim. She was a vibrant young woman with a full life, a family, and dreams of her own. Born in El Salvador, Evelyn moved to the United States at age 14 to live with her mother, hoping for a better future. By her late teens, while attending McIntyre High School in San Francisco, Evelyn became pregnant with her first child, whose name was Alex. Despite the challenges of being a teen mom, Evelyn embraced motherhood. Friends and family describe her as a devoted, loving mother who worked hard to support her son. She also made time to volunteer at Alex's preschool and later at his elementary school, wanting to be involved and present in his life. By 2002, Evelyn was 24 years old and living with five-year-old Alex in the Crocker Amazon neighborhood of San Francisco, a working class area just south of the mission district. Evelyn had trained and worked as a vocational nurse and also held jobs at places like Costco and the Clift Hotel in Union Square. At the time of her disappearance, however, she was on disability leave from work due to complications with her pregnancy. Money was tight, but she was managing. She rented a modest apartment on Lowell Street. And according to Detective Holly Era of the San Francisco PD, Evelyn's boyfriend was helping pay the rent. Life wasn't easy for Evelyn being a single mom. She also had limited English skills.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Even after being in the States since she was 14. Yeah, so 10 years, but I think having grown up only speaking. I wonder if she was also working jobs that she was able to just use her first language as her regular speaking.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

They might have needed that too. Yeah. At this point, she was nine months pregnant, but by all accounts, she was doing her best for her family. She was really excited for the new baby's arrival, and her sisters were planning a baby shower to celebrate with her. Evelyn's personal life, however, did have its struggles. She had been let down before by Alex's biological father, who was an ex-boyfriend in the Navy. He had actually never met his son.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

And so was he older and not in high school when she was in high school?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

I am not entirely sure. They don't talk about him in the reporting very much.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

But needless to say, he was at station somewhere else away, had no involvement in the son's life. Okay. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And by this point, Alex was five and he's never met him and not given her any child support or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Which is she probably didn't realize. But when you have somebody in the military, it's almost extremely easy to get child support and it comes like that check comes, which she probably didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

It's so sad because she's working right jobs as much as she can and getting no support. More recently, Evelyn's romantic relationship with the father of her unborn baby had become a source of stress. Her boyfriend was a 36-year-old man named Herman, whom she'd been dating for a while. But Evelyn hadn't known for most of the time that they were dating that Herman was already married. When Evelyn announced her pregnancy, Herman's demeanor changed. He grew distant, he was less enthusiastic about the baby, which worried Evelyn's friends. One of her really close friends is a woman named Twiggy. She later said that Herman seemed upset when Evelyn told him about the pregnancy. She said, quote, I think he started seeing this is more serious than what I thought, and now she wants something more. End quote. He began to back away from the relationship, sensing something was off. Evelyn reached out to Herman's mother to ask if there were problems. And that's when and how she learned the truth. Herman was already married. The revelation understandably devastated Evelyn.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Imagine finding that out from your boyfriend's mother. I can't even And the fact that she was able to contact the mom tells me he'd brought her around. Right. So why had nobody told her that before? And why were they just going along? And plus he's I feels like he's a lot older than her, too. 12 years. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I have actually wondered how she was able to reach out. Because it to me, from some of the things I've read, it doesn't seem like she'd met her before.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Oh, okay. So she probably just Facebook stalked her. Oh, I bet that's it. And well, no, it's 2002. Oh. Yeah. So that didn't exist. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. That's I might need you to think on that. Yeah. Was he an immigrant also or was he American?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

It sounds like his family at least was from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I'm not sure if he was born here or something like that. I mean, because like, okay, how did he meet her? They probably worked in the same circles or something similar to where maybe culturally family is very important. So maybe it's just families are hanging out and it's being met through mutual friends. Possibly. Because I'm like, she's already has a young child. I can't imagine and with no help, except maybe from her family. So I can't imagine she's out partying. So I feel like for her to meet somebody new, it's gonna have to either be a setup or a family function she was at where she meets somebody at the family functions. Maybe their families knew each other. Possibly.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

I kind of wonder if they met because he was driving a limo and she was working at that hotel. Oh yeah. So it's possible that you lost paths that way. Either way, Evelyn was devastated. She had believed that Herman was committed to her and instead he'd been lying through their whole relationship. When Evelyn found out that he was married, she made up her mind to end the relationship. Good for her. Good for her. Very difficult though, when you're nine months pregnant with a five-year-old. Gotta be awful. Detective Para later explained that Evelyn, quote, had made the decision to stop seeing Herman because she felt that he wouldn't leave his wife and she wanted to get on with her life. End quote. This decision caused friction. Herman had been financially supporting her. He was helping to pay for her apartment. And apparently he didn't want to end the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Which is crazy. You're literally married. And you're being not happy about the baby anyway. Right. Maybe he assumed she would go after him for child. Because I'm curious, did his wife know at this point that he was getting ready to have a whole baby to have to support? I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

She didn't know she didn't know he was paying for her apartment. Right. And I'm wondering if that was maybe cash tips, something from his limo driving job, or she wasn't involved in finances, possibly. Yeah. Might have had separate accounts. Yeah. Or no account and he Yes, exactly. He had all the money. Kind of sounds like he's in charge of those things. Herman had expected to still be able to come by Evelyn's place, especially since he was paying the rent.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

But Evelyn was done. Oh, I wonder if it was in his name. And that's why he had to maybe pay. And that's why, again, he felt entitled. It seems very like she's like, okay, we're done, but his entitlement is still feel like he was allowed access to her. Yeah. Knowing he does it, it doesn't feel like he's excited about a baby and has a whole other relationship is very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

The whole dynamic is a little bit difficult to understand, I feel like. By the end of April 2002, Evelyn really had decided that she had no future with Herman. She was preparing for a new baby on her own, and she really was looking forward to welcoming Baby Fernando, which was the name she'd picked out, and just focused on the future, building a better life for her and her kids. It's important to understand who Evelyn was before we dive into the details of her disappearance. We always like to get to know these people. They're real people and not just a faceless victim. She was a real person with family, friends who cared about her. She had this five-year-old boy who adored her, a newborn on the way, whom she was already obsessed with in the best way. She was juggling the responsibilities of motherhood and pregnancy, dealing with the heartbreak from a deceitful boyfriend, and really trying to make ends meet in expensive San Francisco.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yeah, I don't think there's anywhere that's affordable housing.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

No.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

At least from what I've heard.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, absolutely. Let's turn the timeline to what happened in spring of 2002. So Evelyn's last days before she went missing. Just a week before her due date, Evelyn was in full nesting and preparation mode for the baby. She was in frequent contact with her sisters about finalizing a baby shower and other plans. According to phone records and family accounts, Evelyn spent April 30th, 2002, tying up Lucents and staying in touch with loved ones. She spoke on the phone with Herman that day, also with two of her sisters. One sister lived across the Bay in Richmond, California, and another lived on the East Coast in Virginia. Everything, according to both sisters, seemed normal during those calls. In fact, Evelyn and her San Francisco-based sister were excitedly discussing the baby shower that her sister had planned for her. When was the baby shower planned for? You know the date? I think it was that weekend. Which really is right when she's giving birth. Yeah. So that's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Very close to the due date. Right. Because all the reporting says she's a big thing. Although it's not the first time I've heard of having a baby shower after the baby was born and it becomes, what is it, a sprinkle when the you get to meet the baby or whatever? Oh yeah. Yeah. And maybe that was the plan. Yeah. But it seems like it was in the and we have cultural differences that maybe that is more what's done in their culture is either it's days before the due date or the anticipation of maybe introducing people to the baby.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

And it is possible maybe that family was planning to come in to meet the baby. So they wanted to coordinate the shower right along with that. Importantly, Evelyn gave no indication of any imminent travel, no secret plans. To the contrary, she was making plans for the immediate future in San Francisco. The next day, Wednesday, May 1st, 2002, started out as an ordinary day for Evelyn. That morning, she phoned her sister Olivia and mentioned that she wasn't feeling very well. She had some abdominal pains, which, you know, is not unusual at nine months pregnant. No, probably Braxton Hicks. Yep. She might have even been starting to have contractions. She was right there. Despite feeling sick, Evelyn still had to take care of Alex. Olivia recalled asking if Evelyn had anyone to help take Alex to school, given that Evelyn wasn't feeling well. But Evelyn said no, she would do it herself. Her family says this was typical of Evelyn. She rarely asked for help and was determined to handle her responsibilities as a mom. So despite how she was feeling, Evelyn got herself and Alex ready and left her apartment so she could drop him off at preschool that morning. After dropping off Alex at Buena Vista Elementary School, which was his preschool in the mission district, Evelyn proceeded to run some errands around town. She took a Muni bus to her bank and made a deposit. It makes sense that she's tending to finances ahead of the baby's arrival. While out, she also purchased a new wallet from a Ross store. It's a small detail, but that new wallet would become an important clue. By early afternoon, Evelyn picked up Alex from school and the two headed home together. Neighbors recall nothing out of the ordinary about Evelyn's routine that day. A pregnant mom taking care of her child, getting some errands done, preparing for a quiet evening at home. At around 6 p.m. on May 1st, it's believed that Evelyn was back at her apartment with Alex and she was checking her mail. Among her mail was a disability benefits check, because remember, Evelyn was on disability leave late in her pregnancy. So this check was likely her income to help cover these upcoming expenses.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And I remember that time frame from my own pregnancies. While you would get your FMLA and well, really your short-term disability check, it came in a check form. So it wasn't, even though you could have had direct deposit back then, when you went on maternity leave, it was in a check form. So you would actually have to go to the bank. It would come every week, not every other how I got paid then. And so I would have to, yeah, physically go into the bank and deposit the paper check, which I hadn't had to do in years at that point because I had been doing direct deposit. But yeah, I do remember that. So that's not out of the ordinary.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

That's kind of mean to do to pregnant women.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

I mean, now I know it's not the case, but I just know back then they kept your disability check separate, which I don't really know why. When, but maybe it's because direct deposit was still kind of new back then, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Because I know I think even back then you could choose direct deposit or still get a paper check. And it wasn't until years later that most companies finally forced you over. Because I do actually remember that too, when you were forced over, which I didn't care because I was already doing direct deposit, but there was mad employees about having to not use a paper check. Which was wild to me because I'm like, it's deposited for you. You don't even have to go to the bank anymore. Right. And I worked at the bank when that happened.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

And there were people that used to come in all the time that we didn't see very often anymore.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah. I remember in college when you only could have a paper check and everybody would be at the bank waiting in line. Cause I'd always try to time my lunch to go and cash my check. And you would be like watching the clock because the lines would sometimes be so long. But you'd do a 30-minute lunch and take the entire time waiting in that bank line to get your check cash.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, when we would open on Saturday morning or Friday morning, we would have a line.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah.

unknown 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

That check went in that new wallet she had bought earlier, probably planning to deposit it maybe the next day if she felt up to it. Sometime that evening, investigators say that she likely made dinner and got settled in for the night with Alex. Nothing seemed amiss to the outside world. Around 9 p.m. that night, Evelyn made one more phone call, this time to her other sister, the one in Richmond across the bay. They chatted about the upcoming baby shower and just normal, day-to-day things. The call ended uneventfully with the usual goodnights. This 9 p.m. call on May 1st, 2002 was the last confirmed contact anyone had with Evelyn. After that call, at some point during the night, something happened to Evelyn and Alex. By the next day, May 2nd, friends and family did begin to sense something was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

And that's a Thursday, right? Yes. So you would think Alex would be going to school. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Unless he went Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or something like that. True. If it's at an elementary school, I at least the ones around two days away. It is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Well, and he's already five, which tells me he's ready for kindergarten. So I would again, you're not you're really doing part-time preschool then, you're doing full-time usually.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

And he's probably starting kindergarten in the fall.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Right. Evelyn did not call anyone on May 2nd, nor did she show up or reach out regarding any of her usual activities. She was extremely close to her due date. If she had gone into labor or had a medical emergency, it's likely she would have called someone.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Well, she would have had somebody needed somebody to watch Alex because you don't bring a child into maternity ward and they don't let kids in, especially what under I feel like it's under eight. You're you can't even during the winter, yeah, they don't let you like I know you can come in during visiting hours, but during the winter when flu and pneumonia are going around, you're no kids are allowed on the maternity ward. Yeah. But also I don't think that's your plan is. No, you're gonna have mom or sister watch your son while you go into labor.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

And my guess was that it would have been her sister or maybe Twiggy, her really good friend. True. Instead, there was silence from Evelyn. Her sister grew concerned when she couldn't reach Evelyn by phone. Family members would later wonder if maybe Evelyn had decided to go to a hospital or a birthing center on her own to have the baby in private. And again, maybe they thought Twiggy was watching Alex, and maybe Twiggy thought her sister was. So we can come up with reasons why it wasn't already set up. Maybe it depended on the day she went into labor, who was going to help her out. I'm not sure. But it wasn't like her to completely drop out of contact without arranging for someone to care for Alex or without letting her sister know. Meanwhile, Herman was also trying to reach Evelyn that night and the next day, according to his accounts. Herman later told police he attempted to call Evelyn multiple times on the night of May 1st, but got no answer. Concerned, again, according to his version of events, he said he drove over to Evelyn's apartment that night to check on her. When he arrived, he said he couldn't find her, and he assumed that perhaps Evelyn was intentionally avoiding him, given the recent tensions between them.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Did anyone ever say they saw him over there that night? Not that I could find. So either way, nobody like because seeing him leave semi-corroborates his version versus that could still mean he killed her. Right. Or in the house. Get those phone records. Right. We had phone records that detailed back then. If she did have a house phone though, you would think that's a good thing. Oh yeah, landline. Since 2002, I still had a landline.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

That's true. Yeah. We did too. So I don't I do think there are some parts that just like all of our cases haven't been made public since it's still like open case. But I am really hoping that they got phone records. But also police weren't involved for so long after she went missing that I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah, because 2002. I remember there was a time where they couldn't tell a phone record unless somebody answered. But I know by 2002, they could see if just a number was dialed, even if no one had answered on a landline. And even he could have been calling while she was on the phone with her sister. Which would have gotten the busy signal. And I don't know if phone records, again, on a landline would show that level of detail that here's who tried to call you while you were talking to someone else.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And even when somebody does harm someone else, they can still call to leave that trail of breadcrumbs, right? Right. He said that he went back home after she didn't answer, figuring that she didn't want to see him. It's interesting. If he was truly worried for her welfare, giving up so easily seems odd. But then again, maybe he just thought she'd turned in early for the night or just truly was still mad at him because it hadn't been that long since she found out he was married and she'd been ending things. Herman's wife confirmed that he was at home with her later that night on May 1st, which became his alibi for the time Evelyn disappeared. Do Herman and the wife have children together? I couldn't find that they did. Okay. So I'm not sure if he just never wanted children or if they did, but they aren't in the report.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Right. Because I'm like, I can see a wife protecting him, especially if he's the father of children, but it's interesting more that you may just find out he's been cheating on you, is getting ready to have a baby, yet still providing him an alibi.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Over the next few days, the first week of May in 2002, there was no sign of Evelyn or Alex. The family was deeply worried. Evelyn's limited English and also she didn't have a car made it unlikely that she'd just spontaneously travel somewhere far on her own, especially being nine months pregnant.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Well, and that means she needed to cr make plans to get to the hospital. Right. And so again, there's evidence of her making future plans because she had would have had to have somebody take care of Alex, would have had to have gotten a ride. And this is when no Uber or Lyft existed. Taxis are expensive. That's not really your first choice. And you're not wanting to ride the bus when you're in labor. I guess if you have no choice, but depends on how close you are to the hospital. But yeah, that I guess that depends. Maybe that really was her plan is to get put herself on a bus to get to the hospital because that was her only option.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

But you still need somewhere for Alex to be. Investigators did say that they found her passport and Alex's in the apartment. And to me, that seems obvious, but they're saying it shows she didn't take an international trip.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Which but again, she they don't even let you fly when you're that pregnant. No, you can't fly. And again, limited funds. How are you buying a flight out of a country? Right. Because you're already on disability, which is what, 60% of your normal income? Yeah. You're not making enough. That's squeaking by at that point.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Mm-hmm. Perhaps some relatives could have thought that Evelyn had had a crisis and gotten to give birth quietly somewhere. But as days passed with no word, that hope faded. She had been so excited for the baby. And she had a support network in her sisters and her friends disappearing voluntarily just didn't make sense. Especially not with her little boy in tow and leaving all of her belongings behind. A full week went by with no contact from Evelyn. Finally, on May 7th, 2002, a missing persons report was officially filed. It was from Herman, who reported Evelyn and Alex missing to the police, which, again, seven days after they were last seen. I see in some of the reporting, people commenting that it's unclear why Evelyn's family members didn't report her missing that week.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

But it is possible that there's the language barrier or and they don't trust law enforcement. My guess is that because he did it, he is American. Or at least has been here long enough that he's essentially American. Right. And yes, probably speaks better English to be able to have those conversations with law enforcement. And you can look at it also as her family reaching out to him to help file it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

And if you want to Yeah, because it's clear he was around them. Right. He knew the family. And if you want to go down that rabbit hole, then it would look pretty suspicious if his unborn baby and girlfriend are missing and he doesn't even file a report. Right. To me, it's crazy that it took till then. But I guess with her not wanting to see him, trying to end things with him, he could have been using that to say, I just thought she didn't want to be around me. Yeah. News reporters do note that it's quote, not clear why Evelyn's family did not report her missing earlier, but I really think that's an easy one to explain. So either way, by May 7th, the authorities were finally alerted. A 24-year-old woman, nine months pregnant, and her five-year-old child were missing under concerning circumstances. When San Francisco police first received the missing persons report, they were cautious in their approach. Believe it or not, their initial theory was that Evelyn left voluntarily, which I think we can all believe at this point, that she possibly went away somewhere to have her baby in private. This might be a good idea. I don't even know how you do that. I don't either, because you need to go where your insurance goes. You need to go where your doctor is.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah. You like we talked about coverage for your child, your other older child, because they're not allowed in the hospital. Right. I just like there's no way.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

No, you're not going to a self-pay, whatever place. What it doesn't even make sense. That I think is one of the craziest things in the early part of this case to me.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah, for that to even be a theory is just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yep. Investigators proposed that maybe Evelyn felt overwhelmed and needed to get away. But anyone who knew her strongly disagreed with that idea.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Evelyn had been excited about the baby. If you go into labor and you're excited about the baby, you're calling people, guess what? I'm going, I'm in labor, baby's coming. Baby Fernando's coming.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Please come play with Alex. Let's do our plan that we've been doing. To her family, it was unthinkable that she would just run away with her son days before giving birth, leaving behind all of her belongings and her support system. And in fact, certain parts of this theory made the voluntary disappearance highly unlikely from the start. Evelyn's purse and her passport were still at home, which might have been her idea.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Purse with her wallet with the disability check were still at home?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yep. And she had not accessed any bank accounts since that May 1st transaction. And remember, that check came in the mail after she had already gotten to the bank that day. So she put in that wallet, needed to go back. She didn't own a car. No one saw her leave town by bus or train. But police were still hesitant to declare foul play without evidence. I think we have evidence, but it's okay. A few days into the investigation, a major clue emerged. Evelyn's wallet turned up and it was found in an odd place. Sometime around May 10th, so you know, about 10 days after she was last seen, a worker discovered a woman's wallet discarded in a parking lot on the industrial outskirts of South San Francisco near a street called Linden Avenue by a drainage canal. Inside the wallet was Evelyn's ID, the disability check made out to her, and$40 cash intact. The cash and the check being left behind suggest that robbery was not a motive for her disappearance.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

So wait, was the purse with wallet initially found in her apartment and then 10 days later they find it in a parking lot? Her purse was found there with her old wallet. Oh, but not this new one. Okay. So initially they saw the old wallet thinking that was it. Right. Not realizing that same day she'd bought herself a new wallet and had transferred her stuff over. Yep. So I would think they would say her ID is missing, but they found her passport.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

So maybe they're thinking that was right. And thank goodness she put her ID and her check in that wallet. It looked like someone had tossed the wallet out of a car window or just thrown it in a hurry. The location of this find was suspicious. The wallet was located just two blocks away from the workplace of Herman. Okay, that's weird. Yeah. He worked as a part-time limousine driver at a limo company in San Francisco. He also was an airline mechanic at the San Francisco airport nearby. So the limo seemed like it was extra work outside of his mechanic job. Not only that, Herman was known to frequently stop at a gas station right by the lot where the wallet was found. To investigators. Very coincidental. Uh-huh. It also directly linked the area of Herman's daily routine to an item from his missing girlfriend. Suspicion that Evelyn and Alex had met with foul play did finally start to solidify after finding the wallet. That's when police finally treated this case with greater urgency. They conducted searches in the vicinity focusing on the canal near where the wallet was discovered. They were looking for any evidence, maybe even bodies. Divers in search teams combed through the muddy canal waters and around the lap, but nothing else related to Evelyn or Alex turned up. It was as if someone had dumped the wallet there to get rid of it or mislead investigators, but nothing else. That discovery did, however, thankfully, change the tone of the investigation. By mid-summer 2002, with months passing, no word from Evelyn, police publicly acknowledged that they suspected foul play in her disappearance.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Okay, so that's a step because it's not just missing. Yes. Foul play. Suspected foul play. It is I think that's obvious with a five-year-old also missing and a brand new baby that should have been born by now. I'm wondering why we didn't put out a Amber alert for Alex.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Did those exist then? I believe it's in the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

I don't remember.

Marker

Marker

SPEAKER_01 33:25

I thought it was from Amber 1996. Oh, okay. So then yeah. But I will say the first nationwide or the first statewide plans didn't lead to the national system until 2005. So I believe in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was more of a state-by-state basis. Like I'm pretty sure Utah had its own version of that up until 2005. It was called something else. Inspector Holly Perra took over the case once it was considered a likely homicide. She later lamented that because the case hadn't been treated as high priority from the start, crucial time had been lost. She said, quote, it's hard to turn back the clock and get what we could have gotten if we had major publicity from the get-go, meaning eyewitnesses or tips or other things like that that might have surfaced early on. Even CCTV recordings, like maybe that gas station had those. But given now that it's been so long, they're probably recorded over. By the time they knew they had a murder investigation on their hands, the trail, unfortunately, had grown cold. From the beginning, Herman was the person of interest quietly lurking in the background of the investigation. Here you have the classic scenario: a pregnant woman goes missing. And statistically, this is extremely rare, but when it does happen, more often than not, the causes homicide at the hands of someone close to the victim. In fact, the Justice Department's data shows about one-third of female murder victims are killed by a husband, a boyfriend, or a lover. And as Inspector Perra noted, if a woman vanishes during pregnancy, the number one cause of death is murder, rather than an accident or natural causes. Naturally, the first person investigators look at is the intimate partner. In Evelyn's case, this was Herman, and their relationship was admittedly troubled in recent weeks due to the reveal of his marriage. Motive, though, is the big question. Did Herman have a reason to harm Evelyn and even his own unborn child? Unfortunately, one doesn't have to stretch the imagination too far to see possible motives. Evelyn had told friends that if he tried to abandon her and the baby, she would pursue child support legally, which was a prospect that could threaten Herman's finances and even his marriage. Because Herman's wife, by all accounts, did not yet know Evelyn was pregnant with his child. Oh, so she didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

I think she had given the alibi. Not knowing any of this other information. Aren't you questioning why you needed to alibi your husband? I mean I meant, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

She didn't know that he was seeing someone else that was pregnant when Evelyn went missing. And then she wasn't questioned about what he was doing until more than a week after that. So at least in that interim, it seems like she didn't know. When investigators are looking at it, that if Evelyn had the baby, then Herman's double life would be exposed and he'd be on the hook financially. And maybe who knows what would happen with his marriage. But now also with her disappearing, his wife is also finding out, but he doesn't have the financial side. So that's truly awful. We know Evelyn had effectively broken up with him. He might have felt this loss of control, maybe rage. After all, he had been paying her rent. Maybe he felt entitled to have access. These are unfortunately classic risk factors for domestic violence. So did the police zero in on Hermann? Well, yes and no. In the early phase, he did cooperate with investigators. He sat for interviews and answered questions in May when Evelyn was first missing. He admitted to them that yes, he was married, and yes, he wasn't thrilled about the baby, but he denied any involvement in Evelyn's disappearance. He recounted the version of events that we talked about earlier, where he last saw Evelyn on April 30th. He claims that he was helping her by purchasing a bed for Alex. He says he went to IKEA, bought a child's bed, and assembled it at Evelyn's apartment on April 30th. He then says that he left and he never saw her again. Herman told police about calling and driving by on May 1st, the night she vanished, but insisted he found nothing amiss and went home. After providing this information, Herman did stop talking. He hired a lawyer and ceased cooperating beyond these initial statements. The kind of move lawyering up and moving out of the public eye does raise eyebrows, but of course, that's what a lot of people recommend you do is have a lawyer, right? Yeah. So that I can't say too much about law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Yeah. When talking about they'll be like lawyer up. I mean, that's just what you're supposed to do. Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Right. Now, crucially, Herman has never been charged, arrested, or even officially named a suspect in Evelyn's case. So I want to put that out there. He has never been even named a suspect. In public statements, the police walk a delicate line. They say Herman was not a formal suspect, but also that he hasn't been completely ruled out either. Essentially, they have insufficient evidence to implicate him. His alibi, being at home with his wife on the night of May 1st, apparently checked out enough that they couldn't disprove it. And no witnesses have come forward placing Herman at Evelyn's apartment that night or linking him directly to a crime. And with no crime scene, which we'll get into in a moment, there was no forensic evidence like blood, DNA, et cetera, pointing to him. The big red flag we talked about, the wallet near his work, was something police looked at, but that alone isn't proof. I would be interested if they've saved that and could test it for DNA now. Touch DNA, maybe? Probably. Yeah. Herman could claim someone was trying to frame him by putting it there, or that it was a coincidence. His lawyer at the time told the press that Herman had, quote, done everything he could to cooperate, and that he was deeply saddened by the news of the death of his close friend. Interesting choice of words. Yeah. Referring to her as a close friend is a bit of an understatement. Given that.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

When you're having a baby with him, that he's not denying, which is, I mean.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Right. Yeah. But that's the phrasing they chose. It's frustrating to say, but to this day, he remains a free man, living his life, never held accountable in connection with Evelyn's disappearance. Officially, he is not even labeled a person of interest. This could mean police truly lack evidence. It could be an effort to avoid defamation since he has not been charged. And it could also mean that he did truly have nothing to do with it. We should note that Herman wasn't the only angle considered. Police did take a look at Alex's biological father, the man in the Navy, but they quickly determined that he had no involvement. He didn't even know them. I don't believe that he knew that Evelyn was pregnant. He had never met Alex. He wasn't in the close area, and they could find no motive. After that, though, there were no other obvious suspects among Evelyn's circle. Nobody that had been jilted, no other relationships, no shady acquaintances. So by default, Herman drew the bulk of the suspicion in the public eye. Without more to go on, though, the investigation stalled on that front. For weeks, Evelyn's friends and family lived in agony, not knowing what had happened. They feared the worst, but they were holding out hope that maybe Evelyn and Alex were alive somewhere. They organized search parties and blanketed the city with missing person flyers, showing Evelyn's smiling face and Alex's picture. They contacted media outlets begging for coverage or assistance. Unfortunately, they hit walls. The case didn't seem to generate the attention that they needed, which is crazy. Even popular true crime platforms wouldn't feature her story. For example, friends tried to get America's Most Wanted to do a segment on Evelyn and Alex, but AMW turned them down because there was no warrant out for a suspect at that time.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Well, yeah, that's true. That show did focus on who to arrest and not necessarily the victim. Right. And so they were like, uh no.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

But it does show that they were really trying to get her story out there and it wasn't being picked up. One friend noted bitterly that the show did run a story on Lacey Peterson's disappearance long before any suspect was named.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

And now I'm questioning what I just said. Because yeah, that's fully a double standard. Because if they hadn't named Scott as the suspect yet, why would they run it on Lacey? And because her story was ever. The stories are similar. They are. So which I mean also begs the question in Lacey's case, why didn't Evelyn's case come up as hey, especially in the beginning before Scott was named as a suspect in Lacey's disappearance? Why weren't they saying, hey, we just had what, five months before yet another fully pregnant woman go missing?

SPEAKER_01 43:59

Right. Maybe there's a connection, you know, something. But to Evelyn's family, it really felt like a double standard. More evidence that not all missing women are receiving equal treatment. As spring turned to summer 2002, there were still no answers.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I wonder, are there statistics on how many pregnant women are that go missing? I know that they're statistically more likely to be injured or hurt during pregnancy, but are there statistics to show the average percentage of pregnant women that go missing or are found murdered? It says it's extremely rare.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Okay. So it's not like one of the more common times. I don't think I have the statistics in here though. Okay. Just that it's extremely rare.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Interesting. But then when something does happen, it's always the number one. Statistically more likely the husband or boyfriend.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

And the number one cause of death is murder. Yes. Yes. So as spring turned to summer 2002, there were still no answers. Evelyn's due date, which was around May 5th to May 7th, came and went with no sign of her or the baby, which eliminated any faint hope that her family had that maybe police were right and she'd gone off to give birth in secret. The community's worst fears, though, were confirmed on July 24th, 2002. On that day, almost three months since Evelyn and Alex had vanished, a body was found floating in the San Francisco Bay. Workers spotted badly decomposed human remains in the water near San Francisco's embarcadero waterfront, not far from the Bay Bridge. The remains washed up by Pier 30 near Folsom Street.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Which isn't that where they found or close to where they found Lacey?

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

It's very eerily similar. And this is before Lacey, it is. Okay. So Lacey went missing. So they even found Evelyn before Lacey. Yeah. Similar. Okay. And I know Scott Peterson has always said he it's not him, and the family fully believes him and supports him, even well, no, I guess it's his sister. But this is very interesting. I mean, from the perspective of Lacey's case, why Evelyn's wasn't getting more. I mean, granted, it's after, but why there just wasn't more attention placed on the similarities. Right. And they might not have known about it. Yeah, that's right. She lived in they weren't this was in San Francisco and they lived in, what was it, Stockton.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

And if there wasn't news coverage, I'm thinking, well, maybe locally it was reported out to where maybe Scott was aware. Could be. He did go up there to go fishing. But anyway, that's I know you can like rabbit hole that where it's a conspiracy theory this one to death. But it is very interesting that as much news coverage as Lacey Peterson got, why didn't Evelyn's case with the similar, especially after they found Lacey, why wasn't this also brought up that, hey, in six months ago there was also a pregnant woman dismembered found in the same area? Yeah. As, and especially Scott Peterson's defense team, why wouldn't they use this as a like look, see, look over here at someone else? Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

And that makes you wonder if it truly had zero news coverage. Right. Or maybe they weren't looking for similar cases.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Almost exactly. I mean, so if again, if a pregnant woman getting murdered is rare, yes. But now you have two in the same city in or same general area, at least where they're found. Yeah. Six months apart. Like, come on. Right? This that feels more than conspiracy theory.

unknown 47:56

I know.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

When Evelyn was found, the condition of her body was gruesome and heart-wrenching. It was a partial female torso. It was still clad in a maternity blouse. Her head was missing, as were her arms and her lower legs. Essentially, only the torso and upper legs remained.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Was the baby still in her tummy? Because we know Lacey's baby was not, which they attributed to just happening in the ocean. No. Not that he'd been cut out. Her baby wasn't found with her body. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

So again, similar. Very similar. And in Evelyn's case, they talked about how sometimes in postmortem it's something called a coffin birth. It's unclear if that actually happened.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

But is that it's where like the baby is expelled, essentially? Like trauma. Yeah. Okay. Which that we don't know far along. But did they ever test her apartment for DNA or blood spatter go in with luminol? Because now I'm like, where was she killed? Right. And where and where's Alex?

SPEAKER_01 49:20

And where's Alex? And to this day, we don't know where Alex is, which is heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

They couldn't tell that it was Evelyn from what they found, but they did, because of the maternity clothing, immediately think of Evelyn. Well, yeah. So over the next several weeks, the San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office conducted DNA tests, probably comparing what the remains that were found to samples from Evelyn's family. By September 2002, the results confirmed what everyone feared. The body found was Evelyn Hernandez. This vibrant young mother-to-be had been killed and put into the bay. This brought heartbreak and some answers, but it also raised more questions. For one, what happened to her head and her limbs? Medical experts noted that bodies in the ocean often lose extremities due to natural decomp and animal scavenging. So it is possible, but it is interesting to lose all of the identifying features. She was in the water for quite a while. She wasn't found until almost three months after she went missing. So there's heavy decomposition, right? Okay. Yeah. In fact, around the same area of the bay, a number of severed feet and shoes have been known to wash ashore over the years due to natural separation process. So the missing body parts might not necessarily indicate a deliberate dismemberment. Oh. However, given the uncertainty and because it was in there so long before it was found, they can't say for sure. Also, they were not able to determine a cause of death. The torso was too far into the decomp process to show obvious injuries like a bullet wound or strangulation marks, and we're missing her head. So we can't see signs of suffocation or trauma.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

And because of the way limbs can separate in water, at least salt water, you can't tell if it was purposely dismembered or natural. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Awful.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Also, like we mentioned, Evelyn's full-term unborn baby was not found with her body. Typically, when a pregnant woman dies late in pregnancy, oftentimes it is that coffin birth, but with no fetus present, it's unclear if she did give birth and the baby was taken and then something happened to her. You just, there's so many questions. The medical examiner couldn't tell if the baby had been delivered naturally before death or after death, or if it was just due to being in the water. So to this day, baby Fernando's remains have never been located. The other glaring question: where was Alex? And tragically, Alex is still missing. When Evelyn was found, there was no trace of her five-year-old son. Police scoured the shoreline and the surrounding waters, but they didn't find anything. They presume that Alex was also killed, likely at the same time as Evelyn, and probably put in the water like she was. But as of now, Alex is classified as an endangered missing person, and authorities presume that he is deceased, but they can't be absolutely certain. They have made age progression images, as what they say is basically a formality showing what Alex might look like in his late 20s today. But we have no credible sightings or leads suggesting that he survived. It's awful. Not only was Evelyn murdered, but two innocent children, her unborn baby and her little boy, were very likely killed as well. Evelyn's partial remains gave her loved ones something to bury and something to mourn. And indeed, they held a memorial in late 2002. About a hundred people attended, including her circle of friends and her sister who lives in the Bay Area. At that service, someone held up a sign with a photo of Alex that read, Where is Alex? Wasn't this investigation important? The sign voiced the frustration and pain that many felt. The authorities and the media hadn't treated the search for Evelyn and Alex with the urgency it deserved. It took over three months to find Evelyn, and they still hadn't found Alex. They wondered, could things have been different if more people had been looking? And at this point, we can only wonder. With evidence now of a murder, the San Francisco Police Department Homicide Division continued investigating, but the trail was cold.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

So they can't determine cause or mode. So then why did they decide it was homicide? That's a good question. Because there is- I think it's obvious when you have a five-year-old and a newborn missing as well, that it just isn't right. They didn't just go away. Right. But I'm curious, like it is interesting they can't determine cause or mode manner officially. Or unless they're not releasing that. Possibly. That could okay. That actually that actually makes more sense. They're probably they I would think they wouldn't release it again to be able to with if and when they find a suspect, that's something that they can confirm with them. Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

And maybe in the beginning it was circumstantial that led them to that conclusion. And without charging anybody.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

I know because again, undetermined maybe other you where people will confess to murders they didn't commit. Right. So again, holding back this information is how you know if someone's lying or not. Yeah. Hello, Henry Lee Lucas. Yes. Like weird, weird. So weird. And such a time waste. Well, and even I've read others where they do it thinking that it'll help them with whatever current case they're facing to get a reduced sentence there. I'm like, but you're just admitting to more to a murder. Like, how is that gonna help you in a robbery case? Like it's very strange what people will confess to.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

I really want to do a whole episode on false confessions because I need more research and information on that. It is something I do not understand. SFPD had no crime scene. So to Shannon's point, they don't know exactly where or when Evelyn was killed. They don't know if it was at her apartment on the night of May 1st, but they found no blood, no signs of a struggle. It just looked like she had gotten up and walked away. They wondered if someone lured her elsewhere. We don't know. Again, with no defined. She's not really lurable with a five-year-old. And nine months pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. Forensic work was tough. We have no murder weapon recovered. We don't know what a murder weapon would look like at this point because they don't know manner of death. The primary suspect, whoever it was, had months of lead time to cover any tracks. If whoever did this, say had a boat to dump the body, at least never found one. They never found one tied to Herman, and they never found one that could be connected to Evelyn. All they had were the circumstances and the wallet, which, while compelling, are circumstantial when they look at Herman as a suspect. And again, they don't have any other suspects. Over the ensuing years, there was very little movement in the case. As San Francisco Gate later reported in 2022, no arrests, no public new leads. It became a cold case lingering in the files of the San Francisco police. There have been some coverage of their case, especially more recently. Their case is featured on the San Francisco Police Department's Cold Case website. The city at one point had authorized a$100,000 reward for information leading to whoever's responsible for Evelyn's death and Alex's disappearance. That reward, to my knowledge, is still available and it was never claimed. That's a really big reward. Yeah, it is. We don't see that very often. After Evelyn's body was found, and Lacey Peterson's case broke open in 2003. So Lacey Peterson went missing or was murdered on Christmas Eve of 2002, and her case was in the spotlight then. And into 2003, people did start to draw parallels between the two cases. This did lead to wild speculation among some of the ones that were paying attention. Notably, Trashy Tabloids floated a theory that maybe Scott Peterson had something to do with Evelyn's murder as well, which is weird. I could see them pointing to a similarity, but not that one. I mean, maybe they looked at the similarities: pregnant victims, bodies in the bay, others drugged in the unsolved case of Kristen Smart. Which is now solved.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Which is now solved, but at the same time. Or at least there's a conviction. Yes. From the one basically the original suspect.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

Yeah. At the time in 1996, though, oddly, Scott Peterson was a student there.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Yeah, that's a little coincidental as well.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

That is really bizarre, that connection. Let's be clear, police found zero connection between Evelyn's case and Lacey's or any other case. That they're disclosing. Scott Peterson now has been convicted for killing Lacey, and to date has never been linked to Evelyn. It's unfortunately more plausible that Evelyn's killer was someone closer to her. But again, whether it was Herman, which we have no proof to definitively say so, and he's never been named, as of 2026, the murder of Evelyn and the disappearance of Alex remain unsolved. No one has been held accountable, and no justice has been served for this mother and either of her children. Now, having gone through the details of Evelyn's case, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Why was this case so underreported and underinvestigated compared to the Lacey Peterson case? The differences in outcome between the two cases are stark. Let's look at how this unfolded. So in the early 2000s, both these cases happened in Northern California. They both involved a young pregnant woman who disappeared late in their pregnancy without a trace. In both cases, the victims would be found in the San Francisco Bay, both missing limbs and other body parts. Despite the parallels, one case became one of the most famous crimes of the decade. The other faded into relative obscurity. Lacey was 27, a wife, she was about eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve, 2002, from Modesto. Her story dominated headlines for months, even after her husband, Scott Peterson, was arrested and convicted of her murder and the murder of their unborn son, Connor. The media coverage was wall-to-wall. Lacey Peterson was a household name. Meanwhile, Evelyn Hernandez, who had gone missing seven months earlier in May of 2002, received basically none of the attention. One San Francisco Chronicle headline put it in April of 2003 that Evelyn's eerily similar case languishes in obscurity. Now, Lacey Peterson's family mobilized immediately and aggressively to publicize her disappearance. They contacted every news outlet, they held regular press conferences, they organized massive volunteer search parties and worked to keep her story alive. They had help from the Sunned Carrington Foundation, which is a well-connected Modesto victims advocacy group formed after a high-profile Yosemite murder case, which offered reward money and PR assistance. Lacey's face was on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, every magazine cover. By contrast, Evelyn's friends and her sister that lived locally tried valiantly to get attention, but they struggled. They printed flyers, they knocked on newsroom doors, but they just didn't have the media connect with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

And at first I was thinking, okay, it's a language barrier and distrust of law enforcement because they're potentially not legal citizens. But this they clearly went around those initial they were trimming fears to get her in that was met with nothing. Yeah. Why? Which is very blatant. Yep. Because what happened Yeah, I mean, I would just think missing pregnant due to give birth in a couple of days would be front page news. And her five-year-old son.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:41

Yeah. They didn't have the network to amplify the story. And on their own, they couldn't get anyone to put it out there. The San Francisco police didn't even hold a press conference about Evelyn until a month after she vanished. The delay cost them potential tips, I'm sure. And as their lead detective noted, by then any eyewitnesses who had seen Evelyn or Alex on May 1st probably had forgotten if they even heard that she was missing, because again, it was so long after, and it just wasn't widely publicized. In missing persons cases, those first days are critical for publicity, and Evelyn's case did not receive it. The response to Lacey's disappearance involved this enormous mobilization of law enforcement resources. And again, I want to be clear. I think every missing person should get the kind of coverage that Lacy Peterson's case got. I don't want to sound like she shouldn't have had this response. I just feel like Evelyn's case should have also had this response. And clearly they can do it when they want to do it. But when they don't, it doesn't seem like anyone can force them or make them. The Modesto police and the surrounding agencies threw everything at this case. They had 30 detectives and officers dedicated to it. They had search teams with helicopters, canine units, mounted units on horseback, dive teams in the bay, and nearly 900 civilian volunteers aiding in searches. By contrast, Evelyn's case in larger San Francisco had a relatively paltry response initially. The SFPD was and is obviously a busy urban department. When Evelyn first went missing, they treated it as a lower priority missing person slash possible runaway situation. Only one or two investigators were assigned until weeks later when they had evidence of foul play. There was no Massive public searches organized. Police didn't put together any of that. Her friends and her family were doing searches. They were printing flyers. They were looking for her, but police didn't organize any of that. It's worth noting, Modesto is a smaller city. They happened to have another famous missing person, Chandra Levy, linked to it, which did prime the media to focus on Lacey. San Francisco, on the other hand, had dozens of missing persons cases at any given time. It appears that Evelyn's initially got lost in the shuffle. The San Francisco Chronicle's own reporting later highlighted how differently the media covered both these cases. The Chronicle ran 32 stories about Lacey in a matter of months. Four of those were front page news. And remember, Lacey wasn't even from San Francisco. Modesto is about 90 miles away. Meanwhile, the Chronicle only ran four stories on Evelyn's case, none of them on the front page. So even the local paper barely covered a missing woman from their own city. Television news was similar. Local TV devoted countless segments to Lacey and almost nothing to Evelyn. On the day Evelyn's remains were found, which was a dramatic development and would be in any case, Area TV News gave it almost no airtime. It's almost as if Evelyn's story just didn't register. Many observers have pointed out that Lisi fit what some call the quote ideal victim profile, or benefited from what's termed missing white women's syndrome. She was young, attractive, pregnant, middle class, white, essentially the girl next door archetype that media loves to rally behind. There was a photogenic quality to her story. The beautiful mom to be, the picture perfect marriage that turned out to have a dark side with Scott's affair with Amber became a media subplot. And the drama of a husband suspected of betrayal. Evelyn was a Salvadorian immigrant, not a native English speaker. She was a single mother who had her first child as a teenager. She was involved with a married man, even though she didn't know it when she became pregnant with her second child. To put it bluntly, some media gatekeepers saw Evelyn's story as less sympathetic or, and I hate this, marketable to their audience. One of Evelyn's friends, Twiggy, vented her frustration. She said, This girl Lacey, she's white, they have money, there is a family behind her. Who cares about Evelyn? It's the same case. That's very hard to see why one gets more attention than the other. And Twiggy hit the nail on the head. From a raw perspective of news editors, Lacey's case had the elements of a sensational soap opera, whereas Evelyn's might have been wrongly perceived as sad, but not headline grabbing. Timing played a role too. Evelyn disappeared in May 2002, and her case didn't get any push before it went cold. Lacey disappeared in December 2002, and by early 2003, her case was in full swing, which, you know, was when Evelyn's was languishing. The media can typically only focus intensively on so many cases at once. By the time Evelyn's remains were identified in September 2002, her story did get a small blip of news, but then a few months later, Lacey's case exploded and completely overshadowed everything else. In early 2003, National News was saturated with this Peterson investigation, the revelations from Amber, the eventual discovery of Lacey in April. The lack of publicity for Evelyn had real consequences. Media attention can directly influence the resources and the pressure on law enforcement. As police acknowledge, high-profile cases mean more tips from the public and often more urgency in investigations. An SFPD spokesman essentially admitted that they pushed for as much attention as they could for Evelyn, but said that they don't control the media. She said, quote, we don't make the decision about what gets covered and what doesn't. Inspector Perra said that and called the sparse coverage embarrassing. Without media spotlight, there's less pressure to solve the case quickly. And again, less people are hearing about it and we're getting less tips, less people calling in with what they do know while they might still remember. And we don't know for sure, but it may be no coincidence that Lacy's case was solved with enough evidence to convict, whereas Evelyn's remains unsolved. And you know, there are other factors. The cases are different, the evidence is different, but Evelyn's is still unsolved. One wonders if Evelyn's disappearance had been front page news. Would her killer have felt the heat maybe slipped up? Would more witnesses have come forward? Maybe someone might have seen a suspicious vehicle near Evelyn's home on May 1st.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:36

Right. Or somebody would have noticed somebody throwing a wallet outside a convenience store next to a canal. Yeah. Or gotten some or recognized Herman, since that's where he worked and frequented. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:49

And it's like people with that information may have never heard that it was needed.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:55

Otherwise, you're just like, oh, I saw some dude litter.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:58

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

Who cares? Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:00

And like, what if they had asked and someone had seen it thrown out of a limo? We could have had some kind of something. That's even more circumstantial. Right. And who knows? Maybe it wasn't him, but she had to leave her house somehow. Right. To sum it up, Lacy's case became a media sensation and an investigative priority while Evelyn's case quietly went cold. This dichotomy exemplifies the concept of missing white woman syndrome, where missing persons who are white attractive from middle class backgrounds tend to receive outsized attention compared to missing people of color or those from marginalized communities. I know it's an uncomfortable topic, but it is impossible to ignore here. Evelyn had the misfortune of being, as one article put it, quote, hardly the perfect news story, end quote, in the eyes of the press. A pundit described it starkly. Quote, AC Peterson was the prototype of the American dream. Evelyn Hernandez was not, which is harsh. It sounds harsh because it is. It reflects biases that shouldn't matter, but evidently they did. It is also worth noting another dimension. 17,000 women are reported missing in California in the year that Evelyn disappeared. Law enforcement and media, I know, can't give all of those cases such intense coverage. Sadly, many get little attention or none at all. But even against that backdrop, pregnant mothers like Evelyn are so rare that one would think it would be a bigger story. In fact, we did mention this, it's extremely rare for a pregnant woman to go missing. And when it does happen, it is typically number one reason because of foul play by an intimate partner. In Evelyn's case, one might argue it was exactly the kind of case that did deserve a huge push. A young mother and child in possible danger, but she fell through the cracks of public awareness. It's now been two decades since Evelyn Hernandez's murder. Her name has remained far less known than Lacey Peterson's, but those who love her have never forgotten. Her surviving family, including her sisters, continue to push for answers and try to keep the case alive, though they did so mostly without the limelight that others have had. That said, this case has seen some renewed attention in recent times. There have been podcasts that have covered Evelyn's case, introducing it to audiences who have probably never heard it before. Local media does occasionally revisit the story on anniversaries. In April 2022, the San Francisco Chronicles SF Gate site published a retrospective article titled What Happened to San Francisco's Evelyn Hernandez and her young son, which was on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance. Most notably in 2025, so 23 years after Evelyn vanished, her case was given a national spotlight in a new docuseries. ABC News and Hulu produced a series called Murder Has Two Faces, which highlights lesser-known cases that share uncanny similarities with high-profile crimes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

I that was a really good series. I was a really good series.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:48

And I thought it was well done.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:50

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:51

Yeah. The first episode of the series is all about Evelyn Hernandez explicitly comparing it to the Lacey Peterson case and asking the tough questions about why only one of these women's names is widely known. Veteran journalist Robin Roberts, who hosts the series, said that Evelyn's case really stayed with her and that the project aimed to examine true crime in a way that brings more meaning and purpose, shining light on disparities and giving voice to the families. Roberts expressed hope that the viewers will recognize the unfairness. She said, quote, the hope is people are going to say, Oh my goodness, I knew this to be true, and know that there is a disparity and it's wrong. It should not matter what you look like. Everyone who is a victim of a crime is deserving of justice. End quote. Those are powerful words that get to the heart of it. Justice shouldn't be dictated by media appeal or victim demographics. And we will link to that so that you can watch that and see and hear from her friends and family who were given a platform to share memories of her and share their frustration at how the case was handled. From a law enforcement perspective, the case remains open but cold. Herman, as noted, has never been named an official suspect. No one else has either. If he was responsible or unless they find new suspects, we need new evidence, a confession, something to move this case forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:33

I wonder if he's still married to his wife. I wonder that too. And shockingly, alibis change. Oh, isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:49

I did try to see if they were still married and I couldn't find it. California is a little tough with some of those records. Yeah. But now if this were Oklahoma, I could tell you. There's always a possibility that DNA advancements or other forensic technology could find something. Maybe any trace evidence from Evelyn's body, maybe something from the wallet, something that was preserved from her apartment. Sometimes after many years, accomplices or witnesses might talk. And we don't know if whoever did this had help, or if anyone else knows more. But there's always a chance. Evelyn was a loving mother, a daughter, a friend, a sister. Alex was this sweet, innocent little boy who loved Pokemon, playing with friends. They deserve the same frantic search and public outcry that others received. It's very heartening to see that now, but there are still so many other cases like Evelyn's that have stories that have never been told. As we wrap up this episode, I do find myself reflecting on Evelyn's story. It feels sad. It makes me feel angry and determination, sadness for the loss of this young woman who had fought hard to build a life in a new country, who was days away from holding a newborn son. And for the two children whose lives were tragically cut short, it's heartwrenching to know that all of Evelyn's hopeful plans ended that night. While we can't undo the past, we owe it to Evelyn and Alex to keep seeking the truth. If you or anyone you know has any information that could help with this case, and again, any information, no matter how small, could be that missing piece. Please contact the San Francisco Police Cold Case unit or they have an anonymous tip line and we'll link to those in the show notes. Even the smallest lead can make a difference. After all this time, it would be amazing to finally have answers and hold the guilty accountable for Evelyn and Alex.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:07

That wraps up this episode of Vanished Voices. Thank you for being part of this community and for listening with compassion. For more on today's story, including citations, resources, and visuals, visit our blog at Vanished Voicespodcast.com. You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Vanished Voices Pod. We'd love to connect with you there. If you value today's episode, sharing and rating the podcast goes a long way in helping us reach more listeners and elevate these important voices. Or on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and just about anywhere you listen. Let's keep Evelyn Hernandez, Alex, and Baby Fernando in our thoughts. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Bye.