TANGIPAHOA PARISH, La. — It was on a quiet Bedico community street back in March where Tangipahoa Parish investigators responded to a call from a young woman.
“She had come home and found her mother unresponsive on the floor in the bedroom, covered in blood,” said chief of operations at the sheriff’s office, Jimmy Travis.
Travis says Lisa Hernandez, 45, a St. Tammany Parish nurse, died in her Meadow Wood Drive home.
“We determined her cause of death was a blunt force instrument and a sharp-edged instrument,” said Travis.
A month after her death, investigators got the evidence needed to arrest Hernandez’s estranged husband, David Hernandez, 49, who is also a nurse. Travis says after Hernandez killed his wife, he’s seen on surveillance video throwing evidence into Lake Pontchartrain while pulled over on the Causeway Bridge.
“You can see objects being thrown from the car. You see it hit the water, splashing,” said Travis.
A Jefferson Parish dive team found a large hammer that Travis says matches the injuries used in the homicide.
“He thought he was throwing away these items someplace that they would be gone forever, never realizing that the area he was in, he was video surveillance while he was doing it,” said Travis.
While separated from each other, Travis says Hernandez stalked his wife, showed up at her work, put a tracking device on her car, and recently sent her flowers.
“It was lilies, which everyone knows a lily is, they refer to it as a death flower,” said Travis. “You send it to funerals, plus she was highly allergic to lilies.”
Travis says before killing his wife, Hernandez tried to cover it up.
“We think afterwards he staged the house to look like it was possibly an intruder that had broken a window and broken in and committed this crime,” said Travis.
Travis says Hernandez was questioned after the killing and admitted to stalking his wife. He was arrested and then released on bond on a stalking charge.
Travis says there are no past reports of domestic abuse between the Hernandez's but can’t rule it out.
“I think he was obsessed with her for whatever reason, I think he maybe had been contemplating or planning this for a long time,” said Travis.
“Maybe it wasn’t even recognized as an abusive situation until it was too late,” said Kristi Kysar with the domestic violence agency Southeast Advocates for Family Empowerment in Hammond.
Kysar says cases like this speak to what could happen in abusive relationships.
“Abuse is not about being physically abused. It is about an abuser trying to maintain power and control and that begins much earlier in the relationship through emotional abuse,” said Kysar.
Regardless of whether that played a role in this case, Travis says getting help is important.
“Take the actions, make the police reports, do the protective orders. Take all the steps to protect yourself,” said Travis.
Hernandez is charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice. He’s in the Tangipahoa Parish Jail.
Hernandez’s bond hearing is set for Thursday morning.
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