Found Deceased CA - Juan Carlos "Cookie" Hernandez, 21, Los Angeles, 22 Sept 2020 *arrest*

[evilwise]

Perhaps Astaphan sent Heng to buy for him but she couldn't because she's not 21 so Astaphan Venmoed Juan money but Juan isn't comfortable buying for someone else. He still hangs around with Heng after the shop closes, sharing his own personal supply but when Astaphan arrives, between not having the weed he expected and partying with Heng he's furious.

It doesn't explain how police knew Juan was dead from the beginning though or who Peng is. Perhaps the initial informant. It's almost certain that Heng's charges were reduced because she agreed to testify against Astaphan so Heng's statements probably implicated Peng as well.

 

[slowpoke]

Yajaira went to the location Juan’s body was found and put up a cross, as a roadside memorial for him. She describes how difficult the experience was for her.

One of the pics is of a sign saying Aston Canyon Natural Area.

Her hope is that anyone who comes upon that cross on the lonely, empty, secluded road will know someone who was very loved lost his life there.

Heartbreaking.
Facebook Groups

 

[Dre]

Yajaira went to the location Juan’s body was found and put up a cross, as a roadside memorial for him. She describes how difficult the experience was for her.

One of the pics is of a sign saying Aston Canyon Natural Area.

Her hope is that anyone who comes upon that cross on the lonely, empty, secluded road will know someone who was very loved lost his life there.

Heartbreaking.
Facebook Groups

wow, you just gave me shivers and made my eyes well up with tears! what a solemn and sad picture that paints, I just want to hold Yajaira and take some of her pain, and tell her that her beautiful son knows how much she will forever love him.

 

[slowpoke]

Omg. This is horrifying. It was the dispensary people that murdered Juan, right at the shop, though the article does not discuss motive. But, it has the details on the how. The police got video of it!
Impressive detective work was involved.

I can’t imagine Yajaira’s anguish.

Yajaira has been so kind to the homeless during this, and it turns out a homeless man behind the shop was instrumental as a witness to the murderers loading a car with what was likely Juan’s body, though he didn’t know what he was witnessing at the time. This is chilling.
A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary

 

[kelsie]

Quoting the above link:

Knowing her son is not lost, hungry or in pain has brought Hernández some solace. She now knows where he is. When she wants to be near him, she goes to Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.

But his absence is a hole she does not expect ever to fill. “Any hopes, any dreams I had, they’re gone,” she says. She tries to smile, to laugh when she is around her other children, “but I feel no form of happiness.”

She still sees the fliers when she drives through Los Angeles. When she sees one, she pulls over and takes it down.

I wonder what the hell the motive was... this doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Juan saw something he wasn't meant to see?

 

[jash]

Omg. This is horrifying. It was the dispensary people that murdered Juan, right at the shop, though the article does not discuss motive. But, it has the details on the how. The police got video of it!
Impressive detective work was involved.

I can’t imagine Yajaira’s anguish.

Yajaira has been so kind to the homeless during this, and it turns out a homeless man behind the shop was instrumental as a witness to the murderers loading a car with what was likely Juan’s body, though he didn’t know what he was witnessing at the time. This is chilling.
A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary

I just got around to reading the article. Wow - so much info.

- The dispensary was unlicensed/illegal and Cookie was working "under the table" for six months.
- The last call Cookie received was at 10:25 p.m. on the night he disappeared. It was from the same number that the supposed shop owner ("E" - I assume EA, who was actually a bodyguard for the owner, WP) later used to call Cookie's mother.
- Just after 11pm, EA suddenly put Cookie into a chokehold in the shop until he died, while WP watched. WP then disabled the security cameras.
- Later that night, a homeless man overheard the men loading Cookie into the back of a vehicle.
- At 6:34am, EA and SH (who is WP's gf) wiped down the crime scene while wearing gloves.
- Three days after he disappeared, someone tried to remotely access Cookie's account on a stock-trading app.
- Not long after the murder, WP and SH bought same-day tickets and flew to Turkey with $9,500 cash.
- In November, a week before Cookie was found, SH returned from Turkey alone.
- Earlier this month, WP was taken into custody in Turkey and is awaiting extradition.

 

[jash]

Thats right. February 16th is listed as sentencing hearing.

Not sure if it was rescheduled or extended but there's another sentencing hearing for SH on March 29th. The same day, EA has a prelim hearing.

 

[slowpoke]

Creí que lo iba a encontrar vivo": la lucha de una madre sobre su hijo desaparecido
El joven desapareció cuando salió de trabajar. Ella creó una campaña que se viralizó en internet para poder encontrarlo con vida. Sin embargo, la investigación arrojó un escalofriante resultado que llenó de dolor a la familia.

Google Translation:
"I thought I was going to find him alive": a mother's fight over her missing son
The young man disappeared when he left work. She created a campaign that went viral on the internet to find him alive. However, the investigation yielded a chilling result that filled the family with grief.

"Creí que lo iba a encontrar vivo": la lucha de una madre sobre su hijo desaparecido

Unfortunately for me, this video is in Spanish, which I do not understand. However, it is an interview with Yajaira and seems very in-depth, a featured story—showing the place Juan worked (...and died ), Yajaira’s home she shared with Juan, the place in the desert where Juan was found, and more.

If anyone understands Spanish and views this video, could you let us know if there is any new-to-us information in it?

 

[cvaldez1975]

Omg. This is horrifying. It was the dispensary people that murdered Juan, right at the shop, though the article does not discuss motive. But, it has the details on the how. The police got video of it!
Impressive detective work was involved.

I can’t imagine Yajaira’s anguish.

Yajaira has been so kind to the homeless during this, and it turns out a homeless man behind the shop was instrumental as a witness to the murderers loading a car with what was likely Juan’s body, though he didn’t know what he was witnessing at the time. This is chilling.
A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary

paywall, can anyone site exerps?

 

[cvaldez1975]

ok nm yahoo posted it

A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary.

 

[cvaldez1975]

i just wonder why?

 

[kelsie]

A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary.

VIP Collective LA was one of three pot shops on the same block of Western Avenue between 81st and 82nd streets. All three of the small, shabby storefronts were unlicensed and operating illegally.

When Hernández asked about her son, the store's employees weren't helpful. She left her phone number and asked that the owner call her. Her phone rang that evening. The caller identified himself as “E," the owner of the dispensary. He told Hernández the security cameras at the shop provided only a live feed, so there was no recording that might offer some clues of what happened. He also said he didn’t want the police to get involved.

Armed with a search warrant, the detectives forced open the door of VIP Collective LA early in the morning on Sept. 29. They seized its security camera system and discovered that E had lied to Hernández. The cameras did record.

Technicians at the LAPD's lab went to work on the cameras and realized someone had tampered with them. They managed to extract a video file someone had tried to destroy.

The video showed a man and a woman in the dispensary at 6:34 a.m. on Sept. 23. They were wearing gloves and wiping down the shop's interior with paper towels.

 

[kelsie]

A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary

Working off an anonymous tip submitted to a police hotline, the detectives identified the man in the video as Ethan Kedar Astaphan, a bodyguard for the dispensary's owner, Weijia Peng, who went by James and Jay. The woman was Sonita Heng, Peng’s 20-year-old girlfriend.

Astaphan, a citizen of the island of Dominica in the Caribbean, met Peng while living in the New York City area, according to his mother, Connie Didier. Didier described Peng as “a bad egg.”

“We’d been trying to talk to Ethan about this boy,” she said, adding that Astaphan and Peng moved to California about two years ago. Peng could not be reached for comment.

The pieces were coming together, but a day after seeing the video, the detectives learned two of their suspects were no longer in the country. FBI agents alerted them that two weeks earlier, Peng and Heng had purchased same-day tickets to Istanbul, Turkey, by way of Paris and boarded their flight carrying $9,500 in cash.

[A] video, which is described in an affidavit an LAPD detective submitted to a judge to obtain a search warrant, showed Astaphan, Peng and Hernández in the dispensary the night of Sept. 22. A few minutes after 11 p.m., Astaphan suddenly took Hernández to the ground, put him in a chokehold and held him down until his body went still, according to the affidavit.

Peng looked on as Astaphan choked Hernández, the detective wrote. He made no effort to intervene, but rather walked to the back of the dispensary and closed the door.

 

[kelsie]

On Nov. 19, Jaramillo and Hammer knocked on Yajaira Hernández's door. Her son's remains had been found at the foot of an embankment off the side of a desert road. Astaphan and Heng had been arrested that morning.

Peng was apprehended last week in Istanbul and is being held pending extradition to Los Angeles on a murder charge. The circumstances of his capture were unclear, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Habib Balian, who is prosecuting the case. Balian declined to discuss a potential motive for the killing.

Knowing her son is not lost, hungry or in pain has brought Hernández some solace. She now knows where he is. When she wants to be near him, she goes to Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.

But his absence is a hole she does not expect ever to fill. “Any hopes, any dreams I had, they’re gone,” she says. She tries to smile, to laugh when she is around her other children, “but I feel no form of happiness.”

 

[kelsie]

The article is really long so I took the most important pieces and put them here.
#JusticeForJuan

His mama sure is amazing. I know we talked about this earlier but here's another link: “Justice for Juan Hernandez”: Mexican-American mother honors son by giving back to community

 

[DropthePuck]

This is the latest info I could find on the defendants. Peng is still in Turkey fighting extradition.

Hearing in Juan Carlos Hernandez case postponed again - El Camino College The Union

 

[evilwise]

This is the latest info I could find on the defendants. Peng is still in Turkey fighting extradition.

Hearing in Juan Carlos Hernandez case postponed again - El Camino College The Union

It bothers me how often foreign citizens successfully flee prosecution after committing crimes in the US while it is popularly considered discrimination for us to be more cautious in our dealings with them than we are with our fellow US citizens.

 

[jash]

It bothers me how often foreign citizens successfully flee prosecution after committing crimes in the US while it is popularly considered discrimination for us to be more cautious in our dealings with them than we are with our fellow US citizens.

Is Weijia Peng not a US citizen? I assumed he was as I haven't seen it reported to the contrary (whereas the LA Times reported Ethan Astaphan is a citizen of the island of Dominica - A mother's search for missing son leads to dark world of a marijuana dispensary).

 

[Moneyball]

Any new updates?

 

[JMapes]

Any new updates?

Looks like there have been a lot of delays but there will be some motion in a little under 3 months from now:

A sentencing hearing for Sonita Heng, 22, was postponed until the conclusion of the case against Ethan Kedar Astaphan, 28, for the murder of 21-year-old El Camino College student Juan Carlos Hernandez. Heng is a cooperating witness for the prosecution in the case against Astaphan.

The third defendant in the case, Weijia Peng, fled to Turkey where he is now detained and is fighting extradition to Los Angeles.

Another hearing is scheduled for July 14. (But the article is rather unspecific. Is it a hearing for Peng? For Astaphan? for Heng? I suppose we'll have to wait and see.)

Suspect's sentencing postponed in homicide of El Camino College student - El Camino College The Union

A sentencing hearing for Sonita Heng, 22, was postponed until the conclusion of the case against Ethan Kedar Astaphan, 28, for the murder of 21-year-old El Camino College student Juan Carlos Hernandez. Heng is a cooperating witness for the prosecution in the case against Astaphan. On Sept. 22...

eccunion.com

The trial of Ethan Kedar Astaphan in the killing of El Camino College student Juan Carlos Hernandez is expected to commence on Sept. 6.

Trial of Ethan Astaphan has possible start date Sept. 6 - El Camino College The Union

The trial of the accused in the killing of El Camino College student Juan Carlos Hernandez is expected to commence on Sept. 6. In a pre-trial hearing in the case of the People of California vs. Ethan Kedar Astaphan on Tuesday, May 3, at Clara Shortridge Foltz Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles...

eccunion.com