Antonio Bacoeles once asked Francis Hernandez how he managed to return to the streets after frequent arrests even though he was in the country illegally.
He said, “I don’t know; I’m just lucky.”
Hernandez now appears to be out of luck. He is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide in the deaths of three people in an Aurora automobile crash last Thursday. The 23-year-old also has become a symbol for politicians of the nation’s failure to adequately track and deport illegal immigrants with criminal records.
“It is horrible what happened with this guy,” said Bacoeles, who lives on Iola Street next door to the parents of Hernandez’s girlfriend, Brenda Aleman, 19.
Hernandez lived next door to Aleman and her family for two years or so before the couple got an apartment together about a year ago, said Wilber Solares, 27, another neighbor.
Hernandez and Aleman, who couldn’t be reached for comment, frequently returned to the block to visit her family. The couple has two young daughters, neighbors said.
Hernandez, who had been arrested 16 times, frequently on traffic charges, before the deadly accident, never seemed to have a job, neighbors said. When he lived on Iola Street, he was usually at home or driving the neighborhood.
SUV’s ownership unclear
When Aurora police arrested him for speeding March 25, he showed them a pay stub in his name from A & Z Metal Decking. But he had a driver’s license in the name Luis Armando Martin.
He was quiet, in his own world, Solares said.
“If he sees you and he knows you, he wouldn’t say nothing. He didn’t talk to a lot of people. He was just wandering around the neighborhood,” Solares said.
He was frequently behind the wheel of a black 2004 Chevrolet Suburban. Police say he was driving the sport utility vehicle erratically on South Havana Street when he plowed into Patricia Guntharp’s Mazda pickup Sept. 4.
The collision sent both vehicles through the front of a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop, killing Marten Kudlis, 3; Guntharp, 49; and Debra Serecky, 51, the passenger in the Mazda.
How he managed to get the Suburban remains a mystery. The vehicle’s temporary plate is in the name of Elifonso Avelar, who lives at 2232 Iola St., the home of Brenda Aleman’s mother, Rosa Avelar. She said it is not her car, nor did she pay for it.
The vehicle identification number shows it is registered to Francis Hernandez, said Denver Sheriff Department Capt. Frank Gale.
“It could have been an old or bad registration. When you have a temporary registration, the ownership is in flux.”
Henry Block, Quality Mitsubishi’s president, says he has been bedeviled by callers who want to know why he sold a car to an illegal immigrant. “We didn’t,” he said.
Quality Mitsubishi sold the Suburban on July 11 to someone other than Hernandez or Avelar, he said. The law bars him from naming the buyer, he said.
The dealer ran a credit check and contacted a bank. Everything pointed to a qualified buyer who was in the country legally.
“I have got this car deal in front of me. It is funded through a credit union. There is proof of employment and a driver’s license. The last name is not Hispanic.”
He couldn’t tell whether the picture on the driver’s license, in the name of a man in his 20s, was Hernandez.
Getting cars “no trouble”
The Littleton dealership bought the car through the Denver Auto auction July 2 from GMAC, Block said.
Quality sold it for almost $16,000. He is in the dark about how Hernandez got it.
“They have got to be doing a pretty serious scam,” he said.
Bacoeles said Hernandez paid for the car but someone else went to the dealer and purchased it.
Seven days after Quality Mitsubishi sold the vehicle, Denver police arrested Hernandez for driving without a license, resisting arrest and giving police a fake name.
Four days later, the owner called Quality and asked the dealer to send an employee to Denver’s impound lot, Block said.
“They asked if we would come down with a copy of the title because the permit on it was issued to Quality, so these people don’t have proof of ownership. We came down with proof that we sold the car to them.”
Hernandez’s arrest record shows that despite not having a license in his true identity, he has had no trouble getting cars.
When Aurora police clocked him at more than 60 mph on Colfax Avenue and stopped him March 25, he was driving a green 1996 two-door Honda Civic, said Aurora police spokesman Bob Friel.
He was driving a brown 1993 Honda Accord when he was stopped another time.
“This guy wanted to find cars. If you know people and you want it, it takes a little bit of cash and you come up with a car. Or you make a call to a friend and he lends it to you. That is the world we live in,” Friel said.
On Iola Street Solares echoes words heard throughout the metro area since the accident.
“This is really bad because he was in trouble before and they had to wait until something bad happened.”
Aurora police are talking to federal immigration officials to see if there are ways to avoid a replay of Hernandez’ case.
“We’ll be working together to see how both agencies can maximize the effectiveness of the (Criminal Alien Program,)” U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok said in an email.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
