RivCo Woman's Body Dumped Off Ortega Hwy. By SD Killer: Jury Convicts

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — A probationer was convicted Friday of first-degree murder for choking his girlfriend to death and dumping her body along the boundary separating Riverside and Orange counties, where it has yet to be found.

A Riverside jury deliberated one day before finding Hugo Lionel Hernandez, 46, of Oceanside guilty of the 2019 slaying of 33-year-old Katherine Mary Neitzke of Romoland.

The prosecution and defense made closing statements Thursday at the Riverside Hall of Justice, after which Riverside County Superior Court Judge Steven Counelis sent jurors behind closed doors to weigh evidence from the two- week trial. A verdict was returned Friday afternoon.

A sentencing date was pending. Hernandez is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.

According to an arrest warrant declaration filed by sheriff's investigators in January 2022, the defendant and Neitzke were in a dating relationship for just under a month when he allegedly killed her on July 26, 2019.

At the time, Neitzke was residing in a barn that had been converted to living space on rustic property at 29615 Mapes Road, just north of Highway 74 and south of Perris, in the unincorporated community of Romoland. Hernandez was staying with her.

Neitzke was reported missing by her sister-in-law late in the summer of 2019, and the case was initially treated as a missing person's investigation. However, within a few months, detectives began to suspect foul play, leading to a homicide investigation.

A friend of the victim, Andrea Bailey, told detectives that she had received a "frantic call" from Neitzke on the night of July 25, 2019, during which the victim asked Bailey to pick her up at the Mapes property. However, Neitzke then told her friend that she would call her back, but never did, according to the affidavit.

In the ensuing months, detectives spoke with other witnesses, culminating in a conversation with Edilberto "Eddie" Avena, who had been dating the defendant's sister, Janet Hernandez, at the time of Neitzke's disappearance. Avena ultimately told sheriff's Investigator Travis Gilbert that Hugo Hernandez had enlisted his assistance "to get rid of" the victim's remains, according to court papers.

According to Avena, he had returned to the Mapes residence to deliver furniture during the last week of July 2019, and when he arrived, Hernandez admitted manually strangling the woman, saying "she was a rat, and I had to take her down," the affidavit stated.

Avena went on to describe how he reluctantly helped wrap the victim in a carpet and loaded her body into the back of his Chevrolet Yukon. Investigators said the witness and Hernandez drove toward Orange County via the Ortega (74) Highway, stopping two to three miles east of San Juan Capistrano.

Avena explained that he parked his SUV in the hills, and Hernandez and he carried the body an unspecified distance into the woods, dumping it, according to court papers.

Sufficient evidence was gathered to charge Hernandez with murder and Avena with being an accessory after the fact. He pleaded guilty to the felony count in March and is slated to be sentenced in February. He's free on a $50,000 bond.

Despite several attempts to locate Neitzke's remains by law enforcement and volunteers, her body has never been found.

Hernandez has prior convictions in another jurisdiction, but they weren't listed in court documents.