NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Jersey City. According to a criminal complaint received on Wednesday, a New Jersey schoolteacher’s ex-husband killed her, dumped her body in a storage shed, and then reported her missing two days later.
Cesar Santana, 36, the father of three, was extradited from Miami, Florida on Tuesday night to face first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the beating and strangulation of Luz Hernandez, 33, the mother of his three children.
Read more: The Most Haunted Field in New Jersey Is Located Just Outside Philadelphia.
On Wednesday, he made a brief appearance via video link in Central Judicial Processing Court, where he was being held in the Hudson County jail. The day of February 27 has been set aside for a possible detention hearing.
The Jersey Journal has obtained a complaint alleging that Hernandez, a kindergarten teacher at BelovED Community Charter School, went missing on February 6. The complaint was filed by Santana and Hernandez’s family.
According to the complaint, two days prior, Santana was observed entering Hernandez’s empty home on Van Horne Street and, an hour later, he was observed removing a black and yellow trash can from the vicinity of Hernandez’s residence.
On February 5 between Third Street and Central Avenue, Kearny police stopped Santana and his companion Leiner Miranda Lopez when they saw them loading the garbage into their car. Police detained the vehicle because it lacked proper registration.
On February 7th, police visited Hernandez’s house to make sure he was okay and found blood stains in the bedroom, cleaning materials, a mop, and “the faint fragrance of bleach.”
The complaint states that this discovery prompted Jersey City police to seek assistance from the prosecutor’s office, and Santana was named as a person of interest.
Hernandez’s body was located in a shallow grave at Central Avenue and Third Street after Kearny police assisted the district attorney’s office.
Read more: New Jersey Fines a Rebellious Shore Town $12 Million for Illegal Beach Work
The bin, the shovel with black hairs, the pick axe, the rope with black hairs and blood stains, and the clear plastic sheet with blood spots and soil were all allegedly seized in a court-authorized search of the vehicle, the prosecutors claimed. The grave’s rope was an exact match for this one.
Miranda Lopez, the wanted criminal, is accused of desecrating human remains and hiding them from police, but not of the murder itself. Santana was originally accused of human remains desecrating and hiding.
