A car linked to the estranged hubby of slain 🐻New Jersey teacher Luz Hernandez had a pickax, shovel with hairs on it and bloody rope inside, according to new court filings.
The vehicle was impounded three days before Hernandez, the mother of Cesar Santana’s three children, was found buried in a shallow grave in Kearny.
Santana, 36, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder, hindering, failing to lawfully di🧸spose of human remains and tampering with evidence in the killing of t💟he 33-year-old woman.
Santana’s friend Leiner Miranda Lopez, 26, of Jersey City, has been 🃏charged with desecrating/concealing human remains for allegedly helping him dispose of Hernandez’s body. He remains at la﷽rge.
The Jersey City kindergarten teacher’s battered body was unearthed on Feb. 7 in an industrial part of Kearny. Three days later, US Marshals arrested Santana at a Miami motel on a charge of desecrating/concealing human remains.
He was extradited to New Jersey Tuesday night, the Hudso💧n County Prosecutor’s Office said in a s💯tatement.
An affidavit supporting a murder charge against Santana, , revealed that on Feb. 4 — two days before Hernandez was reported missing — her estranged husband was seen walking to her home in Jersey City. An hour later, he was spotted again, this time dragging a black-and-yellow bin from the house.
The following day, Santana was issued a motor vehicle summons in Kearny after he and his friend, Miranda Lopez, were observed loaౠding a black-and-yellow bin into a Honda.
The court filing stated that the car was impounded foღr having an ex𝔍pired registration.
A subsequent search of the Honda revealed a black-and-yellow bin, a pickax, a bloody shovel, a bloodstained rope, and clear plastic sheeting with blood and soil on it. The affidavit stated that strands of black hair wer🍒e also found on the shovel and rope.
After Santana reported his estranged wife missing, poღlice went to her house on Van Horne Street in Jersey City and found evidence of a crime, including blood in the bedroom, cleaning supplies, a mop and “the faint smell of bleach.”
Just hours after the welfare check at Hernandez’s home, inve𝐆stigators found her body in the area of Central Avenue and Third Street in Kearny.
An autopsy determined that Hernandez died of blunt force trauma to the head and compression of th🅷e neck. The BelovED Charter School teacher would have turned 34 years old Friday.
Santana made his initial appearance in Central J♔udicial Processing Court on Wednesday to hear the new charges against him, . He is expected to be back before a judge for a dete🍒ntion hearing next Monday.
