Infidelity, Death and a Concealed Handgun License

[Robalero]

This story has been developing in deep, south Texas now for a couple of weeks. Everytime an update is written, something new comes up. Today, it was that the alleged murderer, had a CHL.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/ts_mor ... 3_0_10_0_C

Court records: Man bought gun shortly before teacher’s death
By SERGIO CHAPA
The Brownsville Herald

October 26, 2005 — A Rockport man accused of killing an Edinburg substitute teacher reportedly bought a weapon that could have been used to kill her almost three weeks before her body was found on a remote area of South Padre Island, according to a probable cause affidavit released Tuesday.

Amit Livingston, 37, remains in custody under a $1 million bond in the death of 32-year-old Hermila Hernandez of Edinburg.

Investigators found Hernandez’s partially nude body on a sand dune 1.9 miles north of the Island’s Beach Access 6 on Oct. 4. The substitute teacher had been missing for four days and was found shot to death with a .40-caliber weapon.

Court records released Tuesday claim that Livingston lied to investigators about his whereabouts at the time of the crime, his relationship with Hernandez and claims that two of his guns were stolen at a Houston carwash.

The Brownsville Herald requested a copy of a probable cause affidavit on the case from the District Attorney’s Office through the Texas Open Records Act shortly after Livingston’s Oct. 19 arraignment, but officials did not provide the document until Tuesday.

The affidavit states that Hernandez was having an ongoing extramarital affair with Livingston and that the Rockport man got into a fight with Hernandez’s husband Mario about the alleged acts of infidelity outside the family’s Edinburg home on Aug. 25.

Although it was clear how Livingston and Hermila Hernandez met, her husband told investigators that his wife and the Rockport man had stayed on Island before.

Hermila Hernandez was reported missing on Sept. 30 after she told her husband to pick up their child from school and did not return home, according to the affidavit.

Phone records detailed in the affidavit show that Livingston was in Edinburg, Pharr and San Juan between Sept. 28 and 30, while records from the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint revealed that he left the Rio Grande Valley on Sept. 30.

Investigators learned that Livingston stayed at the Comfort Inn and Executive Inn in Edinburg between Sept. 28 and 30.

The affidavit reveals that University of Texas-Pan American police found Hermila Hernandez’s car on Oct. 11 in the parking lot of the Pan Am Annex, three blocks away from the Executive Inn.

The document details that Livingston called officials with the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office and Texas Rangers the same day that the car was found.

Livingston claimed to be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area at the time of the phone call, denied having a sexual relationship with Hernandez and said he had no knowledge she had been murdered, according to the affidavit.

Phone records revealed that Livingston was actually in Houston at the time of the phone call while a Houston Police Department report shows he reported two guns as stolen from his green Toyota 4-Runner after taking it to the Minit Man car wash, according to the affidavit.

The manager of the car wash told investigators that Livingston asked detailers not clean the cargo area of the SUV.

The car wash manager added that Livingston supervised the cleaning. The manager said he showed the Rockport man that workers left the cargo area dirty.

The affidavit shows that Texas Rangers discovered that Livingston, who had a concealed handgun license, bought a Sig Sauer .357 handgun with an interchangeable .40-caliber barrel at The Sharpshooter gun store and firing range in Corpus Christi on Sept. 13.

Authorities would not confirm if the weapon used in the killing had been found.

schapa@brownsvilleherald.com