Slaying probe uncovers reports of terrifying nighttime street pursuits

The young women were driving to a late-night party in Sylmar when one noticed a large sport utility vehicle on their tail.

They tried to lose the SUV, but it kept following. Terrified, the women drove to a San Fernando Valley police station to report the incident. The SUV drove away.

Detectives now believe the women were indeed being stalked — and, in fact, that the Aug. 10 incident marked the beginning of a 14-day stretch in which Los Angeles-area motorists were followed and sometimes shot at by a man police have labeled a serial killer. The string ended Aug. 24 in the San Fernando Valley when a shotgun-wielding man in an SUV killed three people and wounded four others.

Alex Hernandez, 34, has so far been charged with fatally shooting one person and trying to kill two others in the days before the Valley attacks. Detectives have identified him as the suspect in at least five other shootings, including the three Aug. 24.

As the police probe of Hernandez continues, investigators are reviewing accounts of people who say they were followed in recent weeks by a driver in a gold- or tan-colored SUV. In two cases, investigators suspect the killer was hunting potential victims.

In Sylmar, the mother of one of the women who was followed told The Times that her 22-year-old daughter felt sick over the news of the killings and the thought that her life may have been in danger.

“She’s shocked. We’re all shocked,” the woman, who declined to give her name, said. “My daughter said she felt like he wanted to harm them.”

The accounts of being chased echo those of motorists who were shot at, police said.

Nearly two weeks after the two women were pursued, Sylmar resident Adrian Gonzalez and his friend were driving to a late-night eatery near his home. Gonzalez told The Times that he noticed a large sport utility vehicle with its headlights turned off following close behind their car in the early-morning darkness.

The SUV began to shadow their every move, he said, then pulled up on their passenger side — its headlights suddenly on. The driver screamed at Gonzalez to lower the window, and at one point, asked: “Do you know what time it is, homie?”

The SUV driver had his right hand on the steering wheel and his left arm down, said Gonzalez, 24.

“I thought, ‘This guy is going to pull a gun.’ That’s when my friend floored it and we took off,” he said. “We started driving as fast as we could.”

After about 20 minutes, they were able to shake the SUV, Gonzalez said.

At the time, he hadn’t considered calling the cops. “We just followed our instincts: Let’s try to lose this guy,” he said.

Later that morning, Gonzalez walked outside and made a startling discovery. Across the street, Hernandez — his neighbor — was pulling into his driveway in his tan SUV. The vehicle looked like the SUV that had been following him and his friend that morning, and Hernandez’s attire matched that of the SUV’s driver, Gonzalez said.

“He was wearing the same hat and the same shirt,” Gonzalez said, adding that he also wore glasses.

Gonzalez said Hernandez had lived in the neighborhood just over a year and sometimes behaved oddly. He would often sit in his SUV, sometimes well into the early-morning hours, he said.

Gonzalez said he and his brother, Albert, 26, confronted Hernandez, who acknowledged that he had followed Gonzalez and his friend.

“He said he wanted to know where we were going and what we were up to,” Gonzalez said. “We told him that was no way of approaching people and that the reason we fled was because we thought the driver was going to kill us.”

Hernandez told them he wouldn’t do anything to harm them because they were his neighbors, the brothers said.

“He said, ‘Nah, man, I don’t play around and do that,’” Hernandez said, according to Albert Gonzalez. “If I’m going to pull it, you’re not even going to see it.”

On the morning of Aug. 24, Gonzalez said, he awoke to news of the three fatal shootings.

In a one-hour span, a gunman in an SUV had killed a 23-year-old woman going to church with her teenage siblings and her parents, a 29-year-old man apparently collecting recyclables and a 59-year-old woman also heading to church.

Gonzalez called police to report what had happened to him. By then, a police helicopter was hovering over their street. Then he spotted Hernandez, standing on top of his SUV — his arms spread wide, looking into the sky.

Hours later, SWAT officers descended on Hernandez’s house and arrested him.

Capt. William Hayes, the head of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division, said that following someone on a roadway isn’t a crime but that detectives are interested in using such reports to help develop a timeline for the killer’s actions.

Shootings from one car to another are not unheard of in Southern California’s vast and sometimes rage-fueled network of streets and freeways, and authorities did not connect the far-flung shootings until last week’s violence. Investigators are reviewing other unsolved shootings, including one in March.

Detectives said Hernandez is a suspect in an Aug. 14 shooting in Rosamond, north of Palmdale, in which the driver of a gold SUV rolled down his window and fired at least four shotgun blasts at a vehicle alongside him on the 14 Freeway. A passenger in the targeted car was severely wounded, authorities said.

Detectives said they also have connected Hernandez to the Aug. 20 shooting of a woman who was seriously wounded as she exited the 5 Freeway in Atwater Village.

Hernandez has been charged with the slaying of a 48-year-old man in Pacoima on Aug. 21 and the attempted murder of a couple who were unhurt when their car was blasted with a shotgun a day later in West Hollywood. The couple told sheriff’s investigators they saw a tan or gold SUV following them with its lights off at night before the vehicle eventually pulled alongside and the driver opened fire.

Hernandez has yet to enter a plea. He has also been charged with fatally shooting two dogs in a separate incident Aug. 23.

Twitter: @LATvives, @LAcrimes, @hbecerraLATimes

Times staff writer Kate Mather contributed to this report.