Husband, Son Find Woman Fatally Shot

Virginia Hernandez was alone Friday when she apparently answered a knock at the door of her secluded and rambling home high above the brushland of Hansen Dam basin.

Seconds later, she was dead.

Her husband, Ray, and 25-year-old son, Adrian, came home at about 8 that night. Adrian walked in the front door first and found his mother in the living room with a bullet through her head.

Police investigating the apparent murder of the 62-year-old mother of eight added nothing to that brief account Saturday.

A terse announcement issued by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Detective Division said there were no suspects and no known motive.

More than a dozen members of the Hernandez family gathered Saturday afternoon at the rambling home where the family has lived 15 years.

Ray Hernandez, 28, of Pasadena spoke guardedly about his mother’s killing, saying he believes she was “shot in the head answering the door.”

There was no evidence of robbery, he said.

“Everything was there, money in her purse, stereos, VCRs, all that,” the younger Ray Hernandez said. “Nothing was taken.”

Hernandez said his father, a retired mechanic, and his brother returned at the same time to the house at the north end of Johanna Avenue.

“My dad was in the guest house. He just pulled in two minutes before,” Hernandez said. “Adrian found her. He came home, opened the door and there she was.”

He added that said detectives had shared no details of their investigation with the family.

“We need all the help we can get figuring out who would do something like this,” he said.

As news of the shooting rippled through the semirural neighborhood of sprawling horse properties, several residents said they were concerned, but not alarmed.

“Naturally, it does cause concern,” said Bill Sanders, stopping on his way to the grieving family with an offering of bread and potato salad.

“Neighbors are concerned because it’s a good friend of ours,” Sanders said. “But we’re not pushing the panic button.”