Shadow Hills : Man Possibly Linked to Slaying Sought

Police have released a composite drawing of a man who could be a key to the baffling slaying of a 62-year-old Shadow Hills woman.

“We would like to speak with him, and find out if he had seen anything,” said Detective Patty Ferguson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division.

The person depicted in the drawing is Latino, in his early 20s, with a medium build and clean-cut, with black hair.

So far, the man is the only lead in the death of Virginia Hernandez, a mother of eight, who was shot once in the head Nov. 18 in her home on Johanna Avenue in Shadow Hills.

The man sought by police had come to the Hernandez home twice before the murder that day.

He reportedly had been asking for directions to a neighbor’s house, and then came back later asking to borrow a pencil.

He was driving a dark hatchback car, possibly with tinted windows.

The neighbor said the man had never shown up, and a member of the victim’s family said he thinks the man could be the killer.

Hernandez’s son, Adrian, 25, found his mother’s body in the living room about 8 p.m.

Police said she was shot with a .380 semiautomatic weapon, probably after answering a knock at the door.

The family has been able only to speculate about why the well-liked woman was killed.

“We know it was not a random thing,” said Ray Hernandez, another son.

A $25,000 reward in the case was authorized by the Los Angeles City Council in March, and was matched by the family. But the city reward expired after 30 days.

Police said that they have no concrete leads in the case and that the composite drawing of the man was released as an attempt to generate more information.

“The longer it takes us to find a suspect, the harder it becomes, but it’s not impossible,” Ferguson said, adding that murder suspects have been found even years after the crime.

Anyone with information about the case can call Ferguson at (818) 834-3104.