Suspect Gives Self Up in O.C. Hit-Run Death

Hours after an anonymous call led police to a crumpled white Honda Civic hidden under a blue blanket, a Buena Park welder surrendered to police Tuesday in connection with the fatal hit-and-run of a teen bicyclist a day before he was to enter college.

Acting on the tip, police arrived at the suspect’s Buena Park apartment Monday night, finding the mangled car and the first signs of evidence: human tissue and blood. Neighbors told police that the owner had emerged from under the blanket earlier in the day carrying cleaning supplies.

Within 14 hours of the police discovery, the car’s owner, 26-year-old Isidro Calderon Hernandez, arrived at the Santa Ana office of his attorney, who contacted police and arranged for the suspect’s arrest.

Authorities accuse Hernandez of slamming his car into John Lee LaBord and speeding away with the body jammed into the car’s broken-out windshield. Hernandez allegedly dumped the body 13 miles away.

The suspect’s family said he had spent most of Sunday with them at a Jehovah’s Witness church picnic at an Anaheim park; he then dined at his parents’ house before leaving for home about 9 p.m., complaining of a headache and tiredness.

Lilia Calderon, Hernandez’s mother, said he has suffered from depression and recurring headaches since he fell off a scaffold almost two years ago and injured his head.

“He was in a coma for three days,” the mother said. “He also broke three ribs and injured a lung. He’s suffered terrible headaches since that day and has taken medication on and off.”

Less than three hours after he left his parents’ house, police said, Hernandez plowed into LaBord as he walked his bicycle along East Orangewood Avenue near Rampart Street. Police say Hernandez dumped the body on the median of an undeveloped stretch of Portola Parkway, near the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

“It’s hard to imagine that someone could have driven a car like that and not be noticed,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said, adding that Hernandez might have had to stick his head out the driver’s window in order to see the road.

Hernandez, who worked as a welder, is also a suspect in a hit-and-run incident May 22 in which another bicyclist was injured on Lorena Street. Police would not say whether they believe Hernandez intentionally ran into the victims in either of the hit-and-run incidents.

Details of the earlier hit-and-run incident were sketchy, but Vargas said that victim “flew over the hood” of the car but suffered only minor abrasions. Vargas said the license plate of that car, as reported by witnesses, was registered to Hernandez.

Police sent Hernandez a letter, which he described as routine in such incidents, asking him to contact investigators. Hernandez never responded, said Vargas, adding that the case was still under investigation when the second accident occurred.

Hernandez himself was injured in a 1995 crash in which his car was struck by a drunk driver, authorities said.

On Tuesday, Hernandez was taken into custody after he showed up at the office of Alfred Real, a Santa Ana lawyer who represented Hernandez in a 1997 worker’s compensation case filed after Hernandez was injured in the fall from the scaffold.

Real said Anaheim detectives called him Tuesday morning and asked him to tell Hernandez they wanted to talk to him. Later Tuesday, Hernandez stepped off a bus and walked into Real’s office. Real said he called Anaheim detectives, who came and took Hernandez into custody.

Real declined to comment about any conversations he may have had with Hernandez prior to his arrest. According to the attorney, Hernandez is taking “typical pain medication” for his injuries “but nothing out of the ordinary.”

Police focused on Hernandez late Monday after an anonymous tip brought investigators to Hernandez’s apartment complex on West Commonwealth Avenue, across from Fullerton Municipal Airport, about 11 p.m. Vargas said that police missed Hernandez by about 10 minutes that night, and were told by a witness that the suspect may have left with another man in a red van.

By then, Hernandez’s family was already worried about him after he failed to follow what had become a routine--nightly dinners and regular breakfasts at his parents’ house.

“He was supposed to come over for breakfast [Monday] but didn’t,” his mother said. “He never came by all day. My other son went to look for him [at the apartment], and he called to say that Isidro’s car was crashed.”

Modesto Hernandez, the suspect’s father, went to the apartment to check on his son. Hernandez told his father that he discovered the car damaged when he woke up that morning.

“He told us that he didn’t know what happened,” the mother said. “The car was fine Sunday night, but when he woke up in the morning it was smashed.”

The family did not connect the damaged car with the hit-and-run in the news. The mother said Hernandez “worked hard to better his life and get a good-paying job.”

Neighbors said they immediately noticed the crumbled car Monday.

“There was severe damage to the front hood and the windshield, and the roof of the car,” said a neighbor who lives one floor above Hernandez, and who declined to be identified. “My girlfriend asked him how it happened and where. He said it happened in Anaheim and didn’t say anything more.”

The neighbor said she had seen reports of the Anaheim hit-and-run and called police, who arrived shortly after Hernandez left, possibly with a man who arrived driving a red van.

Investigators believe that Hernandez lived alone in the apartment for about a month. On Tuesday, the door to his ground floor unit was open, revealing it to be sparsely furnished. Hernandez’s diploma from Polaris High School in Anaheim was tacked on the living room wall.

Vargas said investigators did not find drugs or alcohol inside.

The fatal hit-and-run occurred about 11:50 p.m. Sunday. LaBord, 18, had just ended a work shift at the Converse shoe store in the Block at Orange, and was walking with his bike while talking with friends on East Orangewood Avenue near Rampart Street.

A car approached the friends from behind at a high rate of speed and plowed into the bike and LaBord before speeding off without braking.

Witnesses told police the car was a black Honda. Hernandez’s Honda is white, but Vargas said investigators were not concerned about the apparent discrepancy.

“Given the time of night and the fact that it happened so quickly, it’s not unusual that we were given the wrong color for the car,” Vargas said. “It was dark and the car was going 50 mph or better. He never braked or stopped.”

Hernandez has a previous conviction on resisting arrest and obstructing a police officer in the performance of his duties following a 1996 incident outside a Placentia apartment complex.

Corinne Loomis, a Placentia police spokeswoman, said officers were called to an apartment complex on La Jolla Street, where Hernandez lived at the time, after a resident reported seeing a partially naked man in a dumpster. Loomis said that officers found Hernandez by the dumpster and began questioning him.

“He said he had used the dumpster to go to the bathroom and became belligerent and aggressive when the officers questioned him,” Loomis said. “The officers had to pepper spray him to take him into custody.”

Hernandez was sentenced to three years’ probation and 40 hours of community service with Caltrans, Loomis said.

Times correspondent Jason Kandel contributed to this report.