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00:16There's some part of your human nature that just wants you to believe.
00:23He's going to close the shop up, they're not going to murder him, and he's going to walk
00:29out alive, but that's not what happens.
00:38I know two of the three people that know what happened, and they're not talking, and they're
00:42not giving us any information.
00:46Her attorney approached us and said, she wants to talk to you.
00:53Dan and I knew that something was very wrong.
00:58Once we saw these text messages, we saw the deliberate plan that was being formulated.
01:03We have a potential kidnap for ransom.
01:06Something bigger is going on here.
01:10The coroner was able to determine that this was a homicide, but they were not able to determine
01:16a specific cause of death.
01:19What she ended up telling us, I never saw coming, and I would never have guessed it
01:23in a million years.
01:43The Mojave Desert.
01:48It is a vast and forbidding landscape.
01:58The terrain, the habitat is brutal.
02:03There's no shade out there.
02:06It's hours and hours of just desert.
02:13And you have everything.
02:14It's very private, if you want it that way.
02:18The Mojave Desert.
02:19It is known.
02:21Bodies do get dumped there.
02:30The initial information we got pointed us in a direction just north of Barstow, off the
02:3515 freeway.
02:37In my career, I've been a city detective.
02:40It's all shooting scenes, stabbing scenes.
02:42I've never had anything where we had to go out and search the Mojave Desert.
02:47The amount of space, it was just overwhelming.
02:53We had helicopters.
02:55We had ATVs.
02:57We had 40 people looking for a body.
03:02One of the dogs alerted and ran to a barbed wire fence that's almost collapsed right next
03:09to the road.
03:10Once we got there, got out of the car, you could smell death before you.
03:16The remains were not identifiable.
03:18There was some sand covering the body.
03:22You could see kind of half of a torso kind of sticking out.
03:27I think there was only one arm.
03:29I couldn't see any legs.
03:35The animals in the area had partially consumed the body.
03:42From just being there standing there, I didn't have a clue as to the cause of death.
03:47You can try to get away with murder, but the truth always seems to catch up with you.
04:09When people think of Los Angeles, they think of, you know, big names.
04:14They think Hollywood.
04:15They think stardom.
04:17But in reality, it's a lot of working-class people who are trying to survive and make
04:22a living.
04:23From downtown Los Angeles in the West Adams neighborhood, it's just south of the 10 freeway,
04:29a bit west of USC.
04:35Our neighborhood is family-oriented, a lot of children.
04:38It's friendly.
04:39It's welcoming.
04:41It's a very close-knit community.
04:47I got separated from my husband almost 10 years ago.
04:52And, you know, I chose to keep the kids and raise them.
04:55And I had to work hard.
04:59In 2020, my oldest son, Joseph, was 22 years old and was attending USC.
05:05Gabriel, 18, a senior in high school.
05:09And then Juan was 21 at El Camino College, transferring to USC.
05:17I made it an effort since the beginning to be involved in my son's lives.
05:22We spent as much time as we could together.
05:25We have a love for running, so we did a lot of marathons.
05:31We're very close and very connected.
05:33We all live together.
05:36I love all my three kids, and we all have a great bond.
05:40But the bond that Juan and I had was different.
05:42He was always closer to me.
05:51In 2020, Juan attended El Camino Community College.
05:55He was studying to become an electrical engineer.
05:58He had hopes and dreams.
06:01He was working to make a better life.
06:09Breaking news, Los Angeles County now joining San Francisco and ordering people to stay at home.
06:14Ten million more people being told now to shelter in place.
06:19These are the empty freeways of Los Angeles during rush hour, which would normally look like a parking lot.
06:26Juan became unemployed, just like thousands of other people.
06:31One day he came home and said that he had found a job at a dispensary.
06:40The dispensary was about 20 minutes from home.
06:43He would work five days, six days a week, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the shop.
06:50It was an ideal job.
06:52I wasn't the happiest of moms, but he had to work.
06:55He was trying to save up for school, so all I could do was support him.
07:05September 22, 2020, about 2 p.m., I came home to find Juan, getting ready to go to work.
07:12I said, baby, I'm not going nowhere.
07:15Take my car.
07:17We said our goodbyes with a hug and a kiss, and I love you.
07:24I woke up to a text about 10 p.m., and it was Juan texting me, mom was up with
07:31my shift.
07:31I'll see you soon.
07:33I replied, okay.
07:39Wednesday morning, I woke up, realized that I fell asleep, that I didn't see Juan.
07:44So I go to his room.
07:47I opened the door, and the bed is still made.
07:55I run downstairs to my parking structure, and then I realized my car's not there.
08:02And then that's when all red flags went up.
08:08I think the world stopped for me in that moment.
08:12He'd never not come home, never leave me stranded.
08:17We share locations on our cell phones.
08:20His location is off.
08:22This is not normal.
08:24So I called LAPD, and I said my son to come home.
08:29This is not in his character to do.
08:31I can't get a hold of him.
08:33I want to follow a Mrs. Persson report.
08:36And I'm told I have to wait 72 hours.
08:43It was heartbreaking.
08:47For me to sit there for three days and just wait, just the thought of it was driving me crazy.
08:55This is a college student who's 20, 21 years old, who's only been missing for eight hours.
09:01It's very likely that he could have just gone somewhere and forgotten to tell her.
09:06That first night, I go on social media, and I make a post.
09:10Juan hasn't come home.
09:11He's driving this car.
09:13If anybody was with him, please reach out to me.
09:17And hours went by, and no one reached out.
09:21We were all at home, worried.
09:24My sons were overwhelmed.
09:27Emotions were everywhere.
09:30That was the worst night of my life.
09:33It's like, how do I go to bed, not knowing where my son is?
09:41The next morning, I called the dispensary multiple times, but they're not answering.
09:47And I start thinking, I won't wait 72 hours.
09:51So I go to the police station, and it was closed due to COVID.
09:57So I'm on the phone, and I'm outside.
09:59And there was an amazing officer that answered the call this time.
10:04He said, you know what, ma'am?
10:05This sounds serious.
10:06I'm going to push this to the missing persons unit now.
10:16The missing persons unit begins checking hospitals, checking the jails.
10:21It's not something you can kind of answer or kind of finish immediately.
10:25It takes time, especially during COVID.
10:33I'm thinking of every little thing that could have happened or went wrong.
10:40So I went to the dispensary.
10:43As I go in there, I talk to the security guard.
10:47He reached out to someone that at the time I knew as E.
10:52Juan had mentioned this person before, said that he kind of managed the shop, gives him my number.
10:59And then E calls back.
11:01Again, I repeat the whole story.
11:03My son didn't come home, and he says, we closed the shop, and he left.
11:07I said, I see you have cameras.
11:09Let me check your recordings.
11:11And he says, oh, the cameras are live.
11:14They're not being recorded.
11:17Wait a minute.
11:18You're selling marijuana.
11:20It should be mostly cash transactions.
11:23You don't want to keep an eye on your business when you're not here.
11:27And he said, no, I told you.
11:28It's live feed.
11:29I don't want to have problems with the police.
11:31I can't help you.
11:37While missing persons continue to do their standard checks,
11:41Ms. Hernandez was vocal in the community.
11:43She was out there.
11:43She was passing out flyers.
11:47I start calling family.
11:49I start reaching out to friends.
11:50We post it on social media.
11:53The message starts going out, and 1,000 shares, and 5,000 shares, and 10,000 shares.
11:59And people are reaching out from everywhere.
12:02Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like anybody has an idea as to where Juan might be.
12:16Thursday morning, I remember my phone in my hand, and a message comes through.
12:21They said they had Juan.
12:24If I didn't give them $7,000, they would kill my son.
12:30And in that moment, I stopped breathing.
12:44Do I pay?
12:45Do I not pay?
12:46Do they have them?
12:47We believe that his life could be in danger.
12:50Three people, they're cleaning up something the morning of the 23rd.
12:54That's what we said.
12:55Something bigger is going on here.
13:11I'm getting ransom messages from multiple numbers, saying that if I didn't give them $7,000, they would kill my
13:18son.
13:19And my mind just starts racing.
13:21So I called LAPD.
13:24The supervisor called me, and he told me, he goes, hey, we have a potential kidnap for ransom going on.
13:30It was Ms. Hernandez who reported her son Juan Hernandez missing a few days earlier.
13:38We communicated with Ms. Hernandez, and we had her meet us at our office.
13:45Obviously, there's that.
13:46Do I pay?
13:46Do I not pay?
13:47Do they have them?
13:48We believed that there was a potential that his life could be in danger.
13:54So immediately, we prepared search warrants on his phone records, on his credit cards, his social media, just so we
14:02could find out where he's at.
14:03From search warrants on Juan's phone, we knew the last place that it was was in the area of the
14:09dispensary.
14:10A little bit after 11 o'clock, his phone shut off, and it never turned back on.
14:15That's concerning and suspicious.
14:1720, 21-year-old kid constantly in contact with his mother.
14:22His phone's not going to be off.
14:24Dan and I knew that something was very wrong.
14:29We start our standard procedure to verify the messages.
14:33We learn Ms. Hernandez's car had been found.
14:37So at that point, we have multiple things going on with the case.
14:40But really, our best lead is the car.
14:44Ms. Hernandez's car was found two to three miles from the dispensary.
14:48And that area where it was located, it's a very high crime, prostitution, gang area.
14:54It's a rougher part of town.
14:56Could this be some sort of gang involvement?
14:59Could he have left and been robbed?
15:02We didn't know at this point.
15:05We processed the car, and we ended up getting nothing of evidentiary value.
15:09No fingerprints of an unknown person.
15:12No viable samples of DNA to test.
15:17And then we received results from the extortion.
15:21And we found out some of the senders were on another continent, in another state.
15:28And we've seen the exact same verbiage and the exact same texting nuances before in other extortions or kidnapper ransoms.
15:39Based on that, we were confident it was all just a scam.
15:43It's actually very common.
15:45We explained to her how the scam works.
15:47Of course, she wants to find her son and puts flyers up.
15:50But when it's a personal phone number, that's what opens it up to these people who are preying on vulnerable
15:57people.
15:58Scams are coming in.
16:00But at the same point, I'm like, how do I differentiate a scam from reality?
16:05I need to know my son's okay.
16:07It was hard to ignore the messages.
16:09I was just overwhelmed.
16:12At that time, we knew that that kidnap investigation was not going to go anywhere.
16:17She was receptive.
16:18But at the same time, she's still frustrated because it didn't fix the main problem, which is Juan is missing.
16:29From the beginning, we knew that Juan had been at work.
16:32But from there, we didn't know what had happened to him.
16:35But what we were focused on was Ms. Hernandez had spoken to someone at the dispensary.
16:42He said, the cameras don't record and don't get the police involved.
16:46For someone to say, don't get the police involved, it concerned us very much.
16:51We had taken a drive by to see what the dispensary looked like.
16:54So I knew that there was a lot of cameras.
16:57We needed to get in there, get that camera system, and see what we had.
17:01So that day, I started writing a search warrant for the location of the dispensary.
17:12Juan's mother continues her efforts throughout this period of time.
17:18I'm here today enticing the public to come forward to give us any information in regards to my son, Juan.
17:29It's still COVID, but the community came out of hiding.
17:35And that's where I gathered the strength to keep going.
17:45When the warrant came in, we knew if we show up at the dispensary and they're open,
17:51they would secure the location and we'd never get in and evidence could be destroyed.
17:55We purposely went there very early and waited a few hours.
18:00We wanted people to show up with the keys, but nobody showed up at Juan's dispensary at that time.
18:07We didn't know any of the employees that worked there to get in touch with them.
18:11The door was so fortified that we could not get it open.
18:14We had a forced entry into the dispensary.
18:17Once we got inside, we had fanned out.
18:21We saw the DVR took it and we left our search warrant information in the dispensary.
18:32The dispensary had video.
18:35He told Ms. Hernandez they only have live feed, so it was obvious he lied to her.
18:42There's no video before September 22nd.
18:45It starts on the 23rd.
18:47Obviously, that's suspicious.
18:50Why is there no video before the 22nd?
18:52The night Juan goes missing.
18:56And I see in the video from the morning of the 23rd,
19:01three people and two are cleaning up something off the ground.
19:05I'm like, wait a minute, what am I looking at here?
19:08What is this?
19:27We get the video from the dispensary where Juan Hernandez worked.
19:32And there's no video before September 22nd.
19:36It starts on the 23rd.
19:38And I see a video of three people.
19:44They're cleaning up something in the dispensary the morning of the 23rd.
19:50That's when we said something happened in there.
19:52Something bigger is going on here.
19:57Based on the video, the very next day,
19:59we went back to the dispensary to process the location as a potential crime scene.
20:08We came with our forensic technicians.
20:12We had them fingerprint.
20:13We had them photograph.
20:14We had them use luminol to test for blood trace.
20:20There was not a spot of blood in that dispensary.
20:24But what were they cleaning up?
20:27We were back at square one.
20:30At this point, we needed fax on Juan.
20:33The only thing we knew for sure is that his phone died at that location.
20:37So we knew, okay, something happened at the dispensary.
20:44Behind the employee counter, they had phone numbers.
20:46And so we got the phone number to the security guard at the location.
20:49We called them.
20:51From the beginning, we had suspicions about everybody that was at this dispensary.
20:55Also the security guard.
20:58He told us Ethan Estefan was the manager.
21:01We learned Ms. Hernandez had spoken to Ethan.
21:05She described him as E.
21:06and we were able to tell that he was one of the people in the video from the cleanup.
21:13We saw an alarm system at the dispensary
21:16and we did a warrant for the account holder.
21:19It had two people on the account,
21:21Ethan Estefan and James Payne, as owners of the location.
21:31Talking to the security guard,
21:33we had found out that he was one of the last people to see Juan alive.
21:37He said he was working that night.
21:39He left the location and Juan had remained there with Ethan and James.
21:49Looking into James' background, there wasn't much.
21:52He was of Chinese descent,
21:54had never been arrested for anything.
21:58It was the same with Ethan.
21:59He had minimal rap sheet, if any.
22:03We put a tracker on his car.
22:05We just wanted to keep tabs on him at that time.
22:09But we learned that on September 30th,
22:13the week after Juan disappeared,
22:15that James Hang traveled to Turkey with his girlfriend, Sunita Hang.
22:23We also learned that he bought the ticket to Turkey the same day he left.
22:28I was thinking James fled.
22:31I couldn't prove that yet, but that was what I was thinking.
22:36Once we identified James,
22:37we were able to tell that he was also one of the people in the video
22:41from the cleanup.
22:47There was a female in the video that was doing some cleanup,
22:50and we were trying to figure out who she was.
22:54LAPD detectives got video from LAX
22:58that James Hang had a companion,
22:59and he bought a ticket with a companion,
23:01and that was his girlfriend, Sunita.
23:04She was the third person in the video from the dispensary.
23:10Not long after that,
23:12we find out Sunita Hang comes back to the United States without James.
23:17We knew where she was.
23:19We didn't want to talk to her quite yet
23:21because we still didn't know what we were looking at in the video,
23:25and we needed more information.
23:31At this point, our world stopped.
23:35Nobody was going to work.
23:37Nobody was going to school.
23:39My sons felt helpless.
23:42It was hard.
23:46Just thinking what my baby is.
23:58There was video before September 23rd,
24:00but LAPD didn't have the proper equipment at that time
24:04to recover that video.
24:08It was frustrating.
24:12Then one of our civilian employees said,
24:15I have the right person for you.
24:16Call Juan Garaldo at Glendale.
24:22In 2020, I was a detective assigned to the Glendale Police Department.
24:27We got the DVR,
24:29and the following day is when we started the process.
24:32It took us eight hours to recover all the data that was on the DVR.
24:37There were over one million files that were recovered,
24:41but only one to two frames from one clip captured September 22nd,
24:46when Juan went missing,
24:47just less than a second of movement.
24:52We start seeing a camera
24:54that is pointing down towards the dispensary display case.
25:00And we see a male behind there
25:02who looks like Juan Hernandez.
25:04And we continued on that camera.
25:07And then we actually saw him being taken down to the ground.
25:12This is when it happens.
25:17We start getting a clear picture of the night Juan went missing.
25:26What she ended up telling us,
25:28I would never have guessed it in a million years.
25:44At the dispensary where Mr. Hernandez was working,
25:48there were over one million files that were recovered.
25:53I was confident those files were intentionally deleted from the DVR.
26:01On September 22nd
26:04is where we started seeing the two individuals struggling
26:08with the young man that was behind the counter.
26:15It was one still photo.
26:17I couldn't tell that Juan,
26:19at that point, was dead or alive.
26:21But in that moment,
26:23I knew we were going to solve this case.
26:25It meant everything.
26:29Wow.
26:29This is it.
26:32This is a smoking gun.
26:37LAPD was able to identify
26:38the two men that were on top of Mr. Hernandez.
26:42We knew it's just Juan,
26:44Ethan Estefan,
26:45and James Pang inside.
26:49While Ethan Estefan is choking Juan Hernandez,
26:53you see James Pang lean down,
26:55and there's something weird in his hand.
26:59We all thought it was a cell phone being held by James,
27:02but we had no idea what this item was.
27:09It looked like they killed Juan in this video,
27:12but I still didn't prove it.
27:14Was Juan just knocked unconscious?
27:16We know who was involved,
27:18but we still didn't have a body,
27:20and we still didn't know why this happened.
27:24Part of us were thinking,
27:25but what'd they do with him?
27:31So we also do search warrants on their phones.
27:35Ethan Estefan,
27:37James Pang,
27:38and Sunita Hang.
27:42They were asking for information,
27:44and so is every other law enforcement agency in the country.
27:48So it takes time,
27:49and it's frustrating,
27:50because obviously we want the information right now.
27:59I think that by the third week,
28:02I accepted the fact that I wasn't looking for my son.
28:07My son wouldn't have gone three weeks without contacting me.
28:13So I knew that something had happened to him,
28:17and I, for a fact,
28:20knew that at this point I was looking for a body.
28:34Grief?
28:35I would have never imagined how hard
28:39it hits a person.
28:44I'm communicating with the detectives,
28:46but I'm not getting any information
28:49other than we're working on it,
28:51and in my mind,
28:52that wasn't enough.
28:57It was hard not being able to share information,
29:00because we're doing our job,
29:02we're detectives,
29:03but we're also human.
29:06We couldn't bring her into the fold,
29:07because it's just,
29:08it's very sensitive,
29:09and we're not sure what direction it's going to take us,
29:11and we didn't want to release some information
29:13that later on could compromise the investigation.
29:16It felt bad not being able to tell her,
29:18but that's just the way it works.
29:26In early November,
29:28phone records start trickling in.
29:30We start getting a clear picture
29:33of where James,
29:35Ethan,
29:37and Sunita were
29:38the night Juan went missing.
29:41The phone records
29:42led us straight to the Mojave Desert.
29:45When we got the phone records
29:47that they had gone to the Mojave Desert,
29:49in the middle of the night,
29:50right after Juan's phone
29:52had turned off,
29:54this is the Mojave Desert,
29:55bodies are dumped there.
29:57So we knew that Juan was dead,
30:00and now our focus was,
30:01we need to find him.
30:03We talked to the detective
30:05that does our phone analysis,
30:07and we came up with a plan
30:10of where we were going to start searching.
30:13Jennifer and I gassed up,
30:15and we headed out there that afternoon.
30:17The phone towers in Mojave Desert
30:19are 10 miles apart.
30:2110 miles is huge.
30:24We needed to find Juan.
30:26His body was the key to this whole case.
30:28The odds of finding
30:29are probably minimal to zero.
30:49Seven weeks after Juan's disappearance,
30:52forgetting the cell phone records,
30:54the Sony to hang,
30:55Ethan and James' phones are pinging
30:58out in the desert
30:59that night that Juan disappeared.
31:03We had a plan
31:04of where we were going to start searching.
31:07We made a grid
31:09of the 10 miles in between
31:11the two exits,
31:13the two cell towers
31:14that we knew that they were in the area of.
31:16We brought 40 detectives.
31:20We went out there
31:21from early morning
31:22till almost dark.
31:25And we came up blank.
31:30after a couple days,
31:31on November 15, 2020,
31:33our analysts had narrowed down the scope
31:35to an area that we hadn't covered.
31:48We had helicopters,
31:51ATVs,
31:51we had off-road vehicles.
31:54San Bernardino's search and rescue team
31:56had a team of dogs.
31:58There was a slight hill
31:59that kind of went down the road,
32:01so the team
32:02fanned out
32:03and went that way.
32:05Within an hour,
32:06that morning,
32:07I heard a call over the radio.
32:11They had found something.
32:18One of the cadaver dogs alerted
32:20and then she got a little closer
32:21and you could smell the remains.
32:25If it was Juan,
32:26he had been out in the desert
32:28at least two months.
32:29Some parts of the body
32:31were covered by sand or rocks,
32:33but a substantial amount
32:34was exposed
32:35to the sun
32:37and animals.
32:39They removed the body
32:41with a large sifter
32:43just to make sure
32:44nothing was being lost
32:45in the soil.
32:47The state the body was in
32:49was almost skeletal.
32:51There was only one arm,
32:52partial torso in the head,
32:54so there was not a lot.
32:57We were able to see
32:58that there was one hand
32:59that might be salvageable
33:02to get fingerprints off of.
33:04We notified San Bernardino homicide.
33:06They called their coroner investigator
33:07and then he came out
33:09and they extracted the body.
33:18San Bernardino was able
33:19to make a cast of the hand
33:22and then they roll
33:23those fingerprints
33:24and in less than 24 hours
33:26we were able to
33:27positively identify
33:28Juan Hernandez.
33:36The coroner was able
33:38was able to determine
33:38that this was a homicide,
33:40but they were not able
33:41to determine
33:41a specific cause of death.
33:48Two days later we went
33:51and told Ms. Hernandez
33:52that Juan had been found.
33:56I couldn't do it.
33:58Dan did it.
34:06And it was tough.
34:15They came to my home
34:18and then they said
34:20we found your sons
34:22we made.
34:29It destroyed us
34:30as individuals
34:33and it destroyed us
34:34as a family.
34:46We're ready to move forward.
34:48It's like,
34:49all right,
34:49let's finish this.
34:52Once Juan Hernandez
34:53was identified,
34:54we had enough
34:55to get arrest warrants
34:57for Ethan
34:59and Sunita
35:00and James,
35:01but he was still
35:01in Turkey
35:02on November 19th.
35:04Four days after
35:05Juan was found,
35:06we end up
35:07surfing search warrants
35:08at Ethan's apartment
35:10and Sunita
35:11and Sunita
35:11and Hank's apartment
35:12and arrested them.
35:15When we arrest Ethan,
35:17he has his cell phone
35:19on him.
35:20In a murder case,
35:21you often have
35:22to prove intentions
35:23and it's difficult to do.
35:25You can't get
35:26into someone's mind.
35:27Up to that point,
35:29we didn't have
35:30a clear motive.
35:33But Ethan's messages
35:34offered a glimpse
35:36into the plan
35:38that he and James Pang
35:40had been formulating.
35:42The text messages
35:43begin with
35:44a sort of investigation.
35:46Who is stealing money?
35:48Let's find our suspects.
35:49And then they isolate
35:51on Juan Hernandez.
35:53In their minds,
35:55they believe
35:55that Juan was stealing
35:57from them.
36:01There was never any evidence
36:03that anyone
36:04was stealing money,
36:05especially not Juan.
36:08Finally,
36:08on September 22nd,
36:10James Pang
36:10had told
36:11Ethan Estephon
36:12that he had a plan
36:14and that Ethan Estephon
36:16was going to be
36:17the muscle
36:17in that plan.
36:24After Sunita
36:25and Ethan
36:26were arrested,
36:28they are not talking.
36:30But a month later,
36:32DA Balian
36:33called me
36:34and Dan
36:34and said he had
36:35received a call
36:36from Sunita's lawyer.
36:37Her attorney
36:39approached us
36:39and said,
36:41Sunita wants
36:41to talk to you.
36:43What she ended up
36:44telling us,
36:45I never saw coming
36:47and I would never
36:49have guessed it
36:49in a million years.
36:50Woo!
37:06Once Juan Hernandez
37:08was identified,
37:09they didn't solve
37:10the case.
37:11There was still
37:12one piece
37:13of the puzzle
37:14that we didn't have.
37:16What was in
37:17James' hand
37:17in the video.
37:20Then DA Balian
37:22called me
37:22and Dan
37:23and said
37:24Sunita wanted
37:24to talk.
37:27Sunita had
37:28heard a conversation
37:30between James
37:32and Ethan
37:32about killing
37:33Juan Hernandez.
37:35I told him,
37:37are you planning
37:38on killing someone?
37:39And then he said,
37:40yes,
37:40because he
37:41took his money.
37:43What happened then?
37:44He pushed me
37:45to the bed
37:45and then he said,
37:46I lift off him.
37:47I have to do
37:48as he said.
37:49What are you upset about?
37:50Because I was scared
37:51that James
37:52was going to kill me.
37:53Okay.
37:56Sunita told us
37:57James injected
37:59Juan with
38:00a syringe of ketamine
38:01in the dispensary
38:06and injected
38:07Juan with more ketamine
38:10after they had
38:10already killed him
38:11on the drive up
38:12to the Mojave Desert.
38:14He's injected
38:15in Juan's eyeballs.
38:17Ethan was making
38:18fun of it.
38:19He said,
38:20I was trying to
38:20inject it to his eyeball
38:22to see
38:22if his eyeballs changed.
38:27What we all thought
38:28was like a cell phone
38:29being held by James
38:30that was a syringe
38:31of ketamine.
38:38I called the coroner
38:39and I said,
38:41hey, look,
38:41we need to test
38:42for ketamine.
38:44Initially,
38:44as part of the autopsy,
38:46a normal drug screening
38:47was done,
38:48but it did not test
38:49for the presence
38:49of ketamine.
38:51The coroner
38:52ended up finding
38:53that the cause of death
38:54was both strangulation
38:55and ketamine overdose
38:57equal parts.
39:00What Sonita had
39:02to add to this case
39:03was extremely important,
39:05but we didn't have
39:06James Pang.
39:07James Pang
39:08was still out in Turkey.
39:10We learned from Sonita
39:12that James was trying
39:13to get to China.
39:15We knew that
39:16if he made it to China,
39:17we would never see James again.
39:19for over a year.
39:21The U.S. Department of State
39:23worked with authorities
39:25in Turkey
39:25to have him arrested
39:27and extradited back
39:28to the United States.
39:30Late November of 2022,
39:32the U.S. Marshals
39:34went to Turkey
39:35and delivered him
39:36to me and Dan
39:37at LAX airport.
39:46February 9th, 2024,
39:49three years after the murder,
39:51James Pang,
39:51Ethan Esiphon,
39:53Stan accused of murder.
39:56During the trial,
39:58what the jury heard
39:58was on September 22nd,
40:022020,
40:03Juan Hernandez
40:04went to work
40:05at the dispensary
40:07and around
40:0811 o'clock at night,
40:10Ethan and James arrived
40:11and after everybody left,
40:14Ethan choked Juan
40:17and James injected him
40:19with ketamine.
40:20Both of what they did
40:21killed him.
40:23Sonita drove
40:24two and a half hours
40:25to the Mojave Desert
40:26and they drove
40:28two and a half miles
40:29on a dirt road,
40:32dumped Juan's body
40:33and covered the body
40:35with sand.
40:38Back at the dispensary,
40:41they clean up
40:42and they collected
40:45some items of Juan's.
40:48Ethan got into Juan's car
40:51and he left it
40:53in a high prostitution area.
40:56The next day,
40:58they took Juan's belongings,
40:59went to Newport Beach
41:02and they burned
41:03Juan's items.
41:10The jury only took
41:12a few hours
41:12to deliberate.
41:15Ethan Astiphon
41:16and James Payne
41:17were convicted
41:18of first-degree murder.
41:21Ethan Astiphon
41:23was sentenced
41:23to 25 years to life.
41:26James Payne
41:27was sentenced
41:28to 26 years to life.
41:29in an exchange
41:31for her providing
41:32her truthful testimony,
41:35Sonita Heng
41:35received probationary
41:37felony sentence
41:38in 112 days
41:39in county jail.
41:47I'm happy
41:48that we
41:49were able to give
41:51Ms. Hernandez
41:52some answers.
41:54Doesn't change
41:55what happened,
41:58but we did it
41:59for her.
42:10We remember Juan
42:11being kind
42:13and always
42:15being there
42:16for his loved ones.
42:17I'm going to honor
42:19his life
42:19by trying
42:20to be better
42:21because
42:22these individuals
42:23took his body,
42:26but his spirit
42:27and his love,
42:28all of that
42:29remains in my heart.
42:30thank you.
42:33.
42:33.
42:33.
42:33.?.
42:33.
42:40.
42:41.
42:47Transcription by CastingWords
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