108\. The Stoplight Assassin
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Hey everyone, I'm just popping in here real quick because I forgot to tell you that I restocked Into the Dark merch for those of you who couldn't snag it last time. I know we had a lot of requests. It is so cute, you guys. The quality is good. It is not your typical merch shirts. They are boxy. They are thick,

thick collar which is really nice and then also cute enough that you can like wear it out but it's also into the dark merch so it's spooky i know a lot of you missed it last time because i didn't expect that many people to want into the dark merch so i went ahead and restocked it with a couple new designs so check it out the link is on instagram and then also in the episode notes okay thank you thank you so much i really really just didn't want to forget again i love you let's get to the episode

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Into the Dark podcast. I'm your host Peyton Moreland. I'm so happy you are here. If my voice sounds a little different, I woke up so sick today and I decided I just needed to get out of bed and record this episode. My throat is swollen. I can't swallow. My ears are pounding, but you know, you know, we're going to get you an Into the Dark episode. But honestly, I feel like

booty. I feel like booty. But honestly, let's jump into my 10 seconds. If you guys saw on Instagram, Garrett and I took a little trip to St. George this last week and it honestly was so fun. And that's why I'm a little confused. I'm sick because I was just in the sun. I was just living my best life.

And I don't know. I have this thing in my head where I'm like, if I'm in the sun, there's no way I could get sick because vitamin D. I don't know. Obviously, that doesn't work. But it was great. Daisy finally got to swim in the pool and she was just in heaven. She loved every second of it. Honestly, the vibes were just really good on that trip. It was really peaceful. And yeah, it was it was so, so fun.

But I'm going to keep it short and sweet because my throat is hurting. So let's get into the episode. Trigger warning, this episode includes discussions of murder and animal abuse. So please listen with care. And I will warn you when we are getting to the animal abuse part so you can skip.

Now, if you drive every single day, it's easy to treat it as a boring chore, something that doesn't require your full focus, which as we know can be dangerous. Driving comes with many deadly risks. Every year, 42,000 people die in car crashes.

which is a terrifying statistic because even if you're a safe driver, the person in the vehicle next to you might be distracted or drunk and even good drivers can lose control due to a mechanical malfunction or bad weather. And there's one other danger that you face every time you get behind the wheel of a car. If you've listened to Murder With My Husband recently, you probably know what that danger is.

it's that you might make someone in another vehicle irrationally angry. Road rage can be just as fatal as any accident or collision, and that's just one kind of violent crime that can happen while you're driving. Some attacks defy explanation. The worst part of all of this is that a deadly encounter on the road can happen very quickly.

In some cases, it can be so fast that you don't even have time to process what's happened to you. And that was the case for Los Angeles resident Nicole De La Mora. On August 20th, 2014, she was on her way to work and she had to take the freeway to get there. Now, Nicole worked a very early shift in Los Angeles. She had to be clocked in by 6:00 AM, meaning that the sun hadn't risen yet when she was on the highway.

It stuck out to Nicole when she saw another car on the freeway that didn't have its headlights on. Now, LA has its fair share of dangerous drivers, but it just struck Nicole as odd that this other vehicle would do something so dangerous while it is still dark out.

So she kept an eye on the other car, worried about what else it might do. It was too dark for her to tell much about it, like the make or model. All she could say for sure was that the vehicle was large. It was a van or a truck. Now eventually she lost track of this large vehicle that had its lights off and she forgot about the other driver entirely. It didn't seem like something she had to think about anymore.

So she got to her exit and all Nicole could focus on now was her upcoming day of work. So Nicole pulled up to a stop sign and came to a halt. And that's when suddenly she heard a loud hop, but Nicole didn't know what the sound was or where it had come from.

At the same moment that she heard the noise, Nicole also felt a wet sensation like someone had thrown water over her. When Nicole looked down, she saw that she wasn't soaked in water. It was her own blood. She was bleeding enough that it was flowing down her shirt, wrenching her. Now you obviously probably know what happened here. You would freak out, but Nicole, she didn't freak out or panic.

Instead, according to her, everything was surreal, almost like she was dreaming. This was good because she was able to stay calm and think rationally about this bizarre situation. Nicole turned her head and saw a car had stopped next to hers. It was the same large vehicle as before, a large SUV with its lights off. The driver was someone that she didn't recognize, someone she'd never met before.

but he had a shotgun poking out his window aimed directly at her. He had shot her even though Nicole had never done anything to this man before that she knew of. It wasn't even a road rage shooting because Nicole hadn't cut him off or been aggressive on the road. Whatever his motive, he had obviously followed her off the freeway, pulled up next to her and shot her for no reason.

So Nicole's first thought was that she needed to call 911 and get help. But her second thought was she couldn't call anyone here. The road was remote and empty other than her in the shooting. There were no witnesses around and no one stopped this man from shooting at her again. So rather than sit there and call for police or an ambulance, she put her foot on the gas pedal and turned the corner. Nicole headed toward a busier street where she knew there would be more people around.

And the whole time she was driving, she was praying to God for help. She didn't know what else to do. Eventually, she found a spot to pull over. It was in front of a busy building where there were already a lot of people outside. She hadn't lost the SUV by this point. It was still following her. But also, Nicole was getting so lightheaded, she knew she wouldn't be able to drive safely for much longer. She was already losing too much blood. As dangerous as the shooter was, she decided the risk of a car crash seemed even greater.

So as Nicole put her car into park, she saw the SUV pull up beside her once again. And that unreal feeling was still in effect. So Nicole assumed that she was either hallucinating or dreaming as she got out of the car and began talking to the man who had shot her. She asked him why he had hurt her and what he thought he was doing. It's hard to say what happened after that. Nicole's recollections of that day were never clear from that point onward.

I do know that eventually she walked away from the SUV alive and other people from the business saw her stumbling around covered in blood. She found a security guard who worked in the building and he called 911 while another man, a good Samaritan who Nicole had never met before, held her and told her she was going to be okay. And in no time at all, she was rushed away in an ambulance.

When Nicole eventually woke up in a hospital, there were police in the room with her because she had been shot. They told her she was very lucky to be alive. She'd just come out of a four-hour surgery where she'd come very close to dying numerous times. The doctors also said that if she'd arrived in the emergency room just a few minutes later, she wouldn't have survived. She had been dangerously close to death by blood loss at the time that she checked in.

Now, in spite of that, Nicole's biggest worry at first was that she was late to work. It was hard for her to process everything she had been through because it just seemed so random and like there was no reason. So out of just natural habit, she focused on mundane issues at first. So anyway, the police asked her what she'd said to the man who'd shot her or if she knew his identity.

And as it turned out, it hadn't been a dream at all. Maybe it was due to shock or something else, but Nicole had actually walked toward the stranger who tried to murder her and talked to him after he shot her. It was a miracle that he hadn't shot her again during that conversation. And at this point, the police knew what Nicole had done because everything had been caught on the building's security cameras.

unfortunately they'd only captured the visuals not audio so the officers didn't know what nicole or the man had said to one another and she didn't remember it well either all of her recollections were hazy still she was able to give a very detailed description of what had happened before that and of the suv this man had been in she even drew a picture of what the car looked like now from there nicole's road to recovery was slow

for time afterward she needed to use special medical equipment just to breathe one of the bullets had damaged her neck enough that she couldn't inhale and exhale on her own needless to say nicole was a survivor of a crime that didn't even make sense and the police wasted no time in trying to figure out who attacked her and why so after their preliminary investigation they realized that honestly they didn't know much at all even though their victim had survived

If Nicole didn't recognize the man, then it didn't sound like he'd shot her due to a personal conflict, and none of the witnesses to the attack had seen anything that could explain the shooter's violent actions. Like I mentioned before, Nicole was right. Her attack didn't sound like a road rage incident. She and the SUV driver hadn't interacted at all until the moment he'd pulled off the freeway and fired at her. As near as anyone could tell, the shooting seemed completely random.

For long, the police realized something else that was even more grim. And honestly, it gave an explanation to what had happened to Nicole earlier that morning. Nicole was not the only victim of this mysterious shooter in the SUV. She was just the first at the start of a deadly spree. See, just one day after Nicole's attack, a man was killed.

under eerily similar circumstances. His name was Gildardo Morales, and he was also on his way to work in the Los Angeles area. And while he was waiting at a red light on the morning of August 21st, another car pulled up behind him, and that driver fatally shot him. Now, by the time the police arrived at the scene, it was too late to help Gildardo. He was dead. His bagged lunch was sitting beside him in the passenger seat.

And that detail really stuck out to the police. He was just going to work, minding his own business when his life was taken from him. The back windshield was full of bullet holes from the attack. Investigators could tell from the wounds that he'd been shot with a shotgun. It was the same kind of gun that had injured Nicole. And they connected the two cases rather quickly.

And thanks to witness statements, detectives also knew the killer drove a tan SUV with a broken hood that didn't close all of the way. Now the description matched what Nicole had said, but now the police were able to get even more details about the shooter's vehicle. Like that it had two stickers on the bumper. One said 666, which is the devil's number, and the other was a white skull.

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After that, another day went by, and that's when the police got another report that was so similar, felt like history was repeating itself, and there was an emergency. There had been another unprovoked shooting, and the attacker had been driving that same very distinct SUV. This time, the victims were a couple, Felipe and Karen Rueda.

A stranger had shot at their car while they were waiting at a stop sign. But luckily Felipe and Karen survived because none of the bullets hit them. But 23-year-old Mariana Franco wasn't so lucky.

She was a young adult who used a wheelchair and had other special needs, and she lived with her parents. They were all going to church together on Sunday, August 24th. This is just two days after the couple was shot at but survived. And that was when a man, the same man, pulled up next to their car just before 6 a.m. Again, it was completely unprovoked when the guy lifted a shotgun, aimed into their car, and fired.

And sadly, Mariana died of a gunshot wound to the head. Her parents had to be hospitalized for several days because their injuries were so severe. They ultimately survived, but they now had to live with the pain and grief that came from knowing their daughter had been murdered at their side by a man they didn't know. Completely random.

They told the police that the gunman had no reason to hurt Mariana. She hadn't done anything to upset him. None of them had met him before. They also reported that right before he had opened fire, he made a comment in Spanish. In English, it either translated to, I'm going to kill you or I'm killing you. And as devastating as that testimony was, this news was about to get even worse.

Just to clarify, we've had multiple attacks in a span of just days, and two people have died from these attacks. And this shooter was escalating. Just 40 minutes after Mariana's death, the attacker also shot and killed another man, 29-year-old Michael Planels.

Unlike the other victims, Michael wasn't in a car when he was murdered. He was actually standing in a parking lot collecting cans from the recycling bins there. But witnesses saw that same tan SUV pull up and the same driver shot him to death. And once again, it was completely unprovoked. And just 20 minutes after that, the man killed another woman on her way to her church. This is the third attack in one day.

59-year-old Gloria Tovar was carpooling with a friend. She was idling in her car outside her friend's house when the gunman pulled up and killed her. That was four people murdered in just five days, three of them in the course of a single hour on Sunday morning.

and seven more people were shot at or injured but survived. Now even with 70 detectives assigned to this rampage case, the police still didn't know who the shooter was or what his motive could be. It seemed completely random. So they decided to call him the Valley Killer because most of the attacks happened in an LA area neighborhood called the San Fernando Valley.

Beyond that, the police had figured out a few details. First of all, to all appearances, the Valley Killer was working alone. None of the witnesses had seen anyone in the car with him. There was no reason to think he had an accomplice. Second, it seemed like he didn't have any personal connection to any of the victims. He seemed to be picking his targets more or less at random. To be honest, this feels like a Criminal Minds episode to me.

but i do say more or less because there clearly was some intention behind his crimes the police pulled security camera footage from as many of his shootings as they could and they saw the same pattern time and time again the killer would tell his victims for several blocks or more before pulling up and firing it was like he was stalking them working up some courage before the shooting

When he killed Michael, the man that was collecting cans in the parking lot, he had circled the same block over and over again. And then when he was ready to commit the murder, he pulled right up beside Michael and shot him at close range. So even though the killer didn't know his victims personally, he apparently had some kind of process he used to pick them and then hunt them down.

the police realized a third thing too there was no apparent motive for the murders the shooter wasn't robbing his victims he wasn't getting revenge he wasn't experiencing road rage he seemed to be killing for no other reason than because he enjoyed it and once they realized this the investigators were more resolved than ever to find him and stop him

Now, sometimes solutions show up in the most unexpected places. And that was the case for the officers investigating this specific string of attacks. While they were focused on fighting the shooter, they also heard a seemingly unrelated tip from their animal cruelty investigators. See, those officers had just taken a report from another Los Angeles resident. His identity hasn't been made public, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to call him Steve.

Now according to Steve, one day he went outside to see an unfamiliar car pulled over right outside his house. It was a tan SUV and the man who owned it was nearby. That other driver introduced himself as Andy. So Andy is the man who's introducing himself in our tan SUV.

He said his battery had died and he needed help getting his SUV to start. So Steve helped Andy get his car jump started and when the man drove away, Steve went back into his house. I mean, he kind of felt like he had done a good deed. Except to his shock, Steve went outside a few days later. Trigger warning, this is the animal cruelty. I'm not going to go into detail, but three pets of his had been shot in his yard. Two died and the third one pulled through.

now understandably steve is horrified this means someone just came and killed his pets he couldn't understand why anyone want to hurt or kill his dogs however his home had security cameras so he pulled the footage of the shootings to try and make sense of it and he was even more appalled by what he saw in the video the shooter was the same man who he had helped with his suv a couple days earlier andy

Steve had done a kind favor for this guy and Andy had come back and attacked his dogs. Well, Steve handed that security footage over to the police. When they reviewed the clips, they realized that they didn't only have the shooter's face on camera. They also had recorded his very distinctive tan SUV, a broken front hood, custom spokes and stickers on the back.

I guess when you have a very distinct car going around and killing multiple people, it's kind of easy to then find a case with similar things that had happened. This obviously feels like escalation started with animals and moved on to people. So it was easy to say that the man who had killed Steve's dogs was the same shooter who was now attacking and killing Los Angeles people in the street all week long.

Even better, the cameras from Steve's house had captured his license plate number. So the police were able to look up who owned the SUV and finally they learned the killer's identity. No surprise, his name wasn't Andy. He had lied when he had introduced himself to Steve. It was actually a 34 year old named Alexander Hernandez and he already had a long criminal record.

He'd served prison time before for meth possession and dealing and for various illegal firearms counts. Alexander had never been linked to any homicides before, but just two months earlier, he was arrested in another violent crime.

During a fight with his cousin, Alexander had allegedly pulled a knife and threatened him with it. That time, nobody had pressed charges against Alexander, but it showed a pattern. He seemed to be escalating, committing more violent crimes as time went on. So on August 24th, the same Sunday when he killed Gloria, Michael, and Mariana, officers rushed to Alexander's home after identifying him to try and arrest him.

Except when the police rang his doorbell, Alexander refused to come out or surrender to the authorities. Instead, he stayed inside and he made it clear he was not willing to cooperate. He even set up barricades behind his front door to stop the police from breaking in. I mean,

This man is on a mass killing spree. It's important to police that they get him in custody. So for the next hour, SWAT teams swarmed over the property while negotiators tried to lure Alexander outside. Finally, the officers did bring Alexander into custody after this long standoff.

They didn't disclose how they ultimately arrested him, if he eventually surrendered or if they found a way into his home. I do know that Alexander had a gun on him when the investigators booked him. It was a gun that they were later able to match to the string of deadly shootings. I also know that initially, Alexander was only charged with animal cruelty.

probably because they had him on video, the police took a few days to verify all of their information and make sure everything was accurate before they could charge him for the shootings. At first, all the investigators would say was that he was a person of interest in the Valley serial killer case. Should have been clear that he was suspected of a very serious crime, though, because his bail was set at $1 million.

now when the police eventually announced that they thought alexander was the shooter they repeatedly referred to him as a serial killer in statements and press releases which made a certain amount of sense alexander had already killed four people that the police knew about but the shooting spree had been so violent and so intense that the investigators they couldn't believe that this was his first brush with murder they thought he must have killed someone else before this

So the detectives reviewed their old unsolved files and compared the details of the open cases with Alexander's shootings in August. They wanted to see if there were any similarities or signs that anything else might be connected.

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It was from March 14th, 2014, so about five months before the week-long reign of terror that eventually got him arrested. On that day, the police had found a man dead in his car on a freeway off-ramp.

His name was Sergio Sanchez, and he was 35 years old, and he'd been shot to death while driving to a Los Angeles suburb. Now, unfortunately, at that time, the police hadn't been able to determine anything else about his murder. His case had stayed open with no forward progress until the officers were able to link it to Alexander's rampage. There was another unsolved shooting 10 days later on March 24th.

Nobody witnessed the attack. It wasn't caught on film. But numerous residents in the area called 911 to report that they had heard gunshots at around 1:30 a.m. When police rushed to the scene, they found a smashed up red SUV pulled over at the side of a road. Based on the damage, it looked like someone had shot the driver while he was in motion driving, and then the victim had passed out and lost control of his van. Then he'd obviously gotten into a serious crash.

The victim was a man named Mario Gamboa and he was rushed to the emergency room with a single gunshot wound in his back. Now luckily, Mario survived his injuries.

And then a little under two months later on May 14th of that same year, a high school student named Julian Archer had gone to prom with his girlfriend. They spent the evening dancing and having fun. And then at around four in the morning, Julian drove his date home. After he dropped her off, he was sitting at a stoplight when another car pulled up beside him and the driver opened fire. Four shots tore through Julian's body. And the only thing he could think was, "I'm gonna die."

Now, the good news is that Julian's assumption was wrong. He did not die that night. Took a lot of treatment and time in the hospital, but he survived. Except sadly, Julian never made a full recovery for the next 10 years up to today. He's had chronic pain, needs a cane to walk, thanks to the nerve damage from the shooting. His life will never be the same, all because this gunman targeted him completely at random. Now, when they saw Julian's case filed, the police were confident that the shooter was also Alexander.

first of all the mo was so consistent and also he had used the same gun in almost every single attack and they linked him to even more crimes than that shooting after shooting all in the la area he'd been doing this for a lot longer than they thought at one point he'd even fired at a family in their car together including two 12 year old children at that time nobody was seriously hurt or killed

but it went to show that he was willing to attack almost anyone regardless of their age. So ultimately Alexander was charged with five counts of murder for the five victims who had died after he shot them. And as for the people who survived, Alexander was charged with another 11 counts of attempted murder and two counts of animal cruelty. Animal cruelty, more like animal murder, life in prison, no chance of parole if I'm the judge.

He also faced some smaller, more minor charges related to owning a firearm and ammunition as a felon and multiple counts of firing at an occupied vehicle. When it was time for him to offer a plea, he pleaded no contest for the animal cruelty charges, meaning he still maintained that he was innocent, but he didn't intend to fight those. But as for the rest, the more serious crimes, he said he was not guilty for reasons of insanity. This meant that he had to go to several mental health evaluations, each of which took time.

So his trial was rescheduled and pushed back repeatedly. By 2020, Alexander still hadn't faced a jury. As we all know, the COVID pandemic created chaos in the legal system, so there was even more delays. Finally, in the spring of 2022, Alexander's trial began. By then it had been eight years. He was 42 years old. And his six-week long hearing was just as chaotic as the lead-up had been.

Alexander withdrew the insanity defense, but still claimed he was not guilty, which was an odd choice because of all the evidence against him. Jurors saw surveillance video of Alexander stalking his victims before pulling up beside their cars and firing. Happened again and again, and it was all on film. Ultimately, he was found guilty of all the charges, the murders, the attempted murders, and the illegal firearms counts.

When it was time for the sentencing hearing, a lot of people who'd been affected had mixed feelings. Nicole, the woman who'd survived the shooting, the first one of the spree, who had confronted Alexander in his car, realized that even with everything he'd done, she didn't hate him. Instead, she was more focused on finding things to be grateful for in her own life. She was glad that so many people had helped her on the day of the shooting. She wouldn't have still been alive if not for that security guard who called 911 or the police who had rushed to the scene.

She was also ironically grateful that she'd gone through a painful breakup right before the attack. For years, she dated a man who worked the same job as her and they usually carpooled together. But now Nicole was glad they'd ended their relationship because she didn't know if her ex would have survived the shooting if he'd been in the car with her. Now as terrible as the attack had been overall, Nicole was just glad it wasn't worse. But of course, she still wanted Alexander to face justice.

In her victim impact statement, she called him a predator. Julian, who'd been shot on his prom night, publicly said he'd forgiven Alexander. He believed that the Valley serial killer had been suffering from mental health issues during his attacks and Julian didn't hold the violent spree against him. Gaudaro's loved ones also spoke as a reminder he was the second person shot during that five-day spree, the man who died with his brown bag lunch in the car with him.

His relatives testified about how kind he was, how he'd given up everything to care for his family, how they were lost without him. In her statement, his niece said, "I didn't get to hug him for the last time. I didn't get to say thank you for everything he provided for my mom, his siblings, my grandparents, for his nephews, for the entire family." She and other relatives begged the judge to make sure he and the other victims received justice.

As for the judge, he gave a speech where he said Alexander, quote, should never be released. He also added to call him evil seems inadequate. Ultimately, Alexander received five consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.

Now, this whole case was huge news in Los Angeles, a city known for its driving culture and for its terrible traffic. It was a big enough deal that after Alexander's sentencing, the Los Angeles district attorney made a public statement on Instagram. They wrote,

Alexander Hernandez's killing spree affected many families and traumatized the community. With this sentence, he will be held accountable for the pain he caused and will never threaten anyone in the community again. It was an attempt to reassure nervous Angelenos that they were safe. Of course, road rage and violent shootings can happen anywhere at any time. But for the folks who spent every day sitting in rush hour gridlock with nowhere to go, it was natural for them to wonder,

Who was in the car next to them or behind them? And what were they capable of? And that is the story of the Valley Serial Killer. It was honestly quite a rampage. And although I don't think the killer was in his right state of mind,

Who could be to go ahead and do that? These acts just seem so senseless, so horrible. He was shooting children. He was shooting dogs. He was shooting adults, people who had done nothing to him. I don't understand the need to put that kind of pain on people you don't even know. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode and I will see you next time with another one. Goodbye.