csua.org/u/d94 -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/04/21/MN275651.DTL
Doubts swirl around the man she loves, whom police neither name nor rule out as a suspect. Finally, the grim discovery: A woman's remains are pulled from San Francisco Bay. The saga of Laci Peterson captivated America's attention. The 27-year-old Modesto mother-to-be was reported missing on Christmas Eve and became the subject of daily news reports capped by the arrest Friday of her husband, Scott Peterson. But it is also the story of 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez of San Francisco, who vanished last May 1 with her 5-year-old son, a week before she was to deliver a baby boy. Her torso was found in the bay three months later and identified, while her son remains missing. Hernandez's case barely registered in the community and in Bay Area television news shows and newspapers, while the eyes of the nation seemed to be fixed on the search for Laci Peterson. There are many, sometimes subtle, reasons why some cases become major news stories -- while the vast majority languish in obscurity, according to law enforcement officials, relatives of the missing, journalists and citizens. Peterson seemed to be the all-American girl next door, the most innocent of victims. She also has a vocal family advocating on her behalf, and the financial and public relations help of a well-connected crime victims group in Modesto, the Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, formed during the search for the Yosemite murder victims in 1999. Police at first thought Hernandez may have gone away to have her baby on her own, and didn't hold their first news conference until more than a month after she vanished, when the homicide unit took over the case. Adding intrigue as the Laci Peterson story unfolded were revelations about Scott Peterson that seemed to come almost weekly -- from his admission to an extramarital affair, to revelations that he had purchased a life insurance policy on his wife, to his selling her car and attempting to sell the house, to his hesitancy to speak to the media. ENDEARING PERSONALITY In Modesto, regular folks say that what has made Laci's story tug on their heartstrings is Laci herself -- a beautiful, warm and likable young woman who seemed to have it all. In a way, I feel like I wish I would have known her," said Lee Benites, a genial grandfather who cuts hair at his downtown salon, the Razor's Edge. Hambrick said she was riveted by Laci Peterson's case from the start. And that's not just because her 29-year-old daughter, Erin, lives in Modesto and looks a bit like Laci, she said. About 200,000 adults are reported missing in the United States each year. The state attorney general's office reports that 35,142 adults were reported missing in California in 2001, some 4,346 of them under suspicious or unknown circumstances. While Evelyn Hernandez's story eerily mirrors Peterson's case, the disparity in media coverage also has been striking. Even before the dramatic arrest of Scott Peterson on Friday, The Chronicle had written 32 stories since Laci Peterson was reported missing Dec. It published four about Evelyn Hernandez, none on the front page. HERNANDEZ'S STORY Laci Peterson often topped the newscasts of national cable news channels during a four-month investigation, while Evelyn Hernandez received scant coverage from Bay Area television stations -- even on the day her remains were found. Described by friends as a devoted mother to her son Alex, Hernandez was a legal immigrant who had worked as a vocational nurse and in jobs at Costco and the Clift Hotel. She was reported missing by her baby's father, a 36-year-old married man named Herman Aguilera, Pera said. Authorities had already suspected that Hernandez and her son Alex met with foul play when her wallet was found in South San Francisco, two blocks from where Aguilera worked at a limousine company, Pera said. Then, in late July, a portion of her torso -- still clad in maternity clothes -- washed up on the Embarcadero. When her death was confirmed by DNA tests just after Labor Day, her small circle of friends and a sister who lives in the East Bay planned a memorial service in San Francisco that drew 100 people. It was the same small community that had circulated flyers when she disappeared. But, Damy said, the show did a story on Laci Peterson although no suspects had been named in that case either. Hernandez's friends and family are convinced that subtle factors -- from Hernandez's status as a Salvadoran immigrant to the fact that she was involved with a married man -- figured in the news media giving little notice to her case.
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