Chilling, new details in documents obtained by the NBC4 I-Team are shedding more light surrounding the death of 3-year-old David Jacques Hernandez, who was found dead at his Lancaster home last month.
Emergency Response Referral documents from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services describe a disturbing scene at the house. According to those documents, a family friend was contacted by a cousin to come to the home, and when she got there, she said she saw the little boy, “... floating in the bathtub not breathing/unresponsive and with his neck cut ...”
She called 911. It is not clear why no one called 911 before then.
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When the first responders arrived, the boy was no longer in the bathtub but instead in his mother’s arms, according to the documents.
“It’s not fair," said Herbert Hernandez, the toddler's biological father. "He was just 3 years old, man; autistic, what it is a child can do."
As previously reported, the mother’s live-in boyfriend, 39-year-old Rena Naulls, was found with a wound to his neck and was taken to a local hospital.
The DCFS documents describe how people at the home witnessed the man cut his own neck.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department tells the I-Team that Naulls remains in custody for a parole violation. They say he is a person of interest in the case but has not been charged in David’s death.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said Naulls served 14 years in state prison on an attempted murder case. He was on parole when the little boy died. The DA’s office says he was arrested for possession of a firearm, which is a parole violation.
According to the documents, three older brothers ages 9, 11, and 14, were also in the home during the time of David's death. They were not injured.
