The man suspected of helping hide a New Jersey kindergarten teacher’s body after her estranged husband allegedly beat and strangled her is being charged with murder.
Leiner Miranda Lopez, 26, remains on the run after he was identified as an alleged accomplice of Cesar Santana, 36, in the killing of Luz Hernandez, a 33-year-old mother of three whose body was found in a shallow grave in February.
Lopez, of Jersey City, was originally charged with desecrating/concealing human remains, but now faces charges of first-degree murder, hindering and failing to dispose of human remains and tampering with physical evidence, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced Friday.
Investigators said Lopez and Santana were stopped by police on Feb. 5, the day before Hernandez was reported missing, for a traffic violation near the location where she was buried.
While Santana was arrested on Feb. 10 at a motel in Miami, police are still searching for Lopez more than a month after the murder.
The prosecutor’s office is investigating the killing “as an act of domestic violence,” with police initially tipped off after Hernandez’s employer, BeloVED Charter School, reported her missing on Feb. 6 when she failed to show up for work.
Jersey City police conducted a welfare check at her Van Horne Street home the following day, and they found Hernandez’s body buried in a shallow grave in Kearny.
An autopsy report revealed that she died of blunt force trauma to the head and compressions to the neck.
Santana was fingered as a person of interest, and a search of the unregistered car that was impounded from the Feb. 5 traffic stop turned up evidence of the crime, the prosecutor’s office said.
Following his arrest last month, Santana was extradited to New Jersey and is being held at the Hudson County Correctional Facility.
Hernandez’s family members said they were heartbroken over the murder, with her sister, Jenny, noting that the slain mother was preparing to graduate St. Peter’s College this May with her master’s degree in education.
“She was a passionate educator who worked tirelessly to improve children’s educational abilities,” Jenny wrote in a GoFundMe to raise scholarship funds for Hernandez’s three children.
The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office encourages anyone with information on Lopez’s whereabouts to call it at 201-915-1345.
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