Carlos Hernández Jr. was born on July 14, 1954, in Corpus Christi, Texas. He was the third of six children born to Fidela Gonzales and Carlos Hernández Sr. The family struggled early on—his father was convicted of rape in 1960, leading to divorce, and Hernández’s mother raised the children while working at a local laundry. Because of financial hardship, Carlos and one of his brothers were placed in a youth institution, where his behavior reportedly worsened. He dropped out of school at 16 and began a long, troubled life of crime.

As a juvenile, Hernández was charged with negligent homicide after a fatal car accident in which he had been driving under the influence. He was placed on probation, but this marked the beginning of his frequent run-ins with the law. Between 1969 and 1996, Hernández was arrested 39 times. Thirteen of those arrests were for carrying a knife, often a lock-blade — a consistent weapon type throughout his alleged crimes.

Hernández was known in Corpus Christi as a violent, impulsive man. His criminal record included theft, assault, robbery, and attacks with a knife. He was also notorious among friends and neighbors for openly bragging about past crimes, sometimes joking that another man had gone to prison for one of his murders. Though most of his crimes went unprosecuted or resulted in short sentences, his violence escalated over time, culminating in an attempted murder conviction in 1989.

On February 4, 1983, 24-year-old Wanda Lopez was working alone at a Shamrock gas station in Corpus Christi when she was brutally stabbed to death while on the phone with 911. The attack was swift and vicious. Moments after her plea for help, police found her bleeding from multiple stab wounds, inflicted with a buck knife.

Carlos DeLuna, a 20-year-old with a minor criminal record, was found nearby, shirtless and hiding under a truck. He was arrested, charged, and eventually executed in 1989 for Lopez’s murder. But throughout his trial and until his death, DeLuna insisted he was innocent. He named Carlos Hernández as the real killer—someone he claimed he knew since childhood and who had gone into the gas station while DeLuna waited across the street.

Prosecutors at the time called Hernández a “phantom” and argued that he didn’t exist. But later investigations proved otherwise.

In 2006, a Chicago Tribune investigation uncovered that Carlos Hernández was real—and a dangerous, well-known felon in Corpus Christi. He had a history of knife-related assaults and was even indicted (but never tried) for the 1979 murder of Dahlia Sauceda. He later served prison time for the 1989 stabbing of Diana Ybanez, a violent attack eerily similar to Lopez’s murder.

Multiple people came forward to say that Hernández had openly confessed to killing Wanda Lopez. He reportedly told friends that his “tocayo” (Carlos DeLuna) took the fall for him. Some witnesses even described Hernández bragging about how easy it was to let another man die for his crime. Despite this, authorities never charged him in connection with the Lopez murder.

Hernández died in prison in 1999 from liver disease. Though never tried for murder, his violent past and alleged confessions have left many convinced that Carlos DeLuna was wrongfully executed, and that Carlos Hernández was the real killer all along.