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A Pinal County man has been charged with murder after police say he kidnapped and then drowned his own cousin.
Humberto Hernandez-Hernandez, 18, was arrested last week for the drowning murder of his cousin, 21-year-old Mauricio Gonzalez.
According to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, on January 22, deputies received a call from Gonzalez’s boss at Lamoreaux Farms, where he worked as a hand. His boss told deputies one of his employees had received a phone call from Gonzalez and was worried that he’d been kidnapped.
Deputies located Gonzalez’s abandoned vehicle at the farm with his jacket and dinner plate still inside.
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Outside of the truck, deputies found two sets of footprints, one of which, police determined, belonged to Gonzalez.
Five days later, on January 27, the PCSO responded to a call saying a body had been found in a canal near East Baumgartner Road.
The body, beaten and bound with duct tape, was later identified as Gonzalez. An autopsy showed his cause of death was homicide by drowning.
Over the course of their investigation, detectives learned that Gonzalez and Hernandez-Hernandez had an ongoing dispute over money. He was located on January 28, and taken into custody.
Hernandez-Hernandez admitted to police that he kidnapped and murdered his cousin. He was booked into the Cochise County Adult Detention Center on first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.
