A Garnerville man who spent nearly two decades in prison for a rape and two kidnappings has admitted that he abducted a woman this past summer in Haverstraw, the Rockland District Attorney’s Office said.
Eduardo Hernandez, 49, pleaded guilty in Rockland County Court on Wednesday, March 4, to second-degree kidnapping after he was promised a state prison term of 14 years. He remains at the county jail awaiting sentencing, which Judge Kevin Russo scheduled for June 3.
According to the DA’s Office, Hernandez attacked a woman in Haverstraw in the late afternoon Sept. 14, threatening to kill her after grabbing her by the neck and holding a screwdriver to her throat. He fled in a car when she managed to fight him off but witnesses were able to get the car’s license plate number.
The next morning investigators stopped the car after tracking it to Stony Point. Hernandez ran from the car but was caught a short time later.
On December 22, 2002, Hernandez grabbed a woman as she walked near the Marian Shrine in Haverstraw. He put his hands over her eyes and mouth, wrapped a rope around her neck and dragged her into a wooded area where he got on top of her. She was able to break free of him and run off, the rope still around her neck.
But he wasn’t caught in that case until more than two years later, after DNA from the rope was matched to him. His DNA had been in the state database for four months following his arrest in a pair of attacks on the night of April 18, 2004.
At 8 p.m. that night, Hernandez grabbed a 52-year-old woman walking on Cosgrove Avenue in Haverstraw, put a rope around her neck, pulled her into a van and raped her, the DA’s Office said. He threatened to kill her if she looked at him and then partially dressed her, took her purse and money, put a laundry bag over her head and ordered her out of the van before driving off.
Less than an hour later, Hernandez grabbed a 31-year-old woman by the neck as she did laundry in the basement of the Kensington Circle apartments. He dragged her behind the dryers and started wrapping electrical cords around her neck. When she struggled to get free and screamed, Hernandez fled.
She reported the attack and police arrested Hernandez that night. He pleaded guilty to first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping for those two attacks and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He had an additional five years tacked on to his prison term after pleading guilty in 2005 to second-degree kidnapping in the 2002 attack.
Before his release from prison in March 2022, Hernandez was designated a Level 3 sex offender, the highest risk to reoffend.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Serial kidnapper and rapist pleads guilty in Haverstraw abduction
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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