by Authorities confirmed Thursday that a jail inmate who passed away last October while awaiting trial in a cold-case murder died of natural causes, according to postmortem investigations.
According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, Alfredo Hernandez died of pneumonia in a hospital on November 26.
Eleven days prior, Hernandez, who allegedly strangled his lover at her Emerald Hills home decades ago, was brought to an intensive-care unit after suffering from acute dyspnea while incarcerated at the George F. Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa.
Hernandez, 66, was extradited from El Salvador and arrested in San Diego two months before to his death on suspicion of killing Terri Bistodeau, 39, who was discovered dead in a bedroom at her Geneva Avenue home in August 1991, according to sheriff’s Lt. Juan Marquez.
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According to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, detectives suspected Hernandez, but until a follow-up investigation on the cold case, which included DNA testing, was carried out in 2019, authorities did not have enough evidence to identify Hernandez as the alleged killer.
He was charged two years later.
Prosecutors claimed that Hernandez confessed to killing Bistodeau twice during interviews with detectives after his arrest.
