A Prince George’s County jury took two hours to find a Hyattsville man guilty of taking a machete to his girlfriend and his neighbor.
Gerardo Hernandez, 33, was convicted late Friday of attempted murder, kidnapping, first- and second-degree assault, and carrying a dangerous weapon. Hernandez faces as many as 90 years in prison at his sentencing Aug. 13.
On Aug. 24, 2008, police officers responding to a 911 call for a domestic assault heard a woman screaming from inside a home. Police opened the front door and found Elizabeth Merino, 36, with her wrist “spraying blood like a fountain,” said Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey.
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Hernandez had his hands on Merino’s neck and on her uninjured arm. The officers quickly arrested Hernandez. While they tried to stop the bleeding from Merino’s wrist, she begged the officers to call her husband and parents because she thought she was dying, police said.
Police said Merino and Hernandez were having an affair and began to argue about her leaving her husband. He pulled out his belt and began whipping her before she was able to escape his home, police said. A neighbor, Henry Alarcon, saw the two arguing and tried to intervene, but Hernandez punched him in the face and threatened to kill him, police said.
Hernandez grabbed Merino and dragged her back inside his home, holding a 14-inch machete to her throat. Once inside his house, he began swinging the machete at Merino’s head while threatening to kill her, according to police.
When Merino raised her left arm to protect her neck, the defendant struck her wrist, fracturing her bone and almost severing her hand. Merino’s wrist began spraying blood, police said.
At trial, despite statements to police and to her family about how Hernandez had injured her, Merino changed her story by testifying that she did not remember the attack with the machete. Merino said she and Hernandez had been drinking heavily before arguing and she had hit the defendant on the head with a pan and he had whipped her with her belt.
Merino also conceded that she still loved Hernandez.
