Body Identified as Girlfriend of Convicted Rapist

NORTH HOLLYWOOD — A decomposed body pulled from a well-hidden grave in a North Hollywood warehouse was identified Friday as that of a woman who was killed by her boyfriend six months before he tortured and raped another woman in the same building, authorities said.

James Thomas Hernandez told police where to find the body of Pamela Henslee, 33, after he confessed Tuesday to killing her in late 1992 in what he said was a drug-induced rage, said Deputy District Atty. Peter S. Berman.

Berman, who convicted Hernandez in the rape-torture trial, said the escape of the victim in that case, and the subsequent arrest of Hernandez, may have cut short a potential serial killer.

“I think he got a taste for it” when he killed Henslee, Berman said. “He would have had a continued career in this.”

After reading letters Hernandez had written, Berman felt Hernandez showed signs of being willing to discuss the disappearance of Henslee, his live-in girlfriend, which authorities had long considered a probable homicide.

“I just put myself in his frame of mind, and I determined he just wanted to tell,” Berman said. “I think his conscience was bothering him.”

The coroner’s office said Henslee’s body was identified from dental records. She had been strangled before being buried in the warehouse in the 12000 block of Sherman Way, according to Scott Carrier, a coroner’s spokesman.

Investigators made the grisly discovery Wednesday morning after Hernandez admitted killing Henslee and burying her about four feet deep in dirt under a concrete floor.

“I kind of made a promise to myself that I would find her, for the (woman’s) family” in Oklahoma City, Berman said. “It feels good to find where her remains were so she can get a proper burial.”

Hernandez, 31, said he killed Henslee on Oct. 4, 1992, after he discovered she had bought a week’s worth of crack cocaine on credit, according to Berman, who interviewed Hernandez along with Los Angeles Police Det. Phil Vannadder.

“He told us he was partying with her--and ‘partying’ to him meant sadomasochistic sexual activity that they were into,” Berman said.

After knocking her unconscious with a blow to the head, Hernandez, blaming Henslee for his cocaine addiction and the breakup of his marriage, decided to kill her, according to his statement.

“I’m not sure I believe him,” Berman said, referring to Hernandez’s version of the slaying.

After strangling Henslee with a piece of cloth, Hernandez stuffed her body into a packing crate, which he loaded onto his pickup truck, he told investigators.

Hernandez, who worked for a firm that managed dozens of commercial properties, had keys to a number of warehouses and access to heavy equipment.

Using a jackhammer to break through a concrete floor about six inches thick, Hernandez buried the body, which was bound with duct tape, he said in the interview. He returned the next day and poured fresh concrete, creating a new floor that required the use of another jackhammer to break apart on Wednesday.

Attorneys involved in the case said Hernandez, who was sentenced to life in prison last week for subjecting another woman to a three-hour ordeal of torture and rape in the same warehouse, has agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Henslee’s killing.

The agreement with Hernandez calls for him to receive an 11-year prison term to run concurrently with his life sentence for the rape-torture attack. The terms of the extra sentence were irrelevant in any case, because Hernandez had already been sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

“He’s not going to be in a position to hurt anyone ever again,” Berman said.

Police began investigating the case when Henslee was reported missing by her family late in 1992. Hernandez, who lived with Henslee in an apartment on Magnolia Boulevard in Van Nuys, told friends in October that she had moved out. Investigators had doubted that claim, because witnesses said Henslee had left all of her personal belongings behind in the apartment.

About six months after Henslee disappeared, Hernandez lured a 25-year-old acquaintance to the Sherman Way warehouse, where she was struck on the head with a baseball bat, repeatedly sexually assaulted and had electrical shocks applied to her breasts.

Hernandez was convicted of these crimes by a Van Nuys Superior Court jury. Judge Michael J. Farrell sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, adding another life term plus 43 years.

After the rape-torture incident, detectives working on Henslee’s disappearance searched for a grave in and around the warehouse, but the patched concrete under which Henslee was buried was concealed under carpeting.

The rape victim had testified during Hernandez’s trial that he repeatedly mentioned the name Pamela as he assaulted her and threatened to kill her and bury her under the floor of the warehouse.

The woman was able to escape when she persuaded Hernandez to take her to a phone booth on the pretext of calling her mother to get money for him.