By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A woman whose vehicle struck and killed a man on a south Del Rio road in 2024 has been sentenced to seven years in prison, District Attorney Suzanne West has confirmed.
Karen Aida Hernandez was charged with the offense of collision involving death, a second-degree felony, after an investigation into a motor vehicle collision that killed Benito Omar Calvillo, 29, a resident of Del Rio.
Hernandez appeared before 83rd Judicial District Judge Robert E. Cadena on April 14 and pleaded guilty to collision involving death of a person, according to a judgment on file in the case.
Cadena accepted Hernandez’s guilty plea and sentenced her to seven years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). She was also ordered to pay court costs totaling $400 and will receive credit for the 266 days she has been in jail since her arrest for the offense.
Hernandez’s guilty plea came following a plea agreement hammered out between Hernandez’s attorney, Greg Torres of Eagle Pass, and the
district attorney’s office.
Following the guilty plea, West issued the following statement: “In a case like this one, the public rightfully asks a fair and difficult question: How should we think about any sentence when a person has died?
“The answer begins with what acts the law punishes. There are case where people set out to harm intentionally, and there are cases where a defendant causes a death through reckless or negligent driving. And then there are cases like this one, where the collision itself was the tragedy, and if that had been where it ended, the law would not have criminalized the driving actions. The crime here was the leaving.
“When defendant Karen Hernandez struck Mr. Calvillo, basic human decency would have required her to stop and investigate what she hit even if it were not a person on foot and determine that it was a person and assist and call for help. Instead, she drove away without even checking at the time that mattered most, and we know now that she did hit a person, a father, a son.
“That driving away is what this plea agreement addresses, and seven years TDCJ is the consequence of that choice to drive away.
“The district attorney’s office thanks the work of the Del Rio Police Department and Assistant District Attorney Daniel Esquivel to bring this
case to a close, and we pray that Mr. Calvillo’s family feels some measure of closure and can move toward peace,” West wrote.
Hernandez was arrested June 6, 2024, following an investigation by the Del Rio Police Department.
Police began their investigation early that morning, after a passerby reported a person lying in a concrete drainage channel just off the roadway in the 1700 block of U.S. Highway 277 in far south Del Rio, an area known locally as Eagle Pass Hill.
Officers responding to the passerby’s 9-1-1 call found Calvillo’s body, as well as debris from a vehicle in the roadway nearby. After determining the color and type of vehicle, police used license plate reader technology to ascertain the vehicle they were looking for was a black Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
