Richard Hernandez

According to Dallas, Texas police, 38-year-old Richard Hernandez was a creature of habit who "lived a life of consistency." He had lived in the same northwest Dallas apartment since 1994, and had held the same job for the past eight years at a local Wal-Mart. When Hernandez failed to show up for work on Thursday, September 4, 2008, his coworkers naturally became worried and called the police. It was not like him to not show up for work, particularly without calling in and notifying his supervisor.

Shortly after one of Hernandez' friends called the Dallas Police Department and explained how out of character Hernandez' unexplained absence was, an officer responded to Hernandez' apartment, located in the 3900 block of Rosemeade Parkway, to conduct a routine welfare check. The manager opened the locked apartment for the officer. When he went inside and saw the massive amount of blood on the living room floor and walls, the officer immediately backed out of the apartment and notified the department's homicide unit. Detective D.A. Thompson and a crime scene team were at once dispatched to the apartment.
Like the responding officer, Thompson and his team also noted the large amounts of blood on the living room floor and the blood spatter on the walls. The sofa was also soaked with blood. When Thompson went into the bathroom, he observed that the bathtub also contained significant amounts of blood along with what Thompson believed to be tissue from someone's internal organs. It appeared to Thompson that the bathtub had been used to dismember someone, likely the apartment's resident—experience has shown that that's how these cases typically turned out. Nonetheless, blood and tissue samples were taken from the various locations inside the apartment and sent to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office.
Investigators also learned that Hernandez had been an openly gay man, which fueled speculation that he may have been killed during, or perhaps after, a gay tryst with Winder. Winder's father indicated that his son may have been involved in prostitution, but Hernandez' friends clarified that it would have been out of character for Hernandez to solicit sex from anyone. Hernandez' friends indicated that it was more likely that Hernandez had been trying to help Winder, and described Hernandez as a kind, generous person. Similarly, Winder's father said that he did not believe that his son was gay, but indicated that he may have resorted to prostituting himself to survive since he was homeless. Winder's father said that his son had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Whether Winder makes it to trial or not remains to be seen. In the meantime the investigation is continuing, and bail was finally set for Winder at $760,504. It seems likely that an insanity defense will be played out if the case gets to court.