Hector Fernandez

Hector Fernandez was a middle-aged man with short black hair and a goatee beard. Before his death, he wore a red and navy striped shirt, and a gold chain around his neck. A few days before his death, Hector had suddenly began to attend a church, and had told a priest named Father Von Pratt about his haunted house so that an exorcism would finally get rid of the evil spirits. In The Haunting of Elm Manor (Case #28), Hector was killed after being crushed by a chandelier in his house.

Murder Details
After Ramirez informed the team that the Elm Manor (the name of a haunted house) in the Elm Street had killed it's owner, the team quickly went there to investigate. There, they found the owner of the mansion, Hector, who was found dead, lying on the floor in the hallway with a chandelier crushing his back. It looked as though he had walked into the room and then was crushed immediately.

Upon autopsy, it became clear that Hector was killed by the chandelier when it fell on him and crushed his body. However, the chandelier had crashed down with such an inhuman force that it seemed supernatural. When asked what he meant by "supernatural," Nathan replied that he had calculated the impact velocity of the chandelier's fall, and that it weighed 220 pounds and fell from 13 feet. He said that if the chandelier would've fallen naturally, then it couldn't have crushed the victim like it did. Nathan had also found traces of petroleum jelly smeared on Hector's clothes from which he discovered that the killer was in contact with petroleum jelly.

Later at night, when the team were discussing about the murder, Nathan suddenly came in and told them that as he was checking the victim's brain, he had noticed anomalies in the brain's neurotransmitters due to psychoactive drug. He said that the drug in question would induce sickening nightmarish visions, and that his guess was that the killer wanted Hector to believe the house really was haunted. Nathan then told the team that he needed a fresh sample of drug to be sure, but he thought that it was a mix from exotic plants which could only be found at the local greenhouse, so he suggested the team to go there.

Killer and Motives
The killer was Hector's wife, Gloria Fernandez. A few days back, when Aurelio (the Fernandez's baby boy) died, Hector lied to everyone and said that their house was haunted and that it had killed thier baby boy. One night, when Hector was drunk, he admiited to Gloria that he wasn't watching Aurelio like he was supposed to, and that Aurelio was crawling around the house, and accidentally slipped and fell from the top landing onto the stairs. Since Hector couldn't remember telling the truth, Gloria decided to give him a drug that made him believe that the house was really haunted. Day by day, Hector became more and more scared, and when the time was right, Gloria took the opportunity and killed her husband by crushing him under a chandelier.

Trivia
Hector's death at the hands of his wife is the third instance where a relative kills one of their own for personal gain. There has been 4 other instances where a relative kills one of their own as follows:
 * Mikhail Levin killed his father, Anton Levin in A Russian Case (Case #5).
 * Scott Greene killed his stepmother, Aileen Greene in Family Blood (Case #15).
 * Misha Goshwalla killed her sister, Rani Goshwalla in Murder on Campus (Case #32).
 * Peggy Buxton killed her son, Hank Buxton in The Scent of Death (Case #44).

Case Appearances
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 * The Haunting of Elm Manor (Case #28)