'It was lie after lie': Jury member shares what led to Erick Hernandez-Mendez's guilty murder verdict

“It was a long two weeks,” jury foreperson Cathy Nestor said.

Hernandez-Mendaz attorneys plan to appeal the verdict.

Authorities found Matos dead on April 4, 2021, inside the apartment at the Signature 1505 complex along Hillsborough Street in Raleigh. Matos and Hernandez-Mendez shared the apartment with roommate Kailey Lynch-Firicano.

Nestor said initially six jury members thought Hernandez-Mendez was guilty, three were non-committed and three thought he was not guilty. In the state of North Carolina, the jury must reach a unanimous decision to convict a defendant.

Ultimately, the jury found Hernandez-Mendez guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

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Nestor explained what solidified the jury’s guilty verdict. First, the continual lies of Hernandez-Mendez, to which he admitted to while Raleigh police questioned him in videos recorded after they found Matos’ body.

“When he talked about Christina’s last words, let’s get real, her throat was cut, the blood was in her neck,” Nestor said. “[There is] no way she could have spoken anything.

“It was lie after lie after lie.”

The jury also questioned the timeline. Specifically, they questioned when Hernandez-Mendez said he last saw Matos before her death. Nestor called video inside the apartment complex of Matos in the hall with bloody rags and tissues “murder trash.”

Nestor said jury members had no information on Lynch-Firicano, so they had to only look at what was in front of them.

“The fact of the matter is she was probably not involved in the actual murder,” Nestor said of Lynch-Firicano.

“[Hernandez-Mendez] said he saw [Matos] at 9 a.m. and here is [Lynch-Firicano] leaving for work at 9:15 a.m. completely benign, not carrying backpacks, acting normally no blood in her shower,” Nestor said.

Evidence presented in court showed Hernandez-Mendez was buying cleaning supplies, including bleach and Clorox wipes. Authorities also found bloody gloves in his car with Matos’ DNA.

Nestor said the jury was confident in its decision. She said – as a human, not a juror – it’s hard to process what the Matos family has endured.

“I’m a mom of four kids,” Nestor said. “[I] can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a kid, never mind to murder.”