Las Vegas teen loses mother, more in slaying

Yes, Filadelfo Galena-Moran and Raquel Hernandez would fight about the small things, her son said.

But nobody had noticed any serious problems between them the last few weeks, 15-year-old Jaime Mendoza said.

Hernandez was the “best mom ever.”

Galena-Moran “was like a father to me.”

“My real one abandoned me,” he said, fighting back tears.

Mendoza, grim-faced and stunned, was surrounded by family in front of the couple’s modest single-story duplex in the 4400 block of East Harris Avenue, near Bonanza Road and Lamb Boulevard, this afternoon.

Early that morning, Galena-Moran had opened the doors to the Metropolitan Police Department’s city hall office. He had something to confess.

The 47-year-old said his longtime girlfriend lay dead in their bedroom four miles away. Her throat was cut open. There were multiple stab wounds to her neck and head. He told police he was the one who did it.

Mendoza, his two siblings and his grandmother didn’t see what had happened. Galena-Moran had been living with the 45-year-old Hernandez for eight years. She had been working in the maintenance department at Fitzgerald’s for 14 years.

Mendoza wiped his eyes.

“She spent most of her time caring for everybody,” he said. He was arrested, taken a few blocks away to the Clark County Detention Center, and booked on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon.

Mendoza had already lost one parent. Today he lost two more.

Review-Journal writers Maggie Lillis and Mike Blasky contributed to this report. Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.