Classmate encountered suspect in restroom

A Southwood Middle School seventh-grader who glimpsed a bloodied restroom stall and ''dangling'' feet inside turned to a schoolmate and gulped, ``Do you see that?''

''Yeah,'' the schoolmate responded, ``let's go tell security.''

But only the seventh-grader reported his horrific findings to an adult on Feb. 3. The other boy -- 14-year-old Michael Hernandez -- proceeded to his first-period class with his clothing and shoes splattered with blood and his book bag firmly in hand.

Within hours, police charged Hernandez with the stabbing death of one of his best friends, honors student Jaime Rodrigo Gough, 14. A bloodied latex glove and a knife suspected of being the murder weapon were among the items found in Hernandez's book bag, police have said.

Hernandez's comment in the bathroom was disclosed in the sworn statement of a schoolmate identified only by his initials, B.P.G., 13.

Prosecutors released his and another student's statements on Wednesday as part of the pretrial discovery process.

Hernandez's lawyer, Richard Rosenbaum, has not seen the statements because he is traveling. Told what they included, he said neither one shed new light on his client's case.

''It doesn't tell me any more about whether he did it; if he did it, why; and what we should do about it,'' Rosenbaum said. ``No one will ever convince me we should give up on him and put him away for life. If a kid's never been in trouble and this is a first time, why did it happen? We don't know.''

SECOND STUDENT

In his statement, B.P.G. also described seeing another student with ''blondish hair'' walking out of the bathroom as he went in. B.P.G. said he did not know who the boy was.

Then B.P.G. saw Hernandez in the middle of the bathroom ''looking like he had finished washing his hands and he was on his way out.'' He said he noticed Hernandez's book bag on the floor outside a stall and then looked to see if it was occupied.

''And then I saw like feet like dangling,'' he told investigators.

After Hernandez suggested they go find a school security guard, B.P.G. ran out, thinking Hernandez was behind him, but ``I looked back and he wasn't there.''

B.P.G. said he told a security guard what he had seen. The guard responded, ''I'll be right there,'' but didn't come immediately. So he and a classmate who had been waiting outside the bathroom ran back inside.

The friend, identified as L.L., opened the stall door and said to the boy clumped over the toilet, ''Hey, hey, buddy, buddy.'' There was no response.

Then they ran back to the security guard. ``This time we were screaming, but we said there was a dead boy in the bathroom, and then he ran in.''

The second statement, from a first-period classmate identified as Z.D.T., 13, said that Hernandez gave varying reasons in the computer lab for being bloodied, including having had a nose bleed and accidentally hitting his nose on a door.

Z.D.T. also told investigators that Hernandez once laughed and said, ''Oh, cool,'' when looking at a website showing ``dead skeletons and people being hanged and dead people and a baby getting killed.''

He related a puzzling conversation with Hernandez, who seemed to be referring to Jaime on the day of the killing. The topic: fate.

``[Hernandez] said . . . if you believe in fate, this would have happened anyways, and he gave an example, if like he was at his house, he would have died no matter what. Someone would have came and got him or something else would have happened to him.''

REACHED INTO BAG

The same morning, Hernandez got angry when a classmate tried to reach into his book bag to borrow some paper, Z.D.T. said. Hernandez snatched it away and put it under his desk. It was uncharacteristic because Hernandez often loaned paper to classmates, the witness said.

Later, when officials came to get him out of class, they asked him to bring his book bag.

''Oh s---,'' he whispered under his breath, Z.D.T. said.

As a juvenile charged as an adult, Hernandez faces life in prison without parole if he is convicted of first-degree murder.

Asked if he plans to use insanity as a defense, Rosenbaum said, ``There's nothing I can talk about other than to say the psychological evidence in the case, I think, will be overwhelming.''