The teen is charged in the stabbing death of his friend. By CATHERINE WILSON The Associated Press
PALMETTO BAY -- It wasn't anything big that prompted Manny and Kathy Hernandez to discuss taking their son Michael to see a psychologist. Just a bunch of little things.
When his after-dinner bike ride was done, the eighth-grader would open and close the garage door a certain number of times. It was the same in the kitchen, where he would open the side-by-side freezer and refrigerator doors simultaneously, looking left and right over and over again.
Michael wanted the same school lunch every day: baloney and cheese on a Publix egg roll with Hellmann's mayonnaise -NOT Miracle Whip. He would stare at the grandfather clock in the living room every day at the same time, for the same amount of time.
Things had gotten so bad by December that Manny Hernandez called his insurance company for a list of doctors. The couple decided not to make an appointment until after the stress of midterm exams was over in late January.
They waited a few days too long.
Feb. 3, the day after his 14th birthday, Michael allegedly stabbed his best friend to death in a school bathroom. A secret journal kept by Michael, 43 pages of which have been released by prosecutors, indicate that a murder was the first act in achieving a goal he set for himself -- to become a serial killer.
Authorities say Michael slashed 14-year-old Jaime Gough at least 40 times in a second-floor bathroom at Southwood Middle School, a magnet school tucked among luxurious homes in this affluent Miami suburb.
Despite his "little quirks," Michael's parents said they saw nothing to suggest their son was keeping secrets from them or descending into darkness.
In the months leading up to the slaying, Michael wasn't making much eye contact or talking with his parents as much. He became increasingly obsessed with bodybuilding and watching horror movies.
But he wasn't getting into fights at school, taking drugs or drinking, and he still kissed his mom goodnight.
The Hernandezes focus on photos of Michael as a baby and toddler and his youth baseball portraits. His parents say he was always a meticulous child, his bedroom sparsely decorated. He made his bed each morning, arranged his shirts by color, and lined up his socks precisely.
The normally talkative, inquisitive, outgoing boy stopped having friends over to the house. He stopped shooting hoops in the driveway, cut out his 11 a.m. Sunday lunches at Popeye's and quit the car-washing business he'd once promoted with fliers.
Then there was the sudden fascination with bodybuilding.
Michael's exercise regimen was a rigid one. He made lists of routines, then checked them off when completed. He was taking whey protein derived from milk to bulk up. After months of begging, Michael persuaded his parents during Christmas break to buy him a 2-pound can of the muscle-boosting supplement creatine, a favorite of major league sluggers.
The couple now worry about that decision. Creatine use has not been studied in children or beyond recommended doses. Based on the missing amount, the 115-pound boy may have gone through about a pound of the supplement in little more than a month -- three to four times the recommended daily amount for an adult nearly twice Michael's weight.
Most disturbing were the obsessive-compulsive routines. Instead of growing out of them, his father said it was "like he was adding more."
According to the journal confiscated after the slaying, there was a lot Michael could have told a doctor.
The journal contained a hit list that included Gough and a 13year-old classmate from his days at a neighborhood Baptist academy.
Also on the list of those to die was Michael's older sister Christina, 19, who was away at college.
Michael's parents told the AP that nothing they saw made them think their son would hurt let alone kill anyone.
But Rob Klein, the family's civil attorney, said some will want to cast blame on the parents for not doing enough. But, Michael, he said, was "everything every parent wants in a child."
Today, Michael sits alone in a jail cell. Kathy Hernandez used to think the military would agree with Michael because his life had become so regimented. His jailers have complimented her on Michael's conduct.
