What happened to Hugo Diaz de Alva? Family mystified after Paso Robles death
.jpeg "Hugo Diaz de Alva was found dead Thursday floating in a Franklin Hot Springs pond in Paso Robles. Here, he’s pictured on a commercial fishing boat, where he worked in Seattle and Alaska.")
The sister of the Paso Robles man found dead last week in a pond at Franklin Hot Springs said he had arrived home from his job fishing in the Pacific Northwest just three days before.
The late Hugo Diaz de Alva’s sister, 31-year-old Jessica Mondragon, said her brother always put family first, including his parents and her, and his 6-year-old son, and he would often say, “Family sticks together.”
Diaz de Alva, 26, was found dead about 10:15 a.m. Thursday, according to sheriff’s officials, in one of the multiple ponds where people fish near the hot springs.
The cause remains unclear; an autopsy was to be conducted Tuesday, and results will await toxicology testing, which typically take six to eight weeks, said sheriff’s spokesman Tony Cipolla.
Diaz de Alva spent the Tuesday night before his death at a family dinner in Paso Robles, two days before he mysteriously died, the cause of which has left many unanswered questions for his family members as the Sheriff’s Office continues its investigation.
“He had just gotten home from his last trip (as a commercial fisherman) on Monday, and on Tuesday night we were all able to get together and have dinner,” Mondragon said. “He talked about all of the plans he had. ... He was really excited about taking his son on an upcoming vacation to Hawaii.”
Mondragon said Hugo was planning to make improvements to a truck that he’d recently purchased, and help his father, Hugo Flores, spruce up the back yard.
“We hugged him and told him we loved him,” Mondragon said.
Diaz de Alva previously worked alongside his father, a landscaper, before taking jobs at Walmart and as a fisherman off the coasts of Seattle and Alaska, his older sister said.
Mondragon said having a son at age 20 changed Hugo for the better — that he became more responsible and wanted to make sure his boy was taken care of. Diaz de Alva and the child’s mother were “co-parenting” the child, and he lived in Paso Robles with his mother when Hugo was on the job fishing, according to friends and family.
Khrishna Aguilar, 24, the mother of Diaz de Alva’s son, said that she remained close with Diaz de Alva, despite separating as a couple, and they spoke frequently.
“He loved his son Javon,” Aguilar said. “He adored him and wanted to see him, and be with him when he got back from his work.”
Aguilar said he helped support his son financially and even had offered to fund Aguilar’s ticket to Hawaii with their boy.
“We weren’t together as a couple, but we talked often and we became close, like best friends,” Aguilar said. “He made sure enough to make everything work for Javon.”
The day before he was found dead, Mondragon said her brother told her he had errands to run and didn’t mention any plans to go to Franklin Hot Springs.
Still, it was a place that he had been to multiple times before — and his presence there wasn’t unusual, she said.
“It was mentioned in the past article (by the Hot Springs’ co-owner) that he was a new guest, but that’s not true,” Mondragon said. “He liked to go there to the pool area. I don’t believe he went there to go to the pond (where people fish).”
Mondragon said her family lived in Cambria early in his life and then moved to Paso Robles when Diaz de Alva was 9; he graduated from Paso Robles High School and had an independent nature, his sister said, calling him a “leader of the pack” who was uneasily deterred from what he wanted to do.
The team of fishermen Diaz de Alva worked with started a GoFundMe account to help cover funeral expenses, raising $2,430 of a $5,000 goal thus far.
Mondragon said nothing was out of the ordinary in the way that Diaz de Alva was behaving in the hours preceding his death, and he even spoke to his father Wednesday morning.
“There are many questions about what happened to him that, as a family, we are trying to get answers to,” Mondragon said.
This story was originally published April 8, 2019 at 5:58 PM.
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