A couple has been charged with the murder of an Army veteran who disappeared in Tacoma, Washington, in a case that began as a missing-person search and has now moved into the courts. Humberto Hernandez and Aide Casano Dominguez pleaded not guilty when they appeared in court in connection with the death of 28-year-old Calick Bradley, whose sudden disappearance had alarmed his family and drawn the attention of local investigators.
Bradley was not an unfamiliar figure in the community. He was an Army veteran who had served at Joint Base Lewis-McChord from 2017 to 2023 as a night stalker, and after his time in uniform he had stayed in the area, working at an AutoZone and in security at the Port of Tacoma UPS facility. To those who knew him, he was a young man with a steady routine and plans for the future rather than someone who would simply vanish.
According to investigators, Bradley was last seen in Tacoma on June 8th and was first reported missing by his mother when the family lost contact with him. At the time he disappeared, he had been in the process of moving out of his apartment in North Tacoma, preparing to relocate to Virginia, where his family lives. That pending move made his sudden silence all the more troubling for those trying to reach him.
The investigation took a decisive turn when detectives began tracing Bradley's belongings. Tacoma police say surveillance video showed Hernandez using Bradley's credit card at a Walmart and at other stores after the veteran had gone missing. That financial trail, according to police, helped lead them to Hernandez, who was arrested as the inquiry into Bradley's disappearance intensified.
The case grew grimmer still when, according to detectives, Hernandez led them to human remains believed to belong to Bradley. Those remains were recovered on Joint Base Lewis-McChord property, the same installation where Bradley had once served. The discovery transformed the missing-person case into a homicide investigation and set the stage for the charges that followed.
According to court documents, Hernandez told investigators that he came home to an apartment he shared in Lakewood with Dominguez and found Bradley dead on the living room couch. Police say Dominguez had been dating Bradley, a detail that placed both members of the couple close to the veteran in the days surrounding his death and became central to how prosecutors built their case.
For now, both Hernandez and Dominguez have entered not-guilty pleas, meaning the allegations against them remain to be tested in court. What began with a mother's report of a missing son has become a murder prosecution, and the coming legal proceedings are expected to determine what exactly happened to Calick Bradley in the weeks after he was last seen in Tacoma.