In September 1975, Hernandez was arrested for allegedly murdering Robert Anthony Beard, a former Sul Ross State University student and motel clerk.
[5] Several days after the murder occurred police arrested a former motel employee named Palmira Hernandez (no relation) on unrelated drug charges.
Under interrogation Palmira allegedly claimed to have witnessed Alvaro Hernandez who at the time was a local political activist commit the murder as part of a robbery.
[6] While imprisoned, Hernandez studied Mexican-American history, the prison system, and revolutionary political theory, along with local laws usable in his and others' defense.
[7] While incarcerated in Huntsville, Texas, he met Ricardo Adalpe Guerra, a Mexican national who had been convicted of killing a Houston area police officer, at the time on death row in the cell next to Alvaro.