Missing Tacoma man found dead; police point to girlfriend and her fiancé
A man who went missing in Tacoma is dead, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner.
The ME’s public portal says 28-year-old Caelick Bradley was found dead on June 30. His cause of death is listed as “pending.”
Two people were arrested on Tuesday in connection to Bradley’s case, The News Tribune previously reported.
Aydee Casado-Dominguez and Humberto Hernandez both had arraignments Thursday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court. They have both been charged with second-degree murder, six counts of second-degree identity theft and unlawful disposal of remains. Bail was set at $1 million for both of them.
According to court documents, Casado-Dominguez was Bradley’s girlfriend, while Hernandez was Casado-Dominguez’s other partner, her fiance.
Charles Porche, spokesperson for the Lakewood Police Department, previously told The News Tribune that Bradley went missing on June 12, 2026. Tacoma Police Department officers investigated Bradley’s disappearance, and on June 30, found Hernandez using Bradley’s credit card.
Officers interviewed Hernandez, Porche said, who allegedly told officers Bradley was dead and gave them Casado-Dominguez’s name, saying she was responsible for Bradley’s death.
Hernandez then took officers to a location on Joint Base Lewis-McChord property, Porche said, where a body was found. Officers with the Lakewood Police Department then set up surveillance on Casado-Dominguez’s residence and arrested her shortly after midnight on July 1.
The alleged crime
According to a GoFundMe by Bradley’s family, Bradley was an Army veteran who served at Joint Base Lewis-McChord from 2017 to 2023. Court documents say he was working as a security guard at the time of his disappearance.
According to the GoFundMe, Bradley was in the middle of moving out of his apartment and was planning to move to Virginia to live with a family member.
“He was supposed to leave on June 10,” the GoFundMe says. “We have strong reason to believe that he never left Tacoma.”
Court documents say Bradley’s friends were concerned after he went missing because Casado-Dominguez had been abusive to him, urging him to fight Hernandez. She also allegedly left Bradley threatening messages.
Investigators interviewed Casado-Dominguez on June 18, documents say, and she told them she had last seen Bradley on June 8 when he allegedly came to her apartment and told her he was going to visit a friend in Fife.
“She said she later received a text message saying that he got a flat tire,” documents say. “She tried to text/call him, but he never replied or called back.”
Police then interviewed the friend who lived in Fife, documents say, and the friend said Bradley had gotten a flat tire on his way to the friend’s apartment. Bradley then drove the vehicle to his friend’s apartment, parked the vehicle somewhere at the apartment complex and called Casado-Dominguez to pick him up.
Phone records showed Bradley’s phone being active in the area around Hernandez’s and Casado-Dominguez’s apartment on June 10 and June 11, a couple days after Casado-Dominguez claimed she never saw him again, documents say.
Police then found surveillance footage showing Hernandez and Casado-Dominguez using Bradley’s credit card at Walmart throughout June, documents say. When they brought Hernandez in for an interview about the identity-theft charges, he told them Bradley was dead.
Hernandez allegedly told police he returned home on June 10 to find Bradley dead on the living room couch in the apartment he shared with Casado-Dominguez. She allegedly told him she shot Bradley after a dispute.
Casado-Dominguez allegedly told Hernandez that Bradley showed up unannounced, and they had an argument about “his possession of inappropriate pictures and videos” of her and her 2-year-old son.
“At some point, Aydee said Bradley became physical and pushed her, at which time she fired a shot at him while she was falling,” documents say.
Hernandez said his 10-round magazine only had three or four rounds left in it, which meant Casado-Dominguez shot at Bradley more than once, documents say. Hernandez also said he saw a bullet hole in a hall closet “opposite of where Bradley was on the couch.”
The couple borrowed a truck from Hernandez’s coworker, he told investigators, and used it to bury Bradley’s body at JBLM.
After Casado-Dominguez’s arrest, she allegedly doubled down on her story with police, claiming she never saw Bradley after June 8.
Police searched the couple’s apartment and found a bullet fragment in the wall, a gun box, ammunition, shell casings, part of a ratchet strap that was used to secure Bradley’s body in blankets, a mop and a bucket.
On July 1, police also found the truck used to dump Bradley’s body, documents say. Blood was in the back of the truck and Bradley’s wallet was inside.
As of 4 p.m. on July 2, the family’s GoFundMe has exceeded its $10,000 goal, which it says will go towards “support[ing] our family through the legal process in connection with Caelick’s disappearance and associated costs to bringing him home.”
