Santa Barbara community members have launched a fundraiser to support the family of the 18-year-old man who was found dead last week at Chase Palm Park.

Last Thursday, police dispatchers received a call around 7 p.m. reporting an unresponsive man — later identified as Pablo Fabian Hernandez — in the park on the inland side of the 300 block of East Cabrillo Boulevard.

The Santa Barbara Police Department is investigating his death as a homicide, and Fabian Hernandez suffered “multiple injuries to his upper body,” Cmdr. Ben Ahrens previously told Noozhawk. 

No arrests or additional information about the incident had been announced as of this week.

While the investigation is ongoing, a fundraiser for his family is set to take place Sunday at 227 N. Nopal St. near Our Lady of Guadalupe’s mosaic of the Virgin Mary, according to his family as well as a flyer circulating online. 

Starting at 7 a.m., food and drinks will be available for purchase. Those funds will support Fabian Hernandez’s family and their efforts to transport his body to Guerrero, Mexico, for his other family members to say goodbye, according to his uncle, Macario Hernandez Sanchez, who lives in Santa Barbara.

Hernandez Sanchez remembers his nephew as quiet, hardworking, respectful and calm, he told Noozhawk. 

Fabian Hernandez moved to Santa Barbara from Mexico in 2025 to live with his father, Jose Pablo Hernandez Carballo, and chase the American Dream, according to Hernandez Carballo.

Fabian Hernandez sometimes worked with his father as a landscaper and paid close attention to his work, his uncle and father said. 

His father told Noozhawk that hearing the news about his son’s death was devastating.

“It makes you want to fall to the ground,” Hernandez Carballo said in Spanish.

Fabian Hernandez was the oldest of five siblings, who live in Mexico. 

“He was not rude, and he was the quietest of his siblings,” Hernandez Carballo said of his son. 

His uncle, Hernandez Sanchez, was the one who got the call about his nephew’s death and had to tell the 18-year-old’s father. 

“It’s an immense pain in the most profound way,” Hernandez Sanchez said.

Before Fabian Hernandez’s death, his family told Noozhawk they hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks and “could not find him.” 

His father said he hadn’t seen his son since Sept. 19, when they last went out to breakfast before he dropped his son off at their Santa Barbara residence before going into work.

The 18-year-old had a history of “disappearing,” according to his father, who said he tried to get law enforcement involved in past instances to get his son to return home.

Additionally, his uncle told Noozhawk that the 18-year-old had a history of substance abuse.

Santa Barbara Police Cmdr. Nathan Beltran told Noozhawk that because the investigation is ongoing, no information about prior contacts or calls for service involving Fabian Hernandez could be provided.

Beltran also said this week that the department does not have additional information about the assault or the investigation that it can share. 

In the two weeks leading up to his son’s death, Hernandez Carballo had spent days looking for his son; he said the stress of the search kept him awake at night. 

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

His family members expressed gratitude for the community members checking in on them and supporting them as they grapple with the death.

“We just want to fight for his body to send him (to Mexico) so that he can rest in the place where we have our roots,” Hernandez Sanchez said.

Anyone with information about the killing is asked to contact the Police Department at 805.897.2355.