A 30-year-old Los Angeles mother and her 34-year-old boyfriend are behind bars this week, awaiting trial on charges of capital murder and torture after brutally murdering her 8-year-old son over a pile of misplaced toys.
The horrific details of how Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre systematically tortured and humiliated Fernandez’s son Gabriel were made public on Monday.
Aside from their relentless bullying under assumption that Gabriel was gay, allegations from more than 800 pages of testimony describe in full detail the hellish life that young Gabriel endured before his untimely death. “For eight straight months, he was abused, beaten and tortured more severely than many prisoners of war,” Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami testified.
Here are just a few more things Fernandez and Aguirre did to Gabriel before murdering him in May 2013, according to testimony provided by Gabriel’s siblings, police, and the medical examiner who performed Gabriel’s autopsy:
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– assaulted him with pepper spray
– forced him to eat his own vomit, cat feces and rotten spinach
– locked him in a cabinet with a sock used as a makeshift gag
– forged doctor’s notes to explain Gabriel’s physical signs of abuse to teachers
– denied him use of the bathroom
– called him “gay,” beat him when he played with dolls and forced him to wear “girls’ clothes” to school
– beat his head with a belt buckle, metal hanger, small bat and wooden club
– knocked several of his teeth out with a metal bat
– shot him with a BB gun
According to Gabriel’s younger siblings, both of whom are minors, the attack that turned fatal was sparked when Gabriel refused to pick up his toys. Based on testimony and the medial examiner’s report, that’s when Fernandez and Aguirre dragged Gabriel into the bedroom and killed him with “blunt force trauma” to the head.
Fernandez reportedly called 911 to report that her son was “not breathing.” When paramedics arrived, they discovered the boy stripped naked, covered in blood, with a cracked skull, three broken ribs and BB pellets in his lung and groin. “It was just like every inch of this child had been abused,” first responder James Cermak testified. James Kemp Ribe of the LA county coroner’s office added: “I have never seen this many skin injuries on one child.”
Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than the abuse Gabriel suffered was the fact that his case went unnoticed by the LA County foster care system. According to reports, Gabriel’s case worker ignored abuse in the home, never checked his body for signs of abuse and failed to investigate reports of abuse from concerned teachers.
Official court documents also reveal that Gabriel had previously written a suicide note that was discovered by a teacher. The note was dismissed by social workers and police because there “appeared to be” no abuse in the home.
jd2222248
Stories like this hurt my heard. I HATE when people mess with kids………and then gay kids, I really get mad.
TVC 15
Horrible, horrible people.
bingoboy969
I am not a mean hearted but I hope they burn in hell !! Iam crying as I write this
Franco C.
And she deserves to die.
Milk
On top of whatever the punishment on these parents in regards to the current law. A new one should be enacted. These parents should be permanently sterilized. Procreation and parenting should no longer be an individual rights. The world is overpopulated as it is. There are enough abandoned children out there further proving the incompetence of parenting and the negligence of procreators. That has a huge negative impact on the human community as a whole nevermind to the environment and the sustainability of planet earth. There should have more law and order binding procreators and those who chose to parent children.
Cam
The parents, I have no trouble with them being up for Capital Murder and hope they go down hard for it. If they don’t get death, then I hope that all of the other prisoners are made aware of exactly what they did. I doubt they will last long.
As for the child services case worker. I think there needs to be an investigation as to how, when the kid according to other articles, over the past year had his teeth knocked out, and other injuries from abuse, was reported as not being abused.
Alan down in Florida
My best friend is a child social worker in the LA area and you wouldn’t believe the b.s. he has to put up with from parents/guardians just to do his job protecting his clients and there’s usually nothing to compel them to keep appointments or do what needs to be done to help the kids. I get the feeling listening to his stories that there are simply thousands of kids out there that the parents/guardians have already written off as damaged goods not worth the effort of even the most minimal care. So so sad.
mjmarkic
Humans need to be Licensed before they can have children. Part of the requirements need to be Parenting certification and mental testing.
So called Christians against abortion should be adopting some of the many unwanted children instead of protecting and creating much of the abuse that thrives.
Humans know how to procreate and could care less about what they create. Sterilization to stop the prolific offending breeders should be another option.
My Heart cries for the dead and abused children and shamefully the many that will continue to follow. Jesus loved the little children. How can we allow this to continue to happen???
AtticusBennett
a very close friend of mine was beaten by his father, for years, as his dad suspected he was gay. thought it would “toughen him and make him a real man.”
my friend is not gay. he merely has always been, unlike his father, a compassionate, creative and gentle human being.
Kieran
NOTHING is more disturbing than the abuse Gabriel suffered. The STATE is not responsible for taking care of everybody’s child. If YOU bring a child into this world, YOU are the one responsible for taking care of that child.
The only thing that might be a bit less disturbing than the abuse Gabriel suffered is the fact that we don’t have the electric chair anymore to fry murderous miscreants like Pearl Fernandez.
DickieJohnson
This is one of the most horrible, upsetting articles I’ve ever read. How can “parents”, or anyone, for that matter, abuse a child in such ways? The negligence and failure of social and police services is just as awful. I hope severe punishment is dealt out for all involved in this tragedy. Gabriel, rest in peace.
Lovelife
I am in tears for the boy. And also relived that his life is over. Then to further endure the abuse he suffered.
I don’t wish for the abusers to be killed at all. There are more people like them who will come and create worse crimes. It is only a matter of time.
I wish them a long,long life.To take time and revisit their choices. This is self-purgatory;where you don’t have an option of death but a life of memory. Where you constantly regurgitate what you have done, what you did until you feel it on a soul level.
This is the experience of self-examination/ hell(depending on your feelings on the choices you have made). And the good news is,it can transform the individual inside-out.
The individual either becomes the epitome of self-love or self-undoing.
frubino
TO THE TORTURE CHAMBER !! TO THE TORTURE CHAMBER !! !! TO THE TORTURE CHAMBER. You’re disgusting Neanderthals, zero meaningfulness maturity and level of primitive society.
Ogre Magi
The Romans once came up with a punishment for a female serial killer, that I would like to see brought back for this mom (and her boyfriend)
http://sex.omgfacts.com/Sex+Facts/The-Roman-Emperor-Nero-once-forced-a-fem/58716
Bob LaBlah
Judge, what ever you do don’t sentence them to death. Let both of them spend the next fifty or sixty years incarcerated with the very types of people they claim to hate, gay folks who are thieves, robbers and last but not least, rapists. Yes people, women too are raped in prison.
Let them see how it feels to be humiliated for eternity (or how ever much time they have left to live).
money718
Just so sad. Speechless.
Blackceo
This bitch and her boyfriend deserve to be beaten and tortured to death. My heart breaks at the agony that this child suffered daily and I feel so horrible he had no one to intervene and save him and show him that there was nothing wrong with him and that he deserved love and happiness and affection.
This is one of those times i wish our legal system wasnt so fair. Those animals deserve to be stoned to death.
tjr101
It’s really hard to understand what I just read. Someone explain this to me. Isn’t a mother’s love suppose to be unconditional? What kind of person would do this to their own flesh and blood, an innocent child? These two deserve nothing less than death.
Blackceo
@tjr101: You and I and most other people will never understand it. You cant rationalize with those who are irrational. Ive just had tears in my eyes for the past 20 minutes after reading this. That poor little boy. It is hard to imagine evil like this exists and the scary thing is that there are others like him being abused horrifically as i type this.
Chris
It is things like what this mother has done that, finally, changed my mind on the death penalty.
Chris Vogel
Good Christian.
KJA
This filthy c**t and her GAY boyfriend will rot in hell. Shame there is so much illiterate, uneducated trash in this world. Can’t wait to hear that she and her boyfriend are sodomized in prison. I’m gonna laugh and laugh and laugh!
At least this little boy is finally at peace and with the angels.
michael mellor
Pearl Fernandez is a piece of garbage.
enlightenone
@Alan down in Florida: Actually there is: the child is removed from the home that they should have done. The incompetence of the caseworker and school is inexcusable! I want to say the poor excuses for human beings who tortured this precious child were mentally disturbed, but the way gay people are objectified, treated, and described is enough for rationalizing this sick, twisted, barbaric behavior: Abomination, against nature, not “God’s” best (creation), work of “Satan,” public stoning, imprisoned, pedophiles, child molesters, predators, “recruiters,” on the Red Cross List to not be blood donors, etc., etc., etc.
enlightenone
@Blackceo: One too many!!!! It’s stunning to conceive the monstrous behavior too many do and will carry out in this country and around the world much of which is legal or will be in 2014.
mgad
@KJA: Please don’t insult my sexuality by associating that scumbag with it.
Thebells1
I think the saddest part of this story is that the only kindness this boy ever got was from death. At least he can’t suffer anymore.
Tackle
This is one of the most horrible, sick, saddest stories that I have ever read.
He was such a cute little boy, who did not deserve this. No child does.
So much blame to go around here. He was let down by many. The system definitely failed him. And why are so many here blaming only the mother. Did you guys read the story? It was the mother and her boyfriend. Just two terrible people. Who don’t even deserve to be called human.
And thank god that prisoners do like like child abusers…
Tackle
@Lovelife: Unlike you, I don’t wish them a long life. As soon as they are off the face of the earth the better. And no one is going to take the time to, “revisit”, “self examine,” or “deeply reflect” and feel remorse for what they have done, if they are sociopaths. And for the duration, the amount and type of abuse. And the victim chosen, they both seem like it…
rickhfx
Str8 people committing abuse , no surprise really.
Str8 people are responsible for 99.99% of every evil in the world.
AtticusBennett
BTW – congratulations to this site’s few anonymous cowardly trolls, under all their various screen names, who like come on here and regularly post “effeminacy hating” nonsense – because that’s the same lean red prejudice and irrational hate that drove these parents to kill their kid.
no different.
he wasn’t saying “i’m gay’ – he wasn’t expressing an attraction to other males – he was embodying what this site’s PATHETIC and worthless trolls make fun of, daily – this bogus perceived “effeminacy”
you worthless trolls come in here every day and spew it. and this kid’s parents beat him and killed him over it.
congrats.
Hermes
@mjmarkic: Much abuse is committed against children BY specifically “born again” Christians, please don’t urge them to take in more children to abuse. I’ve seen terrible things, including one boy whose father broke a 2 x 4 over his lower back/spine on the recommendation of his father’s pastor. Because I am in NY – that man lost custody, but many do not.
Hermes
@Kieran: I agree with you that if is horrific, BUT I disagree with you that it isn’t the state’s responsibility. It is in every way the responsibility of the community to make certain that the child has a childhood and a life – in an established first world country – that means the state’s responsibility, because like it or not the state is the representative face of the community by common agreement and empowerment. So, yes, it is the government’s responsibility – frankly all the outcry and meaningless garble in the world about how parents “should” do x or are “responsible” to do x – is meaningless. The choice is – do you want our children taken care of or not? Do you support the right for things like this to happen or not? If they should be taken care of and this shouldn’t happen – then yes, the government is absolutely responsible, like it or not. Ideology won’t change that.
Regards,
Hermes
MMCFE
Jesus H. Christ.
But, I’m not surprised. Even in my own state/county I know how social services are out to lunch, and overlook all but the worst of the abusers.
I don’t know if this was a foster home or something, but I agree with some of the others on here that people really need parenting licenses.
MMCFE
@MMCFE: Edit: I just hope these scumbags commit suicide in prison or something, just so that the state doesn’t need to take money away from, for example, social services, just to pay for these lumps of garbage.
DarkZephyr
@AtticusBennett: You make an excellent point. The idealogy that motivates certain posters here at queerty to call gender non conforming gay men “she” and to call feminine gay men “damaging” to the cause of gay rights and to call gay men that they dislike “fruit” and other posters to defend that attitude is the very same idealogy that motivated this woman and her boyfriend to brutally torture and murder this little boy. This attitude of contempt for femininity in males. We have those posters to thank for perpetuating a climate of shame and even murder for feminine gay males and those perceived to be such. And sadly this is NOT the first little boy to be killed over this anti-gay, anti-feminine idealogy. A woman was recently convicted of kicking her little 5 year old boy to death for this very same idealogy. It’s so pathetic and so tragic.
SilverRayne
@enlightenone: I would like to point out that according to the article, teachers did report that they suspected abuse. the caseworkers just “didn’t see it”. blind much? or yeah, a child writes a suicide note, but no, can’t see any abuse so who cares! these social workers have something wrong with them. With that much abuse, there’s no way there wouldn’t have been any noticeable evidence. If a young child writes a suicide note, that is something that should be taken seriously, whether you see signs of a bad home life or not. Unfortunately, teachers have no right to take a child out of his or her home, even if they suspect abuse. all they can do is report it and hope the situation is properly resolved. Especially if the child suspected of abuse won’t admit to it. if the child will say out loud they they’ve been abused, a bit more can be done. But many times abuse victims won’t admit it for many reasons, like shame, or thinking they they deserve it, or fear of getting beat more by their abuser(s). It makes me cry that things like this continue to happen. There’s a country song that came out about this subject a little while back called Concrete Angel. Makes me cry every time I hear it or see the music video.
enlightenone
@SilverRayne: Not “blind,” guilty of carelessness in my comment DUE TO BEING EMOTIONALLY PAINED BY WHAT I READ, not giving myself time to let my emotions dissipate! Meant to call out the caseworker and the FOSTER CARE AGENCY. Agree with every word you wrote. POWER TO THE TEACHERS! See the film “Tales from the Hood.” Have shown the segment to my students re: a boy who was being abused by mother’s boyfriend and the painful challenges/and “horrors” his school teacher faced to try and save him!