Gabriel ‘Was Abused, Beaten and Tortured More Severely Than Many Prisoners of War’
The trial of 37-year old security guard Isauro Aguirre began Monday in Los Angeles. The six-foot two, 270-pound man, charged with the horrific torture and murder of his girlfriend’s 8-year old boy, Gabriel Fernandez, is facing a possible death penalty sentence. Aguirre, according to prosecutors, along with his girlfriend, Gabriel’s mother, for months tortured the small 60-pound, four-foot-one-inch boy, because they thought he was gay. Gabriel died on May 24, 2013 of blunt force trauma, two days after being pronounced brain dead.
“This case is about one thing, and that is the systematic torture of a helpless and innocent child,†Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami told jurors, the Antelope Valley Times reports. “After eight months of living with the defendant … his body was battered. The evidence will show he was beaten, burned, bruised.â€
He said that two weeks after the child moved in with the defendants, the boy asked his first-grade teacher, “Is it normal to be hit with the metal part of a belt and to bleed?â€
A month later, Gabriel came to school with his hair shaved into a mohawk, but with “chunks of his hair missing … bloody scabs … a busted lip,†the prosecutor said. “Gabriel cries almost every day after school … because he doesn’t want to go home.â€
The youngster missed school for two weeks that April.
“(Aguirre and Fernandez) were torturing him and they were beating him†and texting back and forth about it, Hatami told the jury.
Local mainstream news outlets no longer publish the details of Fernandez’s murder, but here’s what NCRM reported at the time.
“For eight straight months,” Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami told a grand jury in 2014, Gabriel “was abused, beaten and tortured more severely than many prisoners of war.”
Some of the alleged attacks on young Gabriel included calling him “gay,” punishing him “when he played with dolls” and forcing him to “wear girls’ clothes to school,” according to his remaining siblings, the LA Times reported in an extensive article in 2014.
Before 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez was allegedly beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend, they doused him with pepper spray, forced him to eat his own vomit and locked him in a cabinet with a sock stuffed in his mouth to muffle his screams, according to court records made public Monday.
Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Fernandez, called 911 on May 22, 2013, to report that her son was not breathing. She told sheriff’s deputies who arrived at the apartment that Gabriel had fallen and hit his head on a dresser, according to testimony. When paramedics arrived, they found Gabriel naked in a bedroom, not breathing, with a cracked skull, three broken ribs and BB pellets embedded in his lung and groin. He died two days later.
…
The abuse worsened in the months leading up to Gabriel’s death, according to testimony from two of his siblings, both of whom are minors. They said Gabriel was forced to eat cat feces, rotten spinach and his own vomit. He slept in a locked cabinet and wasn’t let out to go to the bathroom.
Fernandez and Aguirre hit Gabriel with a belt buckle, a metal hanger, a small bat and a wooden club, Gabriel’s brother said. Their mother once jabbed Gabriel in the mouth with a bat and knocked out several teeth, according to testimony.
The NY Daily News added, “In addition to the physical and emotional abuse, Gabriel reportedly was sexually abused as well.”
Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, is also charged with murder and is being tried separately. The Antelope Valley Times reports she too could face the death penalty.
The Facebook page Gabriel’s Justice has been keeping close watch on developments for all those who mourn Gabriel’s death.
To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.
Images via Gabriel’s Justice on Facebook
If you find NCRM valuable, would you please consider making a donation to support our independent journalism?