Man Found Guilty of Murdering and Torturing Girlfriend’s 8 Year Old Boy Who He Thought Was Gay

Could Be Given the Death Penalty 

8-year old Gabriel Fernandez spent the last eight months of his life being tortured, forced to eat his own vomit, cat feces, locked in a box, shot at into his groin with a BB gun, beaten, and made to wear pink leggings and a pink top all because his mother and her boyfriend believed he was gay. 

On Wednesday, six-foot two, 270-pound, 37-year old Isauro Aguirre was convicted of the first degree murder of Gabriel Fernandez, including the inflation of torture, in a case that has rocked Los Angeles. Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Fernandez, will be tried separately.

Aguirre now faces the death penalty. 

CBS Los Angeles reports the jury took five and a half hours over a two day period before concluding Aguirre was guilty. His attorneys had argued he had not intended to murder the small child. But prosecutors called it “intentional murder by torture,” and apparently jurors agreed.

On November 27 jurors will return for the penalty phase.

Gabriel Fernandez was brought to the hospital after Aguirre beat him. He weighed 70 pounds. The attending physician told the court he was brain dead at the time.

Dr. Alyssa Rake “said she found a depressed skull fracture, bruising on his eyes and some missing upper teeth. She saw different stages and ages of bruising and scars, small circular cuts and that he had a deep lash on the base of his penis and a burn mark,”  ABC 7 reported during the trial.

From radiological images, Rake found Gabriel had a broken skull, a hematoma on his head, swelling on the brain, a deviation of his nose, removed teeth, neck swelling, a cut to his liver and a hematoma on it, and that he had lung disease.

Rake said Gabriel also had multiple old and new rib fractures, a BB in his lung and a swollen knee.

Nine BBs were found embedded in Gabriel’s neck, face, lung, legs, buttocks, foot, chest and groin area. 

ABC 7 also reported during the trial that Gabriel’s brother Ezequiel, now 16, told the court how Aguirre treated Gabriel. 

Ezequiel, testifying in court with the defendant in the room, “said Aguirre would hit Gabriel with his fist, kick him and pick him up by the neck and drop him to the ground once the child lost consciousness. Ezequiel also said Aguirre would pepper-spray Gabriel in the face and strike his naked body with a belt buckle and a metal hanger.”

Aguirre would shoot Gabriel in the face, chest, legs and groin with a BB gun, and also pin him against the wall until the boy passed out, the teen testified. Ezequiel described one instance in which Aguirre struck Gabriel so hard that the child’s head left an indentation on the wall. He said sometimes during the beatings, Aguirre would call Gabriel “gay.”

At one point during the testimony, the teen said, “My mom and her boyfriend made Gabriel eat spoiled stuff or expired stuff. One thing I remember is expired spinach. He threw it up, and they made him eat it off the table.”

The prosecutor then asked, “Did the defendant make Gabriel eat throw up?” Ezequiel answered, “Yes.”

He said his mother and her boyfriend also forced Gabriel to eat cat feces and cat litter.

Gabriel’s first grade teacher, Jennifer Garcia, according to PEOPLE magazine, said after his death “she found a note he had written in the desk at school. It read, according to reports: ‘I love you, Mom. Gabriel is a good boy.'”

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