The Horrific Torture and Murder of 8-Year-old Gabriel Fernandez
By: Max Ngamla
Tags: Murder, Children, Crime, Short Read, True Crime

The Horrific Torture and Murder of 8-Year-old Gabriel Fernandez

Gabriel Fernández. Image source: Wikipedia

Gabriel Fernández was eight years old when on May 22, 2013, died from a beating by his mother, Pearl Fernández, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, at his home in Palmdale, in Los Angeles.



After his death, the boy’s family said that his mother did not want him at birth. It is even known that the day Gabriel came into the world his mother left him in the hospital, and his grandparents had to go get him. Thus began a journey that made him know different homes, always with one of his family members.



According to the relatives who adopted him, Gabriel was a sweet boy who wanted to be loved by his mother. The photographs of the time when he lived with his uncles or grandparents show a happy and healthy child.



However, everything changed in 2012, when his mother decided to take him to live with her so that she could receive state social benefits.

In Pearl’s small apartment also lived Gabriel’s two siblings: Ezequiel and Virginia, both minors.



With the move to his mother’s apartment also came a change of school. It was there that Gabriel met Professor García, who was the first to contact the authorities to report the situation of child abuse, which Gabriel was subjected to every day.



The abuse was getting worse and worse, according to the teacher. He started coming to class without a few strands of hair, with scabs on the scalp, swollen lips, bruises all over the face, or injuries caused by shots from a compressed air pistol.



García reported the matter to social services and some worried family members also asked for help. Officers from the Sheriff’s Office visited the apartment on several occasions, one of them a few days before the final beating, but they always believed what the mother told them and did not check the state of the child.



On May 22, 2013, Gabriel’s mother and stepfather called the emergency room because the boy was not breathing. Eight months had passed since Gabriel went to live with them.



Some of the paramedics who arrived after the emergency call said that with the naked eye you could detect that Gabriel had numerous bruises on his head, several broken ribs, parts of the skin burned, the swollen hands. Two days later Gabriel passed away.

Pearl Fernandez, and Isauro Aguirre, were both arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

The coroner who performed the autopsy reported that Gabriel had in his stomach grit mixed with cat feaces. Gabriel’s own brothers, who testified behind closed doors for being minors, confirmed that the child was forced to eat cat droppings.



They also explained that the mother and her boyfriend often locked Gabriel in a piece of furniture they had in their room, without giving him food or let him go to the bathroom. They also forced him to bathe in cold water while being pepper-sprayed, and that the stepfather often hit the boy hard, calling him gay.

Isauro’s lawyer, unable to deny the evidence on the cause of Gabriel’s death, based his defense on that the fatal beating was not premeditated but the product of a fit of anger and asked the members of the jury to convict his defendant for homicide in second grade.



He did not convince them.



On June 13, 2018, Isauro Aguirre was sentenced to death and awaits execution in the San Quintín prison in California. After knowing that verdict, Pearl Fernández, Gabriel’s mother, decided to plead guilty, thus avoiding the holding of a trial and the death penalty. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She’s being held in Chowchilla State Women’s Prison.