We will talk about three different children that were abused and tortured to death by their parents. Three different cases that everyone knew of the abuse and even when they reported the abuse the authorities did nothing to protect them.
Content Warning: tortured, child abuse, sexual abuse
For eight months, Gabriel Fernandez, who was eight years old, was abused and tortured to death at the hands of his mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend Isauro Aguirre.
Gabriel Fernandez was born on February 2005. He was the third child of Pearl Fernandez and Arnold Contreras. His older siblings were Ezequiel and Virginia.
Pearl Fernandez was born on August 29, 1983 to Robert and Sandra Fernandez. During her childhood, her father was in and out of prison. Pearl later said that her mother beat her and that she felt no love from her mother.
Pearl ran away from home when she was 11 and started drinking and taking drugs when she was 9. She was diagnosed with depressive disorder, developmental disability, possible personality disorder, possible post-traumatic stress disorder.
Her family described her as aggressive, controlling and even threatened Arnold with a knife, for which she faced a domestic violence charge.
Three days after Gabriel was born, Pear handed him over to her great-uncle Michael Carranza and his husband David Martinez. They raised Gabriel for four years.
In 2009, Gabriel moved in with his maternal grandparents because his grandfather didn’t accept Michael and David’s relationship.
Based on interviews in the documentary, Gabriel was a happy child who liked to help and wanted the love of his family.
In 2012, Pearl received custody of Gabriel. He lived with his mother, his two siblings (Ezequiel and Virginia) and his mother’s boyfriend, Isauro.
Pearl may have neglected her other children at times in their lives, and possibly even hit Virginia once, but Gabriel was the target of her anger.
For 8 months, Gabriel was beaten, shot with a BB gun, his teeth pulled out with a stick, burned with cigarettes. He spent days and nights with a sock over his mouth, his hands tied, a bandana covering his face, handcuffs around his ankles, locked in a cupboard in Pearl’s room.
At school, they noticed that he had scabs on his scalp and pieces of hair missing, bruises all over his face and burns. His teacher, Jennifer Garcia, contacted the child abuse hotline and the case was handed over to a social worker, Stefanie Rodriguez.
Although Stefanie and other professionals visited Gabriel’s home several times, the social workers couldn’t find any strong signs of child abuse to justify taking Gabriel out of the house. They took the mother at her word, and didn’t ask to see Gabriel. And the times they did speak to him, Pearl was always there.
Between 2003 and 2012, more than 60 accusations were made against Pearl and Isauro. These complaints generated 8 investigations by Child Protective Services and the department of Children and Family Services, however, both agencies claimed that all but one of the accusations were unfounded.
On May 22, 2013, Pearl called 911 because Gabriel wasn’t breathing, the paramedics who responded found Gabriel had a cracked skull, broken ribs and BB gun balls stuck in his body. He was taken to the hospital and later declared brain dead and his death was declared on May 24, 2013.
It was so violent that when the investigator began to mark the places where there was blood, he had to use two colours.
During the trial, Ezequiel and Virginia testified about the abuse Gabriel suffered, and that Pearl and Isauro called Gabriel gay and punished him for playing with dolls and displaying “feminine” qualities.
In court it was proven that they abused Gabriel during the time he was in their care and that they tortured him to death.
In 2018, Isauro was sentenced to death following a conviction for first-degree murder with the special circumstance of painful murder by torture.
To avoid the death penalty, Pearl pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
During Isauro’s trial the jury wasn’t unanimous, 11 found him guilty while one man didn’t believe he should be convicted of first-degree murder. He thought that if Isauro had wanted to kill Gabriel, he would have done it a long time ago. When the jury asked for the death penalty, it was the same juror who voted against it, because he felt it was necessary to “listen to Isauro”.
Before reading out the sentences, Judge George Lomeli said: “You want to say that the conduct was animalistic, but that would be wrong because even animals know how to look after their young, some to the point of sacrificing their own lives when looking after their young.
I can only hope that in the middle of the night you wake up and think about the injuries you’ve caused this poor 7-year-old child, and that it tortures you.”
The two social workers, Stefanie Rodriguez and Patricia Clement, and supervisors Gregory Merrit and Kevin Bom, faced criminal charges after being fired, something that had never happened before. They were charged with felony child abuse and falsifying public records. But that case was dismissed after an appeals court panel concluded that the four “never had the necessary duty to control the abusers and did not have the care or custody of Gabriel.”
At her sentencing hearing, Pearl Fernandez read a letter in which she asked her children to forgive her. “I want to say how sorry I am for what happened. I wish Gabriel were alive. Every day I wish he had made better choices. I’m sorry for my children, and I want them to know that I love them.”
As part of his February 2018 plea, Pearl waived his right to appeal. But in a petition filed on April 1, she asked the judge to review her sentence due to changes in state law affecting some people convicted of murder under theories where there was no intent to kill, including felony murder or a theory of natural and probable consequences.
Pearl indicated in the petition that she was not her son’s actual killer and that she did not act with intent to kill or assist in his murder. She also stated that she was not a major participant in the crime or that she did not act with reckless disregard for human life during the crime.
LA County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli, who presided over the murder trial, said at a hearing that he reviewed the petition and concluded that Pearl “had no right to a grievance.”
“I have established by his own admission during his guilty plea that the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture over a period of several months.”
George Lomeli adds that the record supports the theory that Pearl was “one of the main participants in the murder of a child”.
In the latest episode of the documentary “The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez” we learn the stories of two children who were tortured and killed by their own parents. Anthony Avalos was 10 and Noah Cuatro was 4, and both lived in the same area as Gabriel.
In 2018, Anthony suffered a brain haemorrhage after his mother Heather Barron and her boyfriend Kareem Ernesto Leiva picked him up and dropped him, hitting his head on the floor. He died in hospital shortly after being admitted on June 21, 2018.
Anthony was whipped with a belt and a rope in the shape of a noose, hot sauce was poured on his face, he was burned with cigarettes, he was forbidden to use the toilet, he was starved and thrown against walls and furniture, he was forced to kneel on grains of rice as punishment.
His mother’s boyfriend encouraged Anthony’s brothers to fight and beat him up.
“At one point, Anthony couldn’t walk, lay unconscious on the floor of his room for hours, received no medical attention and couldn’t eat on his own” – Jonathan Hatami, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney.
Like Gabriel, Anthony was covered in bruises and burns when he arrived at Mattel Children’s Hospital.
Anthony had been under the supervision of the LA County Department of Children and Family Services sporadically over a period of 3 years. He was being observed between 2013 and 2016 and over that period at least 13 calls were made by teachers, police and relatives.
The deputy director of the LA County Department of Children and Family Services, Brandon Nichols, previously said that Anthony had told him “that he liked boys” before he died, but did not reveal who told him, the LA Times reported.
Former California senator Ricardo Lara commented on the similarities between Gabriel’s and Anthony’s cases in the documentary: “It’s homophobia that you don’t see. It’s not on television, it’s not on the street, it’s alive in the home.”
The jury indicted Heather Barron and Kareen Ernesto Leiva in October 2018 on charges of murdering Anthony and abusing his two brothers.
Heather and Kareem are being held without bail. Both pleaded not guilty.
Heather and Kareem face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if they are convicted of murder and torture, along with the special circumstances of painful murder by torture.
The LA District Attorney’s Office has dropped its proposal to sentence Heather and Kareem to death.
Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami criticised new District Attorney George Gascón for a series of directives, including one advising that “a death sentence is never an appropriate resolution in any case.”
“This is not based on new evidence. This is not based on new mitigations or new law. I stand by the decision of the special circumstances committee that I announced to the court two years ago.” said Jonathan Hatami
After his death, Anthony’s biological father and siblings filed a lawsuit against the county, the Department of Children and Family Services and one of its contractors, alleging that social workers willfully ignored concerns about abuse and failed to protect Anthony.
Noah Cuatro, born in 2014, he and his siblings were placed in foster families, but returned to the home of their parents, Jose Maria Cuatro and Ursula Elaine Juarez.
Noah was raised by a relative for part of his life. After being in foster care for his first 3 months, his great-grandmother Eva Hernandez raised him for 6 months. He was then placed in the care of his parents for around 1 year, before being removed from his parents’ home due to neglect, Eva Hernandez told the outlet.
After another brief period in foster care, Eva looked after him until November 2018, when his parents regained custody.
According to the LA Times, the LA County Child Protective Services office claimed that social workers acted appropriately when they returned Noah to his parents.
Attorney Brian Claypool, who represents Eva Hernandez, has expressed a desire to file a civil lawsuit against the LA County Department of Children and Family Services.
The rejected complaint claimed that a DSIF employee filed a petition for Noah to be removed from his parents’ custody, which was conceived by a judge but then “deliberately ignored by the DSIF”
“An assistant went to the judge and said that this child was at imminent risk. The judge agreed with her, issuing an order that Noah would have to be removed. DSIF never complied with that order, and a few weeks later, he died in very suspicious circumstances.”
On July 5, 2019, his parents called 911 because Noah drowned in the swimming pool of the apartment complex where they lived.
But the couple’s story unravelled at Palmdale Regional Medical Center. A responding deputy relayed a doctor’s findings to a DCFS line social worker.
“He was taken to hospital. No sign of drowning, no water in the lungs. But there are signs of physical and sexual abuse.”
According to the autopsy, Noah died of asphyxiation and trauma. The coroner found rib fractures that were healed and sexual assault trauma consistent with sodomization, among other injuries.
Jose Maria Cuatro and Ursula Elaine Juarez have been charged with murder and torture. In addition to these charges, Ursula faces a charge of child abuse in circumstances likely to cause death.
Jose faces a charge of assault on a child causing death and sexual penetration with a child under 10. He is also charged with sexual assault on the same day Noah was killed.
Both plead not guilty.
Prosecutors allege that Jose hit Noah because he believed Noah was not his biological son. A DNA test was carried out through the autopsy which determined that Noah was his biological son.
Garrett Therolf, a former LA Times reporter and producer of the series presented a startling statistic in the documentary – more than 150 children in LA County with some DSIF involvement in their lives have died from abuse and neglect since Gabriel Fernandez’s death in 2013.
If you know that a child is suffering from domestic abuse or any kind of abuse you should call your local Child Protective Services.
I AM ANA DUARTE 