Gabriel Fernadez was an eight-year-old boy who was born in February 2005 and died on May 24th, 2013. He was a sweet child who always liked being helpful, yet he had died months after the abuse. Before Gabriel passed, he was shuffled between homes with his relatives. He lived with his grandparents and then his great uncle, Michael Lemos Carranza, and his partner, David Martinez, briefly. When living with his great uncle and grandparents, he was a happy and healthy boy before his mother came back to claim custody. In 2012, Pearl Fernandez, alongside Isauro Aguirre, took him back, allegedly to gain welfare benefits. After Gabriel moved in with his mom, he transferred to Summerwind Elementary School. Starting there, his teacher, Jennifer Garcia, noticed things were not normal at home. A few weeks later, he asked Garcia, “Is it normal for moms to hit their kids?” He asked multiple kinds of these questions, like “Is it normal to be hit with a belt buckle”? And “is it normal for you to bleed?” When Garcia was told by Gabriel all these questions, she reported everything to the Los Angeles County child abuse hotline. The case did end up with a social worker to check in on Gabriel’s case. He had four case workers who were supposed to look after him, but they didn’t look after him at all.
Later in the school year, Garcia had begun to notice things had worsened. Gabriel began coming to school with injuries like patches of hair missing, scabs on his scalp, injured lips from being punched in the face, and bruises all over his body because his mother shot him with a BB gun. Gabriel’s siblings said he was forced to eat cat litter that had cat feces in it, and was always kept locked in a cabinet in his mother’s room. His siblings also said Fernandez and Aguirre called him “gay” and punished him for his feminine qualities, such as playing with dolls.
On May 22nd, 2013, Pearl called 911 to report that Gabriel was not breathing. When paramedics found him, he had broken bones, a cracked skull, and BB gun pellets stuck in his body. One of the paramedics on the scene said it was one of the worst cases she had ever seen in her life. First responders said the severe abuse was immediately obvious. He was taken into the hospital and later declared brain dead and passed on May 24th, 2013. Court documents showed that Pearl and Agurrie undoubtedly abused him during the time he was in their care. They tortured Gabriel until he stopped breathing. Agurrie was sentenced to death in 2018 following a conviction for 1st degree murder with the special circumstance of intentional murder by torture in Gabes death. Pearl pleaded guilty to first-degree and got life in prison without the chance of parole.
All the social workers who were involved in this case failed Gabriel Fernandez. None of the four case workers found any signs of abuse strong enough to warrant removing him from his home. The four case workers were fired and later faced criminal charges. Case workers aren’t usually charged for failing to prevent abuse; however, Stefanie Rodriguez, Patricia Clement, and their supervisors, Gregory Merritt and Kevin Bom, were charged with felony counts. An appellate panel ruled in January 2020 that the social workers should not face criminal charges for Gabriel’s case.
