The Worst Child Case in Modern America (The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez)

One cannot talk about child deaths in California without touching on the death of Gabriel Fernandez. Many of you may have seen the six-part crime documentary, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez, on Netflix. If you have not, I highly suggest that you please do so. While we will do our best to present Gabriel’s story with the respect and dignity that he deserves, this documentary takes a deep dive into his case that shines a light on just how many people failed this poor child. It’s about six hours; it’s much more in-depth than what we can cover here, so I do highly recommend you see it.

Gabriel Daniel Fernandez was born on February 20th, 2005, to Arnold Contreras and Pearl Fernandez. Shortly after he was born, Gabriel was put in the custody of his great-uncle on his mother’s side, Michael Lemos Carranza, and his partner, David Martinez, who raised him for four years.

In 2009, four-year-old Gabriel moved in with his grandparents due to his grandfather’s objection to Carranza and Martinez’s same-sex relationship. Yeah, they didn’t like that Gabriel was so affectionate with them, and they made these outrageous claims that they were turning him gay because of it, which you’ll see the effects of later on. So, Gabriel lived with his grandparents, Robert and Sandra Fernandez, until 2012, when his mother, Pearl, sought custody, reportedly to gain welfare benefits. She was eventually granted custody despite concerns that she was neglectful towards other children. Despite objections from family members, Gabriel moved in with his mother and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, who worked as a security guard.

Pearl had been described by family members as abusive, and it had been noted that she had a history of domestic violence directed at her partners. And unfortunately, Gabriel’s family’s concerns were valid. Gabriel was systematically abused and tortured during his six-month stay with his mother and her boyfriend.

Just to give you an idea of some of the abuse that young Gabriel suffered: he was forced to eat cat litter and feces. He was forced to eat his own vomit. He was regularly beaten, which caused broken bones. He was burned in various parts of his body with cigarettes. He was shot in areas of his body, including his face and his groin, with a BB gun. He was forced to wear clothing typically worn by girls. I believe when they found him, there were two dresses hanging up in his closet and that’s all; all of his clothes had been bagged up and put under the bathroom sink. He was forced to sleep bound and gagged in a small cupboard in his parents’ bedroom, and it was locked up with handcuffs. He was pepper-sprayed in the bathroom by Isauro Aguirre and locked in there. He was forced to eat spoiled or expired foods, but more often than not, he wasn’t fed at all. He was just forced to eat cat litter, and he was forced to eat cat litter generally when he was asked to clean the litter box and they felt that he didn’t do a good enough job. So because he didn’t do a good enough job, they made him eat it.

According to Gabriel’s siblings, Ezequiel and Virginia, while Gabriel was being abused, his mother and stepfather would laugh at him. Aguirre reportedly abused Gabriel because he believed he was gay. Although Pearl reportedly punched Virginia in the face once, the abuse and torture did not extend to his siblings.

On May 22nd, 2013, Pearl Fernandez called 911 to report Gabriel was not breathing. Gabriel had been fatally beaten by his mother and Aguirre after failing to clean up his toys. When first responders arrived, they found him on the ground, naked, with several injuries. Aguirre casually explained to them that Gabriel was gay, despite the information being irrelevant to the fact that a young boy was dying in front of them. It was noted by first responders that Fernandez and Aguirre didn’t seem concerned about Gabriel’s well-being and fought amongst themselves during their time there. They also made Virginia clean up all the blood that was on the floor.

Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where doctors declared him brain dead. Gabriel Fernandez passed away two days later on May 24, 2013, at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. He was just eight years old. The official autopsy declared he died of blunt force trauma coincided with neglect and malnutrition. Cat litter was found in his stomach contents, and his thymus gland was shriveled up, indicating that Gabriel had suffered from extreme stress over the course of several months. Many of those who witnessed his fragile state have expressed they’re still scarred to this day by what they saw. Gabriel’s battered body was cremated; his remains are residing with his grandparents.

On May 23, 2013, Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre were arrested. Fernandez was arrested for felony child endangerment, while Aguirre was arrested for attempted murder. However, when Gabriel died, Fernandez and Aguirre were both charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture. Prosecutors then pursued the death penalty.

Pearl Fernandez pled guilty on February 15, 2018, to her charge as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. She was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In court, she stated, “I want to say I’m sorry for what happened. I wish Gabriel was alive every day. I wish that I would have made better choices. I’m sorry to my children, and I want them to know that I love them.” Whatever. Like honestly, she’s a terrible person. Throughout that documentary, she’s so foul-mouthed and crazy, it’s insane. She’s just constantly screaming at Aguirre any single time that she can see him. They had wired both of their cells at one point and intentionally stuck them next to each other to see if they would talk, and during this time, she started screaming at him basically to see if they could get their stories straight before they went into trial because, initially, they were going to try them together. His wire didn’t work; hers did. Eventually, that conversation turned sexual. Oh my god, you know, we can’t do this justice on just how twisted and warped these two are unless you see the documentary, but it’s bad. It’s very, very bad.

Isauro Aguirre pled not guilty to the charge of first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture. Jury deliberation began on November 14, 2017, and a verdict was reached the next afternoon. Ultimately, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and guilty of the circumstance of torture charges. And it took them a bit to get to that because they had one juror who kept holding out over and over and over again, that he didn’t feel that this was premeditated—that you could argue that it wasn’t. He wanted second-degree murder over first-degree, which I feel is ridiculous. It’s really ridiculous because honestly, when you’re feeding a child nothing but cat litter and beating them, you have to know eventually you’re going to kill them. You have to be an idiot to not think that. Exactly. So on December 11, 2017, jury deliberation began for the sentencing phase. The next day, the jury was deadlocked again because of the same juror. However, on December 13th, they decided to recommend the death penalty, which was accepted by the judge.

So you might be wondering, did anyone notice what happened to Gabriel? Why didn’t anyone report this? They did. Well, in the months preceding his death, Gabriel showed his injuries and reported the abuse to a security guard, family members, as well as a teacher, which led to several calls to social services to no avail.

After being hit with a metal belt, he asked his teacher, Jennifer Garcia, if it’s “normal to bleed.” In response, Garcia called social services and was later called by a social worker named Stephanie Rodriguez, informing her that she was assigned to the case. On another day, Gabriel came to class with chunks of his hair missing and a lump on his lip. When questioned about it by Garcia, Gabriel said his mother had punched him in the mouth. After discussing with the principal, Garcia called Rodriguez back and informed her of the recent signs of abuse. Later, when Gabriel reported to his teacher that he was shot in the face with a BB gun by his mother, she once again informed social services of the new sign of abuse. So it was really insane; each time Garcia would call DCFS, he’d be abused further at home to the point where he didn’t really even want to tell Garcia anymore what was going on.

And what’s even more tragic is the last piece of school work that Gabriel completed was a Mother’s Day card for Pearl, talking about how much he loved her and how beautiful he thought she was. Garcia actually took a bunch of pictures of Gabriel holding the letters M-O-M, and he is, like, so badly beaten, but he still did this in smiles. And mind you, he didn’t have many teeth left at this point—not because he was a first-grader losing teeth, but because his mother and his mother’s boyfriend beat his teeth out with bats. And this project was still sitting on his desk when Garcia found out that he was dead.

After Gabriel missed 13 consecutive days of school, he returned, and his teacher noticed that his condition had greatly worsened. She attempted to call Rodriguez, but her call was never returned. Gabriel’s great-aunt Elizabeth Carranza and her husband called social services three times and talked to sheriffs twice regarding the welfare of Gabriel. So not just social services, but the police were contacted.

And then, 29 days before his death, Arturo Miranda Martinez, a security guard at a Los Angeles County welfare office, noticed extensive injuries on Gabriel’s body, which prompted him to call 911. If you’re not aware, this is risking his job to break confidentiality to report the injuries to the sheriffs, but he did this anyway because he was this concerned about Gabriel. So we have somebody going above and beyond the call of duty here, risking their own livelihood to try to save this boy, and it did not work. Overall, between 2005 and 2012, 60 (six-zero) complaints were filed against Pearl Fernandez and Aguirre to the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

To add on to the bit about the security guard: he first reported the abuse to a woman named Marisela Corona, who worked in the domestic violence unit, who actually saw Gabriel as well when Pearl had went into the DCFS office. She started, first off, making fun of his hair—and mind you, it wasn’t a weird haircut; his hair had been pulled out to the point where there were scabs over his head—and Martinez was like, “No, this boy has been beat up.” So let’s be clear, somebody who works for the domestic violence unit was making fun of a small boy’s hair, yes, who was being reported for abuse. So her supervisors told her not to get involved. They were not filing reports because it was a Friday night, they were closing in 15 minutes, and they did not want to pay overtime.

So what happened was Marisela slipped Martinez Gabriel’s home information for him to file a complaint. Mind you, this is now a HIPAA violation because she just didn’t do her job, and she slipped the info over to Martinez, which really, even though what she did was complete crap, was sort of a right thing to do so that he could do his due diligence. He called 911, and they told him that this was not an emergency and scolded him for this, and told him to call the sheriffs.

Now the sheriff’s office—I don’t remember if it was this instance or another instance—had basically told Pearl and Isauro that they were gonna come and try to scare Gabriel straight because he was writing suicide notes and he was getting beat up by other children, according to them. Really, it was them beating him up, and that they were going to scare him straight from making what they called false suicide notes or threats and lying. So the sheriffs didn’t help at all. Do you know if the security guard, Martinez—if he lost his job when he reported it? He actually went and told his superiors that he was going to do this, and they told him not to get involved. Like, “Why are you doing this?” And he did it anyways. I don’t believe he lost his job over it, but he told them what he was going to do, and they told him not to.

Two social workers, Stephanie Rodriguez (who we mentioned earlier) and Patricia Clement, as well as two supervisors, Kevin Bom and Gregory Merritt, for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services were fired and charged with child abuse and falsifying public records. The unprecedented charges held significant consequences, including up to 11 years in prison. However, these charges were ultimately dismissed by California’s Second District Court of Appeals for lack of probable cause. So if you’re wondering—and we’ve had a lot of people in the comments section being like, “Why aren’t we charging social workers for neglect?”—while I would like to, this is the likely outcome. This is why charges aren’t pursued against social workers, because this is what happens: lack of probable cause. It’s really hard to charge a social worker with something like this, harder than you think.

So in January of 2020, prosecutors attempted to get a re-hearing for the case but eventually decided to drop the charges altogether. Additionally, nine sheriff’s deputies were internally disciplined for not properly investigating the abuse allegations.

So it should be noted as well, and you’ll know this if you go ahead and watch the documentary or have watched the documentary: none of this would have come to light had one particular journalist from the LA Times working the beat not decided to dig into Gabriel’s death. There are hundreds of people who are killed or murdered in LA County you never hear about. He just thought it was a strange case and decided to dig a little bit deeper, and found people who were willing to be confidential informants within DCFS to give information, which is a hard process, and you’ll see that outlined in the documentary. These folks that actually were whistleblowers could have been put in jail. Yeah, not just losing their jobs; they were potentially facing criminal charges as well as losing their job.

So, some kind of “where are they now” situations on the Gabriel Fernandez case: His great-uncle Michael sadly passed away about a year after Gabriel did. I’ve not found any sort of cause of death, but a lot of pictures that show him, he does look sick. I don’t know if it was some sort of health concern or not. His partner, David Martinez, was captured by ICE and was deported to El Salvador.

Arnold Contreras—a lot of people wonder, where was he during all of this? He was actually in jail. He was in jail when he found out that Gabriel was dead. And so, when he got out of jail, he actually reached out to the D.A. who was prosecuting the case to make sure that he was a “good guy” because he had served time in jail and had a general distrust, obviously, for law enforcement. And I tell you what, that guy felt very sorry that he wasn’t there for Gabriel and is completely crushed by all of this. At the end of the documentary, the D.A. and Arnold are like crying and embracing each other.

So what now? 60 complaints to Child Protective Services made from mandated reporters could not save Gabriel Fernandez from a painful and tragic death. And if it wasn’t for the hard work of that one reporter that we talked about in the documentary, Gabriel’s case may have never, ever been known to the public. So in his case, Child Protective Services clearly failed, and it could be argued that charges against those who failed him should have never been dropped. I think they should have been tried. I think so too.

And when I read this case of Gabriel Fernandez, it’s so horrible, but I think what a lot of people do is they look at this case and they think it is a unique novelty. Where my mind goes is, who are these other Gabriel Fernandezes out there? These unknowns that we’ll never, ever hear about? There’s so many of them. This isn’t just a unique, one-off case. I have to stress that to you; if you think that this is a rarity, it’s not. It really isn’t. And this was going to be part of a “What’s happening in California?” type episode, but there was just so much information about Gabriel’s case that we had to make it stand alone. I felt like it deserved its own episode for sure. And in doing more research, I uncovered other cases that are just like Gabriel’s, so we’re going to have a, you know, “What the hell is happening in California?” episode soon, just so you know.

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