(L.A.) Gabriel Fernandez, 8, Killed by Parents

Case Number: 2013-03753

Los Angeles County is reporting the death of a 8-year-old male of Latin American ethnicity that occurred in a hospital.

The coroner’s office has identified the child as Gabriel Fernandez.

Manner of Death: Homicide

Cause of Death: Sequelae of Blunt Force Trauma and Child Neglect

Fractured skull. Twelve ribs broken.

RIP GABRIEL FERNANDEZ (February 20, 2005 – May 24, 2013)

The decedent was killed by his own mother, Pearl Fernandez.

On May 22, 2013, Fernandez called 911 to report that her son was not breathing. Paramedics arrived and found the boy with broken ribs, a fractured skull, missing teeth, and BB pellet wounds on his body. The mother’s boyfriend Isauro Aguirre placed the blame for the boy’s injuries on “roughhousing” with Gabriel’s older brother.

It later came out that Pearl Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre had tortured the eight-year-old with a BB gun, pepper spray, coat hangers, and a baseball bat. The couple also made him eat cat feces. Gabriel Fernandez died two days later of his injuries on May 24, 2013.

Pearl Fernandez pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Isauro Aguirre was sentenced to death.

Social workers Stefanie Rodriguez and Patricia Clement, and their supervisors, Kevin Bom and Gregory Merritt, were charged with child abuse and falsifying public records. In July 2020, a Los Angeles County superior court judge dismissed the case against them. The dismissal was expected after an appellate panel ruled in January that the social workers cannot be prosecuted in Gabriel’s death because they did not have custody of Gabriel and could not have controlled the abusers’ actions.