‘The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez' May Be Netflix's Most Difficult Documentary to Watch
Warning: the story recounts scenes of graphic violence, including torture and psychological abuse.
The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez, a six-part documentary series, is now streaming on Netflix.
The documentary tells of the abuse and murder of a young boy named Gabriel Fernandez.
Here is a summary of the events of the case.
With The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez, a six-part documentary series now available on Netflix, the streaming service continues its surge into the true-crime docuseries genre, which has recently included Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez and The Pharmacist. The Fernandez series, however, will likely be Netflix’s most grim documentarian exercise to date. The case involves the months-long torture and murder of an 8-year-old named Gabriel Fernandez. Fernandez’s mother, Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, were charged with the crimes.
The case received renewed attention this January when the California 2nd District Court of Appeal threw out a separate case charging four former social workers with failure to prevent Fernandez’s abuse and murder. (The Los Angeles Times noted that such a charge marked the first time in which “child protective workers were criminally charged over the alleged mishandling of a case.”)
While the court ruled the workers “never had the requisite duty to control the abusers and did not have care or custody of Gabriel,” it was clear there had been a gross oversight on the part of Department of Children and family services. There had been documented reports of abuses for years.
Here’s what we know happened.
The abuse and murder of Gabriel Hernandez
On May 22, according to grand jury testimony, Pearl Fernandez called 9-1-1, reporting that her 8-year-old son had stopped breathing. According to testimony, Fernandez told the arriving sheriff deputies that Gabriel had fallen and hit his head. Paramedics found the child naked in the bedroom with a cracked skull, three broken ribs, bruised and burned skin, including BB gun pellets in his lung and groin, and two missing teeth. The child wasn’t breathing. When they asked Aguirre, the boyfriend of Fernandez’s mother, he told authorities that he had beaten the child for lying and “being dirty.” Gabriel died two days later.
According to testimony from his two siblings, Gabriel had been abused for a number of months. The couple had forced him to eat cat feces, rotten spinach, and his own vomit. They had locked him in a cabinet, called him “gay,” forced him to wear girl’s clothes to school, and repeatedly beat him with everything from a metal hanger to a small bat.
District Attorney Jonathan Hatami told the grand jury that Gabriel was “abused, beaten, and tortured more severely than many prisoners of war.”
According to records, the Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services took part in six investigations into abuse allegations involving Gabriel’s mother. (One allegation went uninvestigated and was still unresolved at the time of the child’s death.) But despite reports that Gabriel was suicidal and would come to school with bruises, no charges were brought against the mother. Gabriel remained within her custody.
This was the first time Gabriel had lived with his mother. Before then, he had lived with his maternal grandparents. They expressed concern when Fernandez brought him to live with her. Gabriel’s grandmother told sheriff’s deputies that Fernandez had a history abusing her children. No action was taken.
Signs were also clear at school. One of Gabriel’s teachers contacted the county’s child abuse hotline and informed case workers that Gabriel was being beaten with a belt. She even reported that Gabriel told her his mother had shot him with a BB gun.
Fernandez herself was likely the victim of abuse, reported a clinical psychologist who interviewed Fernandez for the defense. She had been using methamphetamine since the age of 9 and only had an eighth-grade education.
In 2018, Fernandez took a plea deal. She plead guilty to first-degree murder and was given life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her boyfriend, Aguirre, went to trial and was found guilty of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of intentional murder by torture. He was given the death penalty and currently waits on death row in San Quentin.
In 2016, four former county Department of Children and Family Services employees were charged with one felony count of child abuse and one felony count of falsifying public records. That case was thrown out in January.
If prosecutors wish to press onward, they can hold another preliminary hearing or take the case to the California Supreme Court. It’s likely that after the Netflix documentary, many people will have strong thoughts on the matter. Fingers will continue to be pointed.
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