Wicked Mother !!!

Please do not read this unless you are ready to cry!!!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

The mother of an 8-year-old Palmdale boy whose torture and fatal beating prompted far-reaching reforms in Los Angeles County’s child welfare system pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder.


Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, who entered her plea in a packed courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, admitted to special circumstance allegations that the 2013 killing of her son Gabriel was intentional and involved the infliction of torture. She is expected to be sentenced on June 7 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The plea came two months after jurors decided that her boyfriend should be put to death. In that case, jurors heard and saw disturbing evidence about how Gabriel suffered repeated abuse at the hands of Isauro Aguirre.

When paramedics arrived at the boy’s Palmdale home on May 22, 2013, Gabriel was unconscious and had a cracked skull, broken ribs, burned and bruised skin, missing teeth and BB pellets lodged in his groin. He died two days later after being removed from life support.


During Aguirre’s trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami told jurors that in the months leading up to the boy’s death, the defendant had reveled in his brutalization, forcing Gabriel to eat cat feces and his own vomit. The boy slept in a small cabinet, the prosecutor said, with his ankles handcuffed, his hands bound and his mouth gagged with a sock.

“No human with a heart and soul could do that to an innocent little boy,” Hatami told jurors, arguing that Aguirre hated the boy because he suspected he was gay.

As the prosecutor detailed the abuse — the boy was punched in the face with such force, he said, that skin was missing from his chin and nose — two jurors cried softly and several closed their eyes.

Aguirre was convicted of first-degree murder on Nov. 15 and jurors also found true the allegation that the murder was committed using torture. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 8.

The fallout from Gabriel’s murder has been felt well beyond the county. The decision by prosecutors to charge the four social workers with felony child abuse and falsifying public records sent a chill through the ranks of child protection workers nationwide.

Prosecutors alleged that caseworkers Patricia Clement and Stefanie Rodriguez and supervisors Kevin Bom and Gregory Merritt ignored evidence of repeated abuse and minimized Gabriel's injuries.

At a court hearing for the social workers last year, a judge said that their actions amounted to criminal negligence, adding that in the months before the boy’s death “red flags were everywhere.” They have pleaded not guilty.

Sheriff’s deputies also visited the home multiple times in the months before the killing and prosecutors noted in court papers that some of the deputies were later disciplined in connection with Gabriel’s death.

from los angeles times.