Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / JUDGE DROPS CHARGES AFTER 8-YEAR-OLD GABRIEL FERNANDEZ TORTURED DEAD

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JUDGE DROPS CHARGES AFTER 8-YEAR-OLD GABRIEL FERNANDEZ TORTURED DEAD · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. An eight year old little
0:12
Speaker 1: boy dead. When you hear what happened to this child's
0:18
Speaker 1: body and the way he was treated, not only at
0:20
Speaker 1: the time of his death, but for a long period
0:23
Speaker 1: of time of pure torture, this little boy lived through
0:28
Speaker 1: your blood is going to boil in the last hours.
0:33
Speaker 1: A bombshell decision by a judge, a legal catastrophe, charges dropped.
0:42
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the case of Gabriel Fernandez. Crime Stories
0:55
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. I mean, if he Grace, this is
1:04
Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Take a
1:07
Speaker 1: listen to this. I would like to um, um, my
1:12
Speaker 1: son is not your son? Is what he's not? Brazily
1:17
Speaker 1: hold on one second. I'm gonna try to tell you
1:18
Speaker 1: over to the fire department. Don't hang it. Oh my god,
1:26
Speaker 1: Oh my son is al it's your son, Okay. And
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Speaker 1: he's not breathing. No. Does he have a seizure? No,
1:34
Speaker 1: he was ripening with my other son. So I came
1:37
Speaker 1: in and he's just four of unconscious. Okay. Do you
1:41
Speaker 1: have the paramedics on the way right now? Are you
1:43
Speaker 1: right there with him? Okay? Do you know how to
1:45
Speaker 1: do cpr M. I'm just doing the compostion from the
1:50
Speaker 1: chap and I'm okay, race for him. If he's not breathing,
1:53
Speaker 1: you need to do tube breath and thirty compressions. This
1:58
Speaker 1: needs you to keep doing that until the paramedics. I'm okay.
2:00
Speaker 1: They're on their way to come in and fast as
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Speaker 1: they can. During that nine on one call, the parents
2:06
Speaker 1: Pearl and Isa, insist that their child isn't breathing because
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Speaker 1: the two boys were quote wrestling, and then somehow one
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Speaker 1: of them stops breathing. And I've just got to point
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Speaker 1: out how calm, cool and collected they seem to be
2:22
Speaker 1: on the phone while their child is dying. With me,
2:27
Speaker 1: truly an all star panel. Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer,
2:31
Speaker 1: anchor Court TV. Doctor Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalysts, joining us
2:36
Speaker 1: out of Beverly Hills at Doctor Bethany Marshall dot com.
2:40
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, death investigator
2:46
Speaker 1: and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Cheryl McCallum,
2:51
Speaker 1: Director of the Cold Case Research Institute. But right now
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Speaker 1: to Nicole Parton Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter Nicole,
3:00
Speaker 1: before I ask you the very first question, take a
3:03
Speaker 1: listen to our friends at Netflix. He had a depressed
3:07
Speaker 1: skull fracture, meaning you could feel his skull. You know,
3:10
Speaker 1: you feel your head and it's a nice round. His
3:12
Speaker 1: was like dentity. He could feel like it's called crepitus
3:15
Speaker 1: where it's almost like rice crispies. You could feel it
3:17
Speaker 1: like crunchy on his head. I remember his throat just
3:21
Speaker 1: looked like somebody burned him. Bruising and cuts all over
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Speaker 1: his face, black eyes, cuts everywhere. He had like a
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Speaker 1: weird cutub of his penis. He had abrasions like on
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Speaker 1: the top of his foot like he'd been dragged, ligature
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Speaker 1: marks on his ankles like he had been tied up.
3:40
Speaker 1: I mean every part on his body. There was just something.
3:44
Speaker 1: Always got a bullet in his lung, always got a
3:46
Speaker 1: bullet in his growing. It's like cigarette Mark said. He'd
3:50
Speaker 1: like been people have been putting cigarettes out on him
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Speaker 1: and different stages. I mean, he'd have a bruise that
3:55
Speaker 1: looks like it's almost healed, bruises that look brand new,
3:57
Speaker 1: like burns, cuts, abrasions, everything you could think of, all
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Speaker 1: over this kid, all over him. He didn't look like
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Speaker 1: a child, This little boy, it was so abused and mistreated.
4:09
Speaker 1: You were hearing right there, Christine Estes, an emergency nurse,
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Speaker 1: describing the injuries all over this eight year old child's body,
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Speaker 1: and a judge is dropping charges. First of all to you.
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Speaker 1: Nicole Parton Crime online dot Com investigative reporter described to
4:29
Speaker 1: me about how nine one one was called and EMTs arrived.
4:33
Speaker 1: Let's just start at the beginning. The nine one one
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Speaker 1: call came in with a mother saying, my son isn't breathing.
4:40
Speaker 1: MTS arrived to find him unconscious, laying on the floor.
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Speaker 1: The boyfriend of the mom kept saying, he's gay, He's gay.
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Speaker 1: What that had to do with the lifeless body laying there,
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Speaker 1: I have no idea. They found several injuries. Paramedics rushed
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Speaker 1: into the hospital. The doctor declared him brain dead. Paramid
5:00
Speaker 1: on the case said it was the most disgusting situation
5:03
Speaker 1: that they had ever seen. One guy had been doing
5:05
Speaker 1: this for thirty plus years. He said he had never
5:08
Speaker 1: seen a body that had been abused and mistreated to
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Speaker 1: the point of little eight year old Gabriel. They had
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Speaker 1: plunged him in the bathtub, held him under pulled him out,
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Speaker 1: they had beat him, they had put him back under
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Speaker 1: the water, pulled him out. All of this while siblings
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Speaker 1: were knocking on the bathroom door begging for them to stop,
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Speaker 1: while they watched their young brother be killed. You know,
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Speaker 1: Nicole Parton, I've tried a lot of cases and literally
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Speaker 1: investigated thousands of cases before I started covering cases. And
5:40
Speaker 1: to hear the way you just put it to me,
5:44
Speaker 1: I can hardly take it in. I remember one time
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Speaker 1: once and all the years I prosecuted Ashley Willcott, I
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Speaker 1: had to leave the courtroom and it was a case
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Speaker 1: child abuse of a little girl about two years old.
6:03
Speaker 1: She was comatose and it ultimately died. She had been
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Speaker 1: in a coma for a period of time from a
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Speaker 1: horrible beating, and because of hippa and various laws, I
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Speaker 1: didn't get her full medical file until the trial. And
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Speaker 1: something was happening in court and I was flipping through
6:25
Speaker 1: and I saw it were this two year old little
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Speaker 1: girl who's in a coma, in a vegetative state, had
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Speaker 1: been raped. Two year old girl, And I remember I
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Speaker 1: had to ask the judge can I be excused? Never
6:40
Speaker 1: once did I do that before or after because I
6:45
Speaker 1: let myself think about what happened to this little girl
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Speaker 1: two years old. And you know, Ashley, all of us
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Speaker 1: on the panel right now, we cover k this is
7:00
Speaker 1: all the time because our goal is to seek justice.
7:04
Speaker 1: But if you really let yourself think about what Gabriel
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Speaker 1: Nandez went through, I just don't know. Sometimes if I
7:14
Speaker 1: could put one foot in front of the other, how
7:17
Speaker 1: can people be so mean? Ashley? You know, I don't know, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: and I agree with you. When you hear and see
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Speaker 1: and really think about what happened, it's really unfathomable. It's unimaginable.
7:29
Speaker 1: What I regret is I can tell you when I'm
7:32
Speaker 1: on the bench, I see these types of horrific cases
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Speaker 1: of physical abuse. So not only do I think this
7:41
Speaker 1: is to seek justice, this is to make people aware
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Speaker 1: that there are evil people doing these things to kids.
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Speaker 1: Joe got Morgan, death Investigator, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University.
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Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to our friends
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Speaker 1: at Netflix. This is the trial trials of Gabriel Fernandez,
8:02
Speaker 1: and we are reporting now in the way of a
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Speaker 1: bombshell and catastrophe decision by let me just say, an
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Speaker 1: idiot judge I usually don't say that, but I could
8:15
Speaker 1: say a lot worse, but that's not allowed by the FCC. Okay,
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Speaker 1: listen to Netflix. I can't wrap my head around this.
8:22
Speaker 1: I can't wrap my head around how how it got
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Speaker 1: to this. I'll always remember his name, Gabriel. You're sad,
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Speaker 1: you're angry. You're sitting there thinking, oh my god, not
8:41
Speaker 1: only do you not think he's gonna make it, but
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Speaker 1: how do these people do this to him? I mean,
8:46
Speaker 1: there's no way you couldn't have seen it. There's so
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Speaker 1: much trauma, so much damage and use. There's so many questions.
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Speaker 1: But if CPS isn't doing anything about it, and the
9:00
Speaker 1: sheriffs aren't doing anything about it, how did this happen?
9:11
Speaker 1: She said, he flipped him back. That was the thing
9:17
Speaker 1: on one's flipped You were hearing an ear nurse Christine
9:23
Speaker 1: Estes speaking to our friends at Netflix Crime Stories with
9:41
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. We were talking about a bombshell and disaster
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Speaker 1: decision by a judge in the Gabriel Fernandez murder case
9:53
Speaker 1: at the hands of his own parents. Mom and her
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Speaker 1: live in Pearl and Issa. Now we already heard on
10:01
Speaker 1: the nine one one call the parents claiming that he
10:05
Speaker 1: had been wrestling with his brother and then ohos, he
10:07
Speaker 1: just stopped breathing. Now we hear from the ear nurse
10:11
Speaker 1: that the mom says, quote he slipped in the bathtub,
10:17
Speaker 1: So which one isn't what really happened. We're also hearing
10:20
Speaker 1: from Nicole Parton with Crime Online that at the time
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Speaker 1: this little boy was in the bathtub, his siblings were
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Speaker 1: outside bamming on the door, begging the parents to stop
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Speaker 1: torturing him. I guess waterboarding him or putting him under
10:33
Speaker 1: the water, then jerking him out put him in, all
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Speaker 1: the while angry because they say this little boy is gay.
10:39
Speaker 1: It's almost too much to take in, but I want
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Speaker 1: you now, Jos got Morgan to hear what we learn
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Speaker 1: about little Gabriel's injuries. This is from EMT James Sirmac.
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Speaker 1: Almost every one of Gabriel's fingers was injured, and he
10:55
Speaker 1: potentially was trying to defend himself, right, Sir Mac and
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Speaker 1: Shawn Fox. They thought that, you know, Gabriel like a disease.
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Speaker 1: This wasn't somebody who had you know, injuries or abrasions
11:05
Speaker 1: or things like. This is somebody who you know had
11:07
Speaker 1: some sort of you know, skin disease or something like.
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Speaker 1: He had rashed like like abrasions to his face, stringulation
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Speaker 1: marks around his neck, his angles were swollen. I believe
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Speaker 1: this left palm looked like it was burned, bite marks, bruises,
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Speaker 1: head to toe, skull fractures, depressed skull fracture like little holes,
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Speaker 1: as if he was shot like with a baby gun
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Speaker 1: or something. Just he just the more he looked, the
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Speaker 1: more you saw. It's just it was just unbelievable to you,
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Speaker 1: Justice Scott Morgan, and this is something I have not
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Speaker 1: looked forward to as much as I respect everything you say,
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Speaker 1: your analysis of this little eight year old boy's injuries,
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Speaker 1: and then we'll move to this idiot judge's decision. Okay,
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Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, what happened to Gabriel? Listen, Nancy. You
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Speaker 1: know I try to watch the series, I really did,
12:19
Speaker 1: and I've seen a lot. I haven't seen everything, but
12:23
Speaker 1: when I got that piece where the er nurse is
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Speaker 1: talking about these injuries, I begin to weep and it
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Speaker 1: just it broke my heart. Let me kind of break
12:33
Speaker 1: this down for you. You know how the one emt
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Speaker 1: mentioned he had been shot with a bb gun. He
12:38
Speaker 1: wasn't just shot singularly. He was shot. The medical examiner
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Speaker 1: recovered eight separate projectiles. Now with a BB gun, that
12:46
Speaker 1: means that it has to be cocked and fired each
12:50
Speaker 1: time in order to facilitate that. So at minimum, he
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Speaker 1: was shot eight times. This child had receding injuries over
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Speaker 1: a long period of time. These things were resolving that
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Speaker 1: he had a history going way way back, you know.
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Speaker 1: And what's really striking about this is this kid, this
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Speaker 1: precious little baby, and he is a baby, Nancy. He
13:15
Speaker 1: was eight years old. You know, he only right about
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Speaker 1: forty pounds when he rolled into the emergency room. Let
13:23
Speaker 1: that sink in just for a second, for everybody that
13:26
Speaker 1: has a child forty pounds, Nancy. These people made this
13:33
Speaker 1: child eat cat litter, Nancy. Cat litter. Now, for folks
13:39
Speaker 1: that don't have cats, let me tell you what litter does.
13:43
Speaker 1: It literally absorbs liquids and it turns into rock hard
13:50
Speaker 1: little balls. So not only is he suffering from all
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Speaker 1: of these injuries, including fractures, cigarette burns, his mouth is
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Speaker 1: raw because he's he's eating these cocks that caustic substances.
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Speaker 1: His bowels are blocked, Nancy, on a regular basis because
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Speaker 1: he's got cat feces mixed with cat litter in his
14:16
Speaker 1: system's his teeth are rotten. Okay, that happens with malnutrition.
14:22
Speaker 1: He's not being fed, he's not being hydrated, and he's
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Speaker 1: being kept sequestered. Nancy, this thing just absolutely breaks my heart.
14:32
Speaker 1: There's you know we talk about and the reason that
14:36
Speaker 1: the nurse, the comments of the nurse affected me so badly.
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Speaker 1: And I can reflect on this as a medical legal
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Speaker 1: death investigator. We see those things in life that the
14:45
Speaker 1: rest of society chooses not to see. We're always having
14:50
Speaker 1: and I say this a lot, I know, we're always
14:52
Speaker 1: having to examine the abnormal in the context of the normal.
14:58
Speaker 1: Those of us that have kids, we know what baseline
15:02
Speaker 1: normal is. We know what it's like to take care
15:05
Speaker 1: of a child. At what point on this earth do
15:09
Speaker 1: you get to the point where you have to deprive
15:13
Speaker 1: a child of well being, where you have to not
15:17
Speaker 1: just deprive deprivation, but actively and Nancy, I mean this
15:21
Speaker 1: in the strongest terms, actively torture. We had Vietnam veterans
15:26
Speaker 1: that were housed in the Hanoi Hilton during Vietnam that
15:29
Speaker 1: were not treated this badly, and that was a horrific
15:32
Speaker 1: set of circumstances. This is an eight year old child.
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Speaker 1: I can't even begin to plumb the depths of this,
15:40
Speaker 1: all of this coming to light after a judge's horrific decision.
15:45
Speaker 1: I want to judge off the bench. They don't deserve
15:48
Speaker 1: to wear the robe. Take a listen to our friends
15:51
Speaker 1: at CBS two News LA reporter Christie Fahardo. In the
15:55
Speaker 1: hours before his death, Gabriel lay in an emergency root
15:58
Speaker 1: his skull fractured. He'd been burned, apparently tied up, he
16:01
Speaker 1: was missing skin, He had baby pellets lodged in his
16:05
Speaker 1: lung and scrolled up. Even the soles of his feet
16:08
Speaker 1: were bruised and swollen. A physician in the emergency room said,
16:11
Speaker 1: someone has pulled out this child's teeth. And it was
16:14
Speaker 1: not a doctor, not a dentist. I just thought, over
16:18
Speaker 1: and over again, how did this happen? Mary was not
16:22
Speaker 1: the social worker who investigated the reports of abuse, including
16:25
Speaker 1: the complaints from Gabriel's own school. That social worker was
16:29
Speaker 1: also fired. Mary got the case after when the family
16:32
Speaker 1: was referred to therapy. She says she never saw anything troubling,
16:36
Speaker 1: but on one occasion, Mary spotted a bruise under Gabriel's
16:39
Speaker 1: eye and a BB pellet in his chest. I asked
16:42
Speaker 1: them about it, and the explanation from gabriel brother and
16:46
Speaker 1: sister and mom. Her story was that some little kid
16:50
Speaker 1: in the apartment complex's mom got him a BB gun. Okay,
16:53
Speaker 1: so we're hearing so many different stories from the parents.
16:57
Speaker 1: He was in a wrestling match with his brother, he
16:59
Speaker 1: slipped in the bathtub. Now we're hearing about neighbor boys.
17:03
Speaker 1: But it's not just the parents involved. Take a listen
17:09
Speaker 1: to this. This wasn't the case that has followed me
17:12
Speaker 1: from that night. It's still harder. Gabriel Fernandez was at
17:17
Speaker 1: the time of his death, eight years old. That was
17:21
Speaker 1: my friend, and it really caught me because it was
17:26
Speaker 1: his parents who took his life. He's a very good case,
17:32
Speaker 1: very playful of you. These two people murdered this child.
17:37
Speaker 1: How did this come to be? How did a child
17:39
Speaker 1: who had so many signs of repeated and long term
17:43
Speaker 1: abuse slipped to the cracks. It really wasn't until I
17:46
Speaker 1: got all of the evidence that I realized how egregious
17:50
Speaker 1: the case was. This was a story that could not
17:53
Speaker 1: be ignored. The question was could we uncover what was
17:56
Speaker 1: really going on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are
18:13
Speaker 1: talking about the death of an eight year old little boy,
18:17
Speaker 1: Gabriel Fernandez, at the hands of his mother and her
18:21
Speaker 1: live in but now in a bomb shell decision by
18:26
Speaker 1: a trial Joset doesn't deserve to be there. Charges have
18:30
Speaker 1: been dropped. Now you just heard that Gabriel's case slipped
18:34
Speaker 1: through the cracks. What a euphemism, what a line of bs.
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Speaker 1: He didn't slip through the cracks. He was failed, he
18:45
Speaker 1: was ignored, he was tortured until he died an eight
18:50
Speaker 1: year old boy. And now you're going to hear the
18:54
Speaker 1: rest of the story. Who else was in on Gabriel's murder?
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Speaker 1: Listen to this Department of Children Family Services has significant
19:02
Speaker 1: involvement in this case. Board of supervisors have now taken notice.
19:06
Speaker 1: There's something about this kid's staff. There was no medical
19:10
Speaker 1: follow up, even to the injuries that were acknowledged by
19:13
Speaker 1: the department. You're thinking about her and how could to
19:16
Speaker 1: be true? As prosecutors, we need to up our game.
19:21
Speaker 1: She didn't just proscat the mother and her boyfriend. She
19:23
Speaker 1: also took the step of prosecuting the four social workers.
19:27
Speaker 1: They had a job, and their job was to save
19:29
Speaker 1: a little boy. The system is over taxed. The most
19:32
Speaker 1: children I had was about two hundred and eighty. I
19:34
Speaker 1: did not commit a crime. When the details came out
19:39
Speaker 1: of how this poor child was tortured and all of
19:42
Speaker 1: these people knew, I think it shook the county to
19:44
Speaker 1: the door. Neureupics tend to function to preserved institution at
19:48
Speaker 1: all coals. A system has this enormous power on of
19:52
Speaker 1: those who think that by not talking you can limit
19:55
Speaker 1: the bad publicity. I believe the ultimate evil is saying
19:59
Speaker 1: what's and looking away when you have a power to
20:03
Speaker 1: make the difference. That is true evil, That is so true.
20:06
Speaker 1: Our friends and Netflix could not have said it any better.
20:09
Speaker 1: You have the choice to look away or to look
20:14
Speaker 1: at what is happening and do something about it. And
20:18
Speaker 1: in a very rare move, the social workers who let
20:23
Speaker 1: this child die, we're actually charged. Now the judge is
20:29
Speaker 1: dropping all the charges. Let's just analyze what exactly happened
20:33
Speaker 1: to Nicole Partment with a crimal line dot com investigative reporter.
20:37
Speaker 1: How did this case quote slip through the cracks? The
20:41
Speaker 1: teachers were calling defects, neighbors were calling its department, Family
20:46
Speaker 1: Children's Services Child Protective Services. They kept leaving the child
20:51
Speaker 1: in the home. What they leave on their lunch break
20:54
Speaker 1: or their coffee break, knowing this boy was getting tortured
20:57
Speaker 1: until he died. What did they do? Nicole Parton Stacy,
21:02
Speaker 1: I think it's more of what they didn't do. There
21:05
Speaker 1: were over sixty complaints filed against Pearl and her living
21:09
Speaker 1: boyfriend Azaria, sixty complaints coming from neighbors, coming from Gabriel school,
21:16
Speaker 1: coming from family members. The department claimed that they opened
21:20
Speaker 1: eight independent investigations against the parents. But we have to
21:24
Speaker 1: remember not only were these four caseworkers social workers charged
21:28
Speaker 1: with child abuse, but they were all charged with falsifying
21:32
Speaker 1: public documents. So many times when they were staying they
21:36
Speaker 1: were going to the home to see Gabriel or to
21:39
Speaker 1: check on him, they weren't even going to the house.
21:42
Speaker 1: They were falsifying the document writing down that they went
21:46
Speaker 1: out to check on him when they hadn't even been there.
21:50
Speaker 1: They stood by and let this little boy die in
21:55
Speaker 1: such a horrific manner. Now, before I go ahead and
21:58
Speaker 1: tar and feather the judge, the judge Lamelli refused to
22:05
Speaker 1: drop charges against the defacts. Back in September twenty eighteen.
22:11
Speaker 1: They took it up to appeal, and a California appellate
22:14
Speaker 1: court ordered the judge to drop the charges. I think
22:21
Speaker 1: I've got that right with me, Ashley Wilcot, a juvenile judge,
22:25
Speaker 1: trial lawyer anchor at Court TV. Ashley Wilcot explain to
22:29
Speaker 1: me why these charges are dropped because I think those
22:33
Speaker 1: social workers stood by, went out to their lunches every day. Hey, look,
22:37
Speaker 1: how was the government worker. I know what goes on.
22:39
Speaker 1: They keep their feet back in their offices, winding about
22:43
Speaker 1: their caseload while this little boy died. Did you hear
22:46
Speaker 1: what Nicole Parton said, sixty complaints, The neighbors called family, relatives, teachers,
22:55
Speaker 1: please save this boy. And they did nothing. They had
22:58
Speaker 1: their throws up, their rear ends, and now the little
23:00
Speaker 1: boy is dead. What the hay happened? Well, listen, obviously
23:04
Speaker 1: there was a failure, but Nancy, I absolutely do not
23:08
Speaker 1: Obviously there was a failure by the agency. But listen,
23:11
Speaker 1: I do not agree with you that there was a
23:15
Speaker 1: a failure. They didn't murder. They did not. If you
23:17
Speaker 1: look at the definition of California, Nancy, of physical abuse,
23:21
Speaker 1: it is inflicted by They did not inflict it. They
23:25
Speaker 1: failed to act. But legally, under the definition, those are
23:28
Speaker 1: two different things. The parents inflicted it, the parents murdered
23:32
Speaker 1: this child. The agency failed to act. The judge, based
23:37
Speaker 1: on the definition in California, in my opinion, did the
23:40
Speaker 1: right thing. We are looking at a legal system where
23:43
Speaker 1: it relies on the actual definitions and laws as they
23:47
Speaker 1: are from. We cannot take away from the fact that
23:51
Speaker 1: the parents abused and murdered this helpless child. Now the
23:56
Speaker 1: agency did fail to act. Are there resulting charges for
24:01
Speaker 1: a failure to act? Yes? Is falsifying records of crime? Yes?
24:05
Speaker 1: Do I think that should have proceeded, Absolutely, But I
24:09
Speaker 1: do not agree that these social workers meet the definition
24:13
Speaker 1: of child abuse to have been prosecuted under that statute.
24:18
Speaker 1: They simply didn't. Isn't it correct? As she willcott that
24:24
Speaker 1: when you assume a duty, you are then held accountable.
24:28
Speaker 1: For instance, if I walk by a pool and I
24:31
Speaker 1: see somebody drowning, I don't have a duty to try
24:33
Speaker 1: to say them, although I have tried. But if I
24:37
Speaker 1: take on that duty, such as I become a lifeguard,
24:41
Speaker 1: and then I watch somebody drown and do nothing, then
24:45
Speaker 1: I'm up the creek without a paddle. Much is true
24:48
Speaker 1: that there's a duty. Yes, that's okay, that's just a
24:52
Speaker 1: simple answer. Yes. And isn't it true that social workers
24:57
Speaker 1: at de facts cps take on a duty to monitor
25:03
Speaker 1: children and safeguard them? Would you agree with that? Sure?
25:07
Speaker 1: Would you agree that Gabriel Fernandez was one of those children? Yes?
25:12
Speaker 1: Do you agree that there were sixty complaints to child
25:15
Speaker 1: welfare from what? Yeah? Sure? Do you agree that child
25:19
Speaker 1: is now dead because he was not taken out of
25:21
Speaker 1: the home and the parents killed him? Yes? That said,
25:25
Speaker 1: I believe they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent
25:28
Speaker 1: of the law. Let me ask you this, Nicole Parton,
25:30
Speaker 1: following up on what Ashy Wilcott said, There is a
25:35
Speaker 1: myriad of charges that can be filed against the social workers.
25:40
Speaker 1: Are they going to walk scott free? It looks at
25:43
Speaker 1: this time as though they will. And I think many
25:45
Speaker 1: people like myself had hoped this would be the landmark
25:49
Speaker 1: case that brought justice not only for Gabriel, but there
25:52
Speaker 1: are half a million children, half a million children who
25:56
Speaker 1: are in the care under the protection of Child and
26:00
Speaker 1: Family Services, and I think many of us were hoping
26:02
Speaker 1: that this would be the case that changed the way
26:06
Speaker 1: the system operates to help better protect our children. But
26:09
Speaker 1: unfortunately that didn't happen. No, it did not happen. Take
26:12
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at CBS two La Gabriel
26:16
Speaker 1: had unconditional love for you, and you took advantage of that,
26:23
Speaker 1: knowing he will never turn you in. But Gabriel's teacher,
26:27
Speaker 1: Jennifer Garcia, did report the abuse to a hotline. However,
26:31
Speaker 1: social workers left Gabriel in the home where he was
26:33
Speaker 1: tortured and starved and eventually beaten to death by Agena
26:37
Speaker 1: and Fernandez. I know I'm not alone in hoping that
26:40
Speaker 1: they experienced the same abuse in their lifetime, and worse,
26:46
Speaker 1: they are evil people for what they did. She described
26:49
Speaker 1: Gabriel as a kind and helpful boy. She no longer
26:52
Speaker 1: uses a student number. I don't assign number twenty eight
26:55
Speaker 1: to another student because I feel it. It's only his
26:58
Speaker 1: number now and it's a way for me to honor
27:03
Speaker 1: him in my classroom. Five years after the young boy's death, Justice,
27:08
Speaker 1: I'm just doing my job, that's it. Deputy da John
27:12
Speaker 1: Had Tommy, a father of two young children, was emotional
27:15
Speaker 1: and I think Gabriel's infected everybody, including me. Prime stories
27:31
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were talking about the horrific
27:36
Speaker 1: death of an eight year old little boy, Gabriel Fernandez. Yes,
27:40
Speaker 1: his mother stood there and let him die. She participated
27:46
Speaker 1: in his death and let her live in and herself
27:49
Speaker 1: kill her eight year old little boy. But after sixty
27:54
Speaker 1: plus complaints to child services by neighbors, by friends, by family,
28:00
Speaker 1: by teachers, they left the boy in the home to
28:04
Speaker 1: be brutally murdered. Take a listen to La CBS two.
28:09
Speaker 1: Randy Pay prosecutors also went after the social workers in
28:12
Speaker 1: that case, saying they failed to take the appropriate steps
28:16
Speaker 1: to protect Gabriel and then falsified documents related to the case.
28:20
Speaker 1: On appellate court in January ruled the charges against Stephanie Rodriguez,
28:25
Speaker 1: Patricia Clement, Kevin Baum, and Gregory Merritt, all employees of
28:29
Speaker 1: La County's Department of Children and Family Services, should have
28:32
Speaker 1: been dismissed. So the case was sent back down to
28:35
Speaker 1: the trial court today, and Judge George Lamellie did just
28:39
Speaker 1: that for so into the Court of Appeals. Directive emotions
28:43
Speaker 1: to dismiss are hereby granted, and the information is hereby
28:46
Speaker 1: set aside. But we are very grateful for the court's
28:49
Speaker 1: decision in life. The fact that the court has found
28:53
Speaker 1: that they are all factually used, including my part. Now
28:56
Speaker 1: the judge that I did rule that the workers were
28:59
Speaker 1: factually innocent, means their records will be cleared DCF this morning.
29:03
Speaker 1: DCFS this morning released a statement saying it has taken
29:07
Speaker 1: steps to mitigate risk and to improve its ability to
29:10
Speaker 1: serve vulnerable children and family. That was KABC seven news
29:15
Speaker 1: reporter Rob Hayes reporting, and he heard the Defacts people
29:20
Speaker 1: groveling talking about what a great decision it was. That's
29:24
Speaker 1: not true. It was a horrible decision. They actually falsified,
29:29
Speaker 1: faked records to cover up their gross, gross mistreatment of
29:35
Speaker 1: this little boy. Back to you, Joseph Scott Morgan, death
29:38
Speaker 1: investigator and professor forensic explained to me exactly what this
29:43
Speaker 1: child endured because they left him in the home in
29:47
Speaker 1: the hands of his mother, whose bills abub and the
29:53
Speaker 1: lover the devil. Yeah, this is on linear, Tom Nancy.
29:59
Speaker 1: It it goes there is a timeline that you can
30:02
Speaker 1: follow with this and at any point in time, particularly
30:06
Speaker 1: early on, if this had been interdicted like it should be, Okay,
30:12
Speaker 1: Gabriel would not have advanced to the point that he did. Instead,
30:17
Speaker 1: as a result of this, he went through let's just
30:21
Speaker 1: take let's just take malnourishment for just for a second,
30:26
Speaker 1: and we look at this. If they had just taken
30:29
Speaker 1: the time to examine him appropriately, examine the household, because
30:34
Speaker 1: that's what these people are supposed to be doing when
30:37
Speaker 1: they go out there. I worked on many child abuse
30:40
Speaker 1: cases over the course of my career with a medical examiner.
30:43
Speaker 1: So when these people go out what they do is
30:46
Speaker 1: they literally are supposed to be looking in the cabinets,
30:48
Speaker 1: looking at the refrigerator. They're supposed to be looking in
30:52
Speaker 1: the areas where the child actually in dwells, you know,
30:56
Speaker 1: their bedroom, this sort of thing, and just see if
30:59
Speaker 1: it's clean, if food is there, that sort of thing.
31:02
Speaker 1: If they had just done that, they would have seen
31:04
Speaker 1: early on that the child was not receiving proper nourishment.
31:08
Speaker 1: Because they also have to talk to everybody else in
31:10
Speaker 1: the family. It's that very simple. Now, if they had
31:15
Speaker 1: an addition to that, examine him, they would have been
31:17
Speaker 1: looking for things like bruises, for instance, because yeah, little
31:21
Speaker 1: boys fall down, it happens all the time. They don't
31:24
Speaker 1: fall down for really do they get their teeth pulled
31:27
Speaker 1: out with flying Oh they don't. And you also don't
31:30
Speaker 1: have all of these bruises all over the body and
31:34
Speaker 1: the cigarette burns bullets left in his body where he
31:38
Speaker 1: shot eight separate times with the bb gun waterboarding. I mean,
31:43
Speaker 1: you know, I don't even know if I can hear
31:45
Speaker 1: it anymore. Now joining me, special guest out of la
31:49
Speaker 1: where Now it's like, oh, Alice, Doctor Bethany Marshall, Bethany,
31:53
Speaker 1: I wanted you to hear all the facts before you
31:57
Speaker 1: weighed in on this devil duo, the mother and her
32:01
Speaker 1: lover Nancy. It almost defies analysis, but I will give
32:08
Speaker 1: it my best shot. And let me say, didn't this
32:11
Speaker 1: happen with jac Dugard? That was that the famous abduction
32:16
Speaker 1: where the social workers came to the house, knocked on
32:19
Speaker 1: the front door, took a quick look around her. Pardon
32:22
Speaker 1: em parole was partnam parole. The Jac Dugard kidnapper and
32:27
Speaker 1: rapist had her hidden in a shed in the backyard.
32:31
Speaker 1: She was taking as a little girl on her way
32:33
Speaker 1: to school. And she gave birth to I think two
32:37
Speaker 1: or three children by her rapist. And they corrections would
32:43
Speaker 1: come out and he was already a felon would come
32:46
Speaker 1: out and view where he was living. They somehow missed
32:49
Speaker 1: the shed in the backyard or she was kept like
32:51
Speaker 1: twenty years giving birth being raped out in that shed
32:55
Speaker 1: over and over and over in just giving birth in
32:57
Speaker 1: the backyard. That's right, Nancy, Yeah, they miss that, They
33:01
Speaker 1: miss that, They missed a big one, like but these
33:04
Speaker 1: social workers overlooked. I think that it's fascinating that when
33:09
Speaker 1: nine one one was called and the EMPs came to
33:12
Speaker 1: the house, that this stepfather kept saying he's gay of
33:16
Speaker 1: the little boy. And I know this is going to
33:18
Speaker 1: sound weird and like a stretch, but I wondered if
33:22
Speaker 1: the father, the stepfather had some perverse sexual interest in
33:26
Speaker 1: this little boy, and instead of acting it out, sexually
33:31
Speaker 1: acted it out through sadism in way used a little
33:34
Speaker 1: boy like a football, just throwing him around the house
33:37
Speaker 1: like an it, stomping on him, shooting into him, pulling
33:40
Speaker 1: nails out, pulling teeth out, and got the mother to
33:45
Speaker 1: act with him. They both obviously had hatred towards a
33:49
Speaker 1: little boy. Obviously, the sadistic rituals of abusing this child.
33:57
Speaker 1: I use the word rituals because I think it took
34:00
Speaker 1: on that magnitude in this household, that the whole households activities,
34:07
Speaker 1: their interests, what drove their behaviors were all directed towards
34:15
Speaker 1: little Gabriel, as if he was their only reason for living.
34:19
Speaker 1: In a thick, twisted kind of way, they lived to
34:23
Speaker 1: torture him. It's very common with child abuse cases that
34:28
Speaker 1: the parents began to feel that the child is unconditionally
34:31
Speaker 1: bad and greedy. That's kind of a core belief about
34:35
Speaker 1: the child. The child wants too much, the child needs
34:39
Speaker 1: too much. I've heard you padlocks being put on refrigerators.
34:43
Speaker 1: I've even heard this in my practice, because the parents
34:46
Speaker 1: believe that the child is going to get up in
34:48
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and quote unquote steal food,
34:52
Speaker 1: as if the act of ingesting food and being nourished
34:56
Speaker 1: and taken care of like the child is stealing from
34:59
Speaker 1: the parents. The parents commonly believe that any need that
35:04
Speaker 1: the child has is bad. It is almost like they're
35:08
Speaker 1: envious and resentful of the child for being youthful, having
35:12
Speaker 1: their life ahead, having needs, and they feel that the
35:15
Speaker 1: child is extracting from them in some way. I think
35:20
Speaker 1: this analysis only just scratches the surface of what happened
35:24
Speaker 1: to this child. But the word it comes to mind
35:29
Speaker 1: in their minds. This was not Gabriel. This was an it.
35:33
Speaker 1: This was a football. You know. I've been looking, doctor
35:36
Speaker 1: Bethany at something the teacher. Gabriel's teacher did. She repeatedly
35:43
Speaker 1: calls social workers in the months leading up to Gabriel's
35:46
Speaker 1: death that she was concerned he was being beaten at home.
35:51
Speaker 1: She filed multiple compliance with social workers that Gabriel came
35:55
Speaker 1: to school covered in bruises and scratches, had a busted lip,
36:00
Speaker 1: reported an instance where he told the teacher his mother
36:03
Speaker 1: shot him in the face with a bb gun. Gabriel's
36:08
Speaker 1: therapist called nine one one after discovering a suicide note
36:11
Speaker 1: written by him, but social workers later dismissed that complaint.
36:17
Speaker 1: Now Gabriel is dead very quickly. Actually, Wilcot, why can't
36:24
Speaker 1: they be prosecuted for falsifying records? I think they can
36:29
Speaker 1: be under the definition so that piece, I don't know.
36:32
Speaker 1: I absolutely think they can be, and I do believe
36:35
Speaker 1: they should be. That has happened in another state, and
36:39
Speaker 1: I think that's necessary when they have broken that law,
36:42
Speaker 1: which they did in this case. We also learned he
36:45
Speaker 1: was punished that night because he failed to pick up toys,
36:49
Speaker 1: but he had been being punished for eight months until
36:52
Speaker 1: he died. A judge forced by an appellate court to
36:56
Speaker 1: drop charges against defacts and I guess the beat goes on.
37:03
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crime Story, signing off goodbye friend,