The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is a new docuseries on Netflix. It documents the trials of eight-year-old Fernandez’s parents after his death in 2013.
The docuseries follows the young boy and his family throughout his life, showing that he had moved around a lot as a child because his mother wasn’t a reliable caregiver, and his father went to prison. When his father went to prison, he had to move in with his mother, Pearl, and her boyfriend, Isauro. This is when the bruises started to appear on his body.
It was concluded through an autopsy that Gabriel had been tortured in his home for months prior to his death, based on the bruises and scratches on his body. The main question of the trial was not whether the Isauro and Pearl were guilty, as this was fairly obvious through the mountain of evidence, but how did the social services and justice systems fail so badly that they were unable to prevent Gabriel’s death?
Netflix has been releasing many true-crime docuseries similar to this one, such as Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez. What was different about this series was it didn’t focus as much on the killer, it looked more at the system’s failure. If you have not already watched this series, I would highly recommend it as it is very eye-opening to the imperfect systems that are in place. It’s shocking that nothing was done to stop the murder of Gabriel.
Gabriel’s teacher witnessed marks and bruises on Gabriel’s body and in one instance, when she asked him how he got his black eye, he responded that his mother shot him with a bb gun. Gabriel’s teacher called children’s services a handful of times explaining that there is a serious issue and Gabriel is not safe, but nothing was done. There were calls made to the police department regarding Gabriel, but after briefly talking to Pearl and Isauro, they left, believing Gabriel was okay.
The social workers who were involved in the case were charged for allowing this murder to happen. The prosecutor said that they might not have committed the murder, but their lack of intervention in the Gabriel case was just as bad as if they had. The social workers were very lazy and didn’t do their jobs correctly. They would sign off that everything was okay with the family when clearly there was an issue. They would not follow up with Gabriel, they would call his parents and ask how Gabriel was rather than talking to Gabriel himself.
This case brings light to a larger issue within law enforcement and systems in place that is meant to help the public. These systems are supposed to help people and make them feel safe, however, this case demonstrated many underlying issues that must be amended.