‘One of the most heinous crimes ever’: Mom seeks resentencing after conviction for son’s 2013 torture death
02/10/2026 1:24 pm PST
PALMDALE, Calif. (TCN) -- A mother who was convicted of first-degree murder in her son’s 2013 death and sentenced to life in prison is seeking resentencing for the second time since having the request denied in 2021.
KABC reports that Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 42, was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing her son, 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez. Her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 45, was sentenced to death in 2018, and his automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court is pending.
The abuse of Gabriel Fernandez began when he was 7 years old and he died three months after turning 8, KABC reports. He was routinely beaten, shot with a BB gun, forced to eat cat feces, and made to sleep inside a small cabinet while gagged and bound.
Prosecutors say Aguirre tortured the child because he thought he was gay. A press release from 2018 announcing Fernandez’s guilty plea states the child also suffered injuries including a fractured skull, 12 broken ribs, and burns.
In 2021, Fernandez filed a petition for resentencing, but it was denied by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli, who said Fernandez was a major participant in the murder of a child victim. “It has been established by her own admission during her guilty plea that the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture over a period of several months,” KABC reports.
According to Law & Crime, Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami said at the 2021 resentencing hearing, “Clearly Pearl was involved in that child abuse, starving Gabriel, keeping him in the box for eight months, not taking him for medical aid, pepper-spraying him in the face, hitting him with a baseball bat.”
KABC reports the latest petition alleges that “[Fernandez] has comprehension issues and documented verbal comprehension of a second-grade student” and was under the mistaken impression that her case would be going to appeal when she signed the plea agreement.
Hatami said he will fight to make sure resentencing does not happen and said Fernandez “committed one of the most heinous crimes ever in Los Angeles County against an innocent little child,” KABC reports.
A hearing has been set for March 30 on Fernandez’s latest petition, KABC reports.
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