Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, made an appearance in Lancaster Superior Court, where her arraignment was postponed. Tuesday, May 28, 2013. (Photo by Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

About Pearl Sinthia Fernandez
Age40 Years
BirthAugust 29, 1983
GenderFemale
ChildrenGabriel Fernandez, Virginia, Ezequiel C
ParentsRobert Fernandez, Sandra Fernandez
NationalityAmerican
CDCR NumberWG0600
BoyfriendsArnold Contreras, Isauro Aguirre
ChargesFirst Degree Murder
Current FacilityChowchilla State Women's Prison
VictimGabriel Fernandez
Sentence Begin Date06/21/2018

When The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez premiered on Netflix on February 26, viewers weren’t prepared for this roller-coaster. While they are heartbroken for eight-year-old Gabriel who was tortured to death in 2013, his murderers have become two of the most hated people on the Internet. Pearl Fernandez, Gabriel’s mother, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, abused and tortured Gabriel, who was failed by the child welfare system. The docuseries has revived a fresh wave of hatred for Pearl, with many wanting to know where she is and if justice has been served. Our Pearl Fernandez wiki details the Gabriel Fernandez case.

Pearl Fernandez Was Allegedly Neglected as a Child

Pearl Sinthia Fernandez was born on August 29, 1983 to Sandra and Robert Fernandez. She was living in California with the two eldest of her three children.

A clinical psychologist who interviewed Pearl after her arrest described her as someone with very limited intellectual capacity. She had studied up to the eighth grade and was a meth user at only nine years old. Records show that her intellect was at the second-grade level.

Her father wasn’t a big part of her life, as he was in and out of jail for most of her childhood. Pearl alleged her mother didn’t like her and often neglected her.

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Pearl ran away from home when she was 11. She also claimed that she was sexually assaulted in her teens.

Her turbulent childhood and youth led to her being diagnosed with depressive disorder, developmental disability, possible personality disorder, and possible post traumatic stress disorder.

As an adult, she claimed she was in multiple abusive relationships. While with Isauro Aguirre, she said, she was using opioids.

However, her relatives claimed that Pearl was the one who was violent and controlling towards her boyfriends, including Aguirre as well as her children’s father.

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Pearl Fernandez Had Left Gabriel with Her Parents and Uncle

Pearl was mother to a boy named Ezequiel C. and a daughter who has only been identified in the media as Virginia. Her youngest child, Gabriel Fernandez, was born on February 21, 2005.

It appears that Pearl and her three children’s father, Arnold Contreras, weren’t together while Contreras was himself incarcerated for robbery and possession. Shortly after Gabriel was born, she passed him off to her uncle and parents.

Michael Lemos Carranza was Pearl’s uncle. He was in a relationship with David Martinez, who appears in The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez. Pearl gave a three-day-old Gabriel to Carranza to raise.

“She didn’t want him and the family didn’t want her to have him,” Martinez said in the Netflix show. “We convinced her to have Gabriel and for her to give it to us so we will raise it.”

Carranza and Martinez raised Gabriel for four years before Sandra and Robert got custody of him. The four of them did everything they could to give Gabriel a loving household and each treated him as their own son for the first seven years of the boy’s life.

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Fernandez and Isauro Aguirre Abused Gabriel

Fernandez was dating a man named Isauro Aguirre who, according to some reports, convinced her to regain custody of Gabriel. The duo allegedly hoped to take advantage of welfare payments.

Pearl would express concern about the way her parents and relatives were treating Gabriel and get custody of Gabriel. Sandra and Robert had claimed that Pearl was neglectful of her other kids.

In one incident, she and Ezequiel were involved in a car accident where Ezequiel suffered injuries because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Another relative also filed a complaint that Pearl was abusing Ezequiel, but social workers claimed that complaint was unfounded.

In 2007, a relative also reported that Pearl neglected to feed her daughter. Pearl spent a few weeks in jail for using a weapon in a reckless manner.

Gabriel would come to live with his mother and older siblings in Palmdale. Fernandez and Aguirre were Gabriel’s guardians for less than a year. In that time, his grandparents, relatives, and even teachers raised concerns that he was being abused.

His teacher, Jennifer Garcia, who also appears in the Netflix series, found out that Gabriel was being hit by a belt buckle. Garcia had reported it to the authorities, who didn’t take any significant action to investigate.

Robert, Sandra, and Carranza also filed complaints, as did other relatives. But social workers seemingly neglected their duties.

Meanwhile, Gabriel would show up at school with horrifying injuries from being punched and shot with a BB gun, scabs on his scalp, and missing hair. Ezequiel and his sister would testify in court that their mother and her boyfriend would make Gabriel eat cat litter and his vomit and lock him in a cabinet.

His siblings would further say that Pearl and Aguirre would abuse him for exhibiting feminine traits and call him “gay.”

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Fernandez Was Convicted for Gabriel’s Death

On May 22, 2013, Pearl called 911 to report that Gabriel was not breathing. She had first claimed that Gabriel had fallen and hit his head on the dresser.

Paramedics responding on the scene found Gabriel with broken ribs, a cracked skull, BB gun pellets embedded in his lungs and groin, bruised and burned skin, and a couple of missing teeth. It was evident to them that the boy had been brutally abused.

One of the paramedics who was interviewed in the Netflix documentary described it as the worst case of her career.

The first responders took Gabriel to the hospital, where he was declared brain-dead. Gabriel died on May 24, 2013, after only eight months in his mother’s custody.

Aguirre was the one who inflicted the final blows that proved fatal for the boy, while Fernandez did nothing to stop him. In February 2018, Fernandez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, admitting that she was involved in the fatal torture of her son.

By pleading guilty, she avoided trial, where prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty for her. Aguirre, however, was sentenced to death for Gabriel’s murder.

The defense argued that the punishment was extreme, given her low IQ and her abusive past. But prosecutors and many others countered that she was smart enough to fool social workers.

Her surviving children, parents, relatives, her children’s father Contreras, and Gabriel’s teachers testified against Pearl and Aguirre. The social workers who failed to save Gabriel were also indicted.

With her plea deal, Pearl was sentenced to life without parole. She now spends her days at Chowchilla State Women’s Prison, a Central California women’s facility.

Aguirre sits on Death Row at San Quentin after being convicted of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of intentional murder by torture.

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