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Gabriel Fernandez called mom 'loving, beautiful' in Mother's Day card he made days before his murder

Gabriel promised he would be good and clean all dishes if his tormentor mother loved him a little
UPDATED MAR 19, 2020
(Netflix)
(Netflix)

With the release of Netflix's documentary 'The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez', the tragic life of the abused Gabriel has come out in the open and as more details about the torture and death of the eight-year-old continue to surface, people are plain shocked. While some of these details are horrifying, some are really heartwrenching.

For instance, we now know how desperate the boy was for love. Gabriel even made his mother a card to wish her on Mother's Day, which was just asking for some attention and tenderness. Gabriel was beaten and tortured to death by his mother Pearl Fernandez and her boyfriend Isauro Aguirre in 2013. 

'Open the door to see who loves you!'

The six-part documentary reveals that Gabriel had made his mother a card that explained why he loved her. The front of the card shows a picture of a house that Gabriel had colored and reads, "Open the door to see who loves you!" The card then opens to a picture of Gabriel. Inside the card, he had written why he thinks his mother his special and said, "she is a loving mom, and I love her because she is beautiful." 

"My mom has a pretty smile. I like to make her smile," he had written inside the card. He had also written down that he loved it when his mother 'helps me'. The card had also included some Mother's Day special coupons. He wrote that the coupon was good to be used for "a time for me and you". 

Gabriel's gift coupons had also read things like "I will clean the dishes". The final coupon read, "I will be good". 

Gabriel's teacher — Jennifer Garcia

Gabriel's teacher Jennifer Garcia revealed that as Mother's Day approached, the class was asked to make cards for their mothers. When Garcia approached Gabriel and asked him to join, he was eager and excited. "Gabriel didn't seem angry with his mom, even at the very end when he looked like the worst I had ever seen him. We were working on a Mother's Day project and I just asked him, 'Do you want to make the project?' And he was like, 'Yeah, yeah'," Garcia shared. 

She also shared that Gabriel had posed with 'M-O-M' letters in what would be the final pictures taken of him before his death. "I didn't know what it was actually at the time, I'd never seen injuries that looked like that before. But he still took the picture, he still stood there holding the letters and he even, like the last letter I told him, 'Make a silly face', and he still made that silly face even despite what he looked like, knowing he was making that for his mom," she revealed. 

"I feel like he wanted to do that because deep down he really just wanted her to love him. He was trying to make her happy. And that was the last thing sitting on his desk, was his Mother's Day project, when I found out he was dead," she continued.

Extent of abuse and torture 

Gabriel was given up by Pearl when he was born in 2005, but she got custody of him in 2012, and had him move in with her and her boyfriend. According to Gabriel's school teacher, the kid would often show up with bruises, scratches, a busted lip, and a swollen face, more often than not. The child was subjected to being starved, beaten black and blue, forced to eat rotten spinach, cat feces, and even his own vomit.

The child was also shot at with a BB gun and hit with a belt. His teeth had been knocked out with a baseball bat, Gabriel's older sibling Ezequiel Fernandez testified later.

Pearl had called 911 in 2013 to report that Gabriel had stopped breathing after he slipped and hit his head. The paramedics found that he had broken ribs, a cracked skull, pellets from a BB gun lodged in his skin. Gabriel was rushed to the hospital and declared brain dead. He passed away two days later.

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