Jury recommends death penalty for man who murdered his eight year old son for being gay
Gabriel faced horrific torture and abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to love and cherish him
A man who brutally killed his eight year old son because he thought he was gay is facing the death sentence.
Isauro Aguirre was convicted in November of torturing and killing 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez over an eight month period, and this week jurors recommended that he be sentenced to death.
“We were plucked out of our everyday lives and brought together to serve,” the jury forewoman said. “We came together to bring justice for Gabriel.”
During the trial, the court had heard that Aguirre and his partner Fernandez beat and bit Gabriel, burned him with cigarettes, shot him with a B.B. gun, whipped him, starved him, fed him cat litter, and kept him gagged and bound before he was discovered on May 22, 2013.
They also fed the eight-year-old both cat feces and his own vomit during that time.
After he was murdered, the couple had called the emergency services that treated Gabriel, but only in an attempt to cover up their crimes, the prosecutor said.
“They didn’t call 911 to help Gabriel. They called 911 to cover up what they did,” he said. “The defendant lied on the 911 call.”
Gabriel was hospitalised and died two days later. Meanwhile, four social workers who were assigned to Gabriel’s case also face charges in connection with the death.
Text messages displayed to the court between the mother and her boyfriend showed that the couple tried to conceal the abuse while Gabriel was still alive.
Aguirre will be officially sentenced on March 8, 2018.