LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California woman who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the torture and killing of her 8-year-old son is asking a judge for a re-sentencing hearing.
Pearl Sinthia Fernandez is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the 2013 murder of Gabriel Fernandez.
She argues in her petition for re-sentencing that she could not now be convicted of first-degree or second-degree murder because of changes made to the state penal code in 2019, NBC 4 and FOX 11 reported Thursday.
A hearing on the matter is set for June 1 before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli, who sentenced Fernandez in 2018.
A jury found Fernandez’ boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, guilty of murder and found that he intentionally tortured the boy. Aguirre was sentenced to death in 2018.
Fernandez called 911 on May 22, 2013, to report that her son wasn’t breathing. She told responding deputies that he had fallen and hit his head on a dresser at their home in Palmdale.
He died two days later of blunt-force trauma and neglect, the coroner’s office found.
Gabriel’s siblings testified at trial that Fernandez and Aguirre would call the boy gay, punish him if he played with dolls and forced him to wear girls’ clothes to school.
