Warning: Distressing Content
The journalist who broke the tragic story of Gabriel Fernandez has spoken out about the impact it had on his mental health, saying he had to deal with the ‘secondary trauma’ of reporting on the case.
Gabriel had been tortured repeatedly at the hands of his mum, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, throughout his young life, but this abuse was said to have worsened in the time before he was killed.
On the night of May 22, 2013, paramedics found Gabriel naked with a cracked skull, shattered ribs and BB pellets embedded in his lung and groin. He had been severely beaten and died just two days later, at the age of eight.
Garrett Therolf, the journalist who broke the story in the Los Angeles Times and a producer on new Netflix documentary The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez, has said the process left him with ‘battle wounds’.
The journalist had to go to therapy after learning everything that happened to the young boy, but stressed that what he went through ‘doesn’t come within 100 miles’ of what Gabriel experienced.
He has since spoken out about the ‘secondary trauma’ he experienced while researching the case, telling The Wrap:
When I was in conversations with my friends and family, I think I was probably distracted a lot of time because the story was on my mind.
But the emotional distress that I was under doesn’t come within 100 miles of Gabriel’s experience, and I think that, you know, what happened to him and the reasons for that really required me and everybody else to put our feelings and needs aside because the story was so important.
Regardless, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t affected by what he learned, with the journalist adding: ‘I had a therapist for a lot of the time, so there was an opportunity to kind of step back and deal with my mental health in that way.’
Therolf continued:
I remember after watching the final cut all the way through, you know, weeping very deeply. It’s a lot to process, what happened to Gabriel and the reasons for that.
You can’t get through like a reporting experience like this without some, you know, kind of battle wounds and scars and so I think I was mindful of that, too.
To really deal with kind of like the secondary trauma of that reporting requires — at least for me — finding a good therapist.
Therolf’s reporting uncovered details such as the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services being contacted by Gabriel’s teacher and family members in the months leading up to his death.
As such, they had conducted multiple visits to his home but these never resulted in his removal. When he continued digging, the journalist found out they had never even asked to see the child, instead believing his mother when she said everything was fine.
But things weren’t fine, with Fernandez and Aguirre continuing to torture the young boy – forcing him to eat his own vomit and cat faeces, making him sleep in a locked cabinet without access to the bathroom, and subjecting him to regular beatings – and Gabriel eventually succumbing to his injuries.
Fernandez and Aguirre were each convicted of Gabriel’s murder in the first degree; due to the extreme and prolonged nature of the injuries that Gabriel had sustained, the special circumstance of torture was also added.
Aguirre was found guilty and sentenced to death, while Fernandez took a plea deal to avoid facing the death penalty and will instead serve life in prison, without the possibility of parole.
Rest in peace, Gabriel.
The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is available to stream on Netflix now.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 8am–10pm Monday to Friday, 9am–6pm weekends. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111.
A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).