Back in 2013, Pearl Fernandez, a 34-year-old woman living in Palmdale, California, and her 37-year-old boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, were arrested and charged with “capital murder” for brutally torturing and later killing her 8-year-old son, Gabriel Fernandez. He was found unconscious by paramedics after they received an emergency call about a small child suffering from cardiac arrest. Now, after several years, their separate murder trials are finally starting, beginning with Aguirre, which commenced earlier this week.

In court, Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami began his case against Aguirre, who he claims engaged in the “systematic torture of a helpless and innocent child.” He did this by showing the jury several graphic images of the boy’s badly beaten body contrasted with an image of him at 7-years-old, “happy and healthy,” months before moving from his grandparents’ home to go and live with his mother and Aguirre.

“This case is about one thing, and that is the systematic torture of a helpless and innocent child,” explained Hatami while showing the jury a photo of Gabriel’s battered body lying in a hospital bed. “After eight months of living with the defendant…his body was battered. The evidence will show he was beaten, burned, bruised,” he added.

“Gabriel’s last vision was that man over there standing over Gabriel, beating him to death,” continued Hatami, noting, “the evidence will show that the defendant is nothing more than a bully. He was a security guard who intentionally tortured and abused a helpless and innocent little boy.”

According to reports, suspicions that Gabriel was being abused started within the first few weeks of moving in with them. Specifically, two weeks after leaving his grandparents house, he approached his first-grade teacher and asked, “is it normal to be hit with the metal part of a belt and to bleed?” Although this was clearly a red flag, nothing was done to stop the abuse.

A month later, suspicions that Gabriel was being abused grew when showed up to school with his hair shaved into a mohawk, but with “chunks of his hair missing…bloody scabs…a busted lip.” Apparently, much of the mistreatment stemmed from the fact that Aguirre believed Gabriel was gay, which was something he didn’t approve of.

Despite these obvious signs of abuse, the tormenting, which included being beaten, bitten, burned with cigarettes, shot with a BB gun, starved, and routinely bound and gagged, continued up until his death. That happened as a result of a vicious beating from Aguirre, who was reportedly outraged over the fact that Gabriel had allegedly told his mom to break up with him and promised to behave better if they went away together without him.

During the beating, Gabriel was knocked unconscious and stopped breathing. When this happened, Hatami told the jury that they then “attempted to clean the blood off the walls and the floors…[and] they agreed on a story to tell the authorities…All of this while Gabriel was lying on the floor dying.” They then called 911 and lied to the dispatcher about what had actually happened.

One of the first responders to the scene was Paramedic James Cermak, who later appeared in court to testify against Aguirre. “[He had] strangulation marks around his neck…bite marks, bruises head to toe, little holes like if he was shot with a BB gun. The more you looked, the more you saw. It was unbelievable,” recalled Cermak during the trial.

Surprisingly, Aguirre’s attorney, John Allan, does not dispute the fact that Aguirre is guilty of murder. Instead, he’s only arguing that his client did not intentionally kill him. “He is guilty of murder, but the special circumstance alleged, that he intended to kill Gabriel with the infliction of torture, is not true. Despite the horrific abuse, Isauro never intended for Gabriel to die,” argued Allan on Aguirre’s behalf.

The abuse of children, sexual or otherwise, must not be tolerated. Given the details of Gabriel’s horrific abuse, if Aguirre is ultimately convicted of “capital murder,” it’s likely that he’ll receive the death penalty.