Child Is Buried; Questions Remain

As friends and family gathered Friday to bury 2-year-old Joselyn Hernandez, the doctor who brought her into the world lamented the short life and painful death of a toddler who authorities say died because she was beaten.

Joselyn’s miniature white casket was lowered into the earth at Santa Clara Cemetery. Clutching pink and yellow carnations and choking back tears, Rogelio Hernandez and Gabriela Nieto, both 18, sat somberly by the grave of their daughter.

Three dozen friends and relatives mourned nearby, many dripping pinches of ash onto the 3-foot casket as they passed it in single file.

Mourner Berta Gonzalez, who said she has known the Hernandez and Nieto families for years, denied that the girl suffered deliberate abuse at the hands of anyone.

“I saw the baby days before she died and she was very nice, very healthy,” said Gonzalez, standing near the freshly dug grave. “The baby was fine.”

On the other end of the state, Dr. Robert Moore was also mourning.

He was the physician at Ventura County Medical Center who delivered Joselyn. And he was also the one who, when the baby was rushed to the hospital six weeks later allegedly suffering from physical abuse, helped heal her broken body.

When Moore, who now works at a community clinic in Napa, last saw the little girl, she was about 8 months old, happy and healthy in the care of her grandmother.

Since then, sources say, the grandmother had died and the child had been returned to her teenage parents. Sources say Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch made the decision to return the girl to her parents, and later told fellow judges that all parties involved recommended it. Other sources contend, however, that social workers from the department of children’s services opposed that move.

“She was a beautiful baby, and in spite of the abuse, she seemed to be doing well,” Moore said. “That’s terrible. It makes you kind of angry with the system.”

Whether the system ultimately failed Joselyn Hernandez remains to be seen.

The details of her death are shrouded in mystery as county officials continue an internal review and police continue their investigation into what they consider a homicide. Police have not identified any suspects in the case. Joselyn died June 22 from what the coroner’s office said were blows to the abdomen.

The details of Joselyn Hernandez’s life have been kept under wraps, shielded by the confidentiality protection that envelops children taken into foster care--even after their death.

But the picture that has emerged in recent days is of a child who died, at the hands of someone, battered and broken.

In July 1994, when Joselyn was just 6 weeks old, she was rushed first to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and then to Ventura County Medical Center with cracked ribs and broken legs, sources say.

The child also had bruised lungs, mild anemia and week-old burns to her hands and feet, sources say. She was in the hospital for six days and was released into foster care, sources say.

She remained in protective custody for several weeks before being released to her grandmother, where she seemed to flourish.

Moore helped heal Joselyn’s broken body, and then saw her for months afterward as she came in for vaccinations and other routine checkups.

“She was doing pretty well,” the doctor recalls. “Her bones had healed, her scars had pretty much healed. She seemed to be pretty happy in her grandmother’s care.”

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But when Joselyn’s grandmother died, sources say, the parents went to court and won custody of the child. A family friend says that happened about three months ago.

“It’s just amazing to me that a judge could look back on all the records and do something like that,” Moore said. “I remember her quite well. Obviously something like this sticks in your mind.”

As in all cases of suspected child abuse, another child of Rogelio Hernandez and Gabriela Nieto--a 9-month-old son--was removed from their custody after the death. Sources say there was no evidence the boy had suffered any physical abuse. He is now in foster care.

Joselyn’s case points up an underlying debate between those who believe the safety of the children should be uppermost in the minds of authorities versus those who contend that the sanctity of the family means minimal government interference.

Using the deaths of children like Jocelyn, an increasing number of lawmakers are pushing to make it easier for authorities to remove children from homes of abusive parents and, in some instances, to free them more quickly for adoption.

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But still, family reunification remains the priority in such cases.

“It’s one of the major tenets of the law. It’s the worst nightmare in dependency, especially when babies have abuse, because they can’t tell you what happened,” said Superior Court Judge Ken W. Riley, who would not comment on this case, but is familiar with such issues from his tenure in dependency court. He now hears civil matters in the Simi Valley courthouse.

In recent years, however, the county’s Public Social Services Agency has come under fire for its handling of child abuse cases, specifically over questions of whether children should be taken out of the home.

Last year, the agency was criticized for its investigation of allegations of abuse involving an Ojai Valley woman arrested for starving her baby to death. Pamela Rother was sentenced to 10 years in prison. An internal investigation concluded there was no wrongdoing on the part of the agency or its caseworkers.

And in 1991, the agency was blasted for returning a newborn infant to his mother after she allegedly tried to flush him down the toilet of a house in Oxnard.

County officials eventually took the child away from Francisca Maria Jimenez Sanchez after the baby’s face was burned by a hot bottle months later. A year later, Sanchez was convicted of killing a second child by dropping him into a portable toilet in an onion field in Saticoy, leaving him to suffocate.

James E. Isom, head of the county’s Public Social Services Agency, said he could not comment directly on Joselyn’s case. But generally speaking, he said caseworkers in his agency are under tremendous pressure, making critical decisions every day about whether children should remain with their parents or be placed in protective custody.

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“We try as hard as we can to make the right decisions,” he said. “A ‘no comment’ doesn’t buy it, especially when you have a dead child. But unfortunately, that’s kind of what I’m stuck with.”

Meanwhile, family members Friday declined to talk about the toddler’s death, waving off reporters gathered at Santa Clara Cemetery. But family friend Berta Gonzalez suggested that Joselyn died not from physical abuse but from eating tainted candy imported from Mexico.

“I’m assuming she ate something,” Gonzalez said. “There was a hole in her intestine that was just burned through.”

But county medical examiners disagreed. On Friday, they stood by their conclusion that Joselyn had died from a beating.

“I signed the death certificate as the cause of death being from blunt force abdominal injuries,” said Dr. Janice Frank, the county’s assistant medical examiner. “I don’t have anything to add to that.”

A thick white cross made of carnations was leaning between two bright floral arrangements. Unable to comprehend the ceremony unfolding before them, several toddlers poked out playfully from behind the legs of adults.

After the 25-minute service, conducted in Spanish by a Catholic minister, the mourners moved across the path to witness the burial.

Minutes later, two cemetery workers lowered the coffin into a deep hole, and a bulldozer dropped a thick cement casing around the casket.

Mourners seated in a half-circle cried silently as the dozer lowered hundreds of pounds of freshly dug earth into the pit. Some turned away, others stared grimly at the grave site.

Little Joselyn was laid to rest in the shadow of a pine sapling, as plainclothes Oxnard police investigators looked on.

Alvarez is a Times staff writer; McDonald is a Times correspondent. Correspondent Barbara Murphy also contributed to this story.

’ She was a beautiful baby, and in spite of the abuse, she seemed to be doing well.’

Dr. Robert Moore