Toddler Suffered Internal Injuries Days Before Death, Official Testifies

Oxnard toddler Joselin Hernandez was killed by a forceful blow to the stomach that ruptured her small intestine and left the child suffering serious internal injuries for days before she died, a coroner’s official testified Tuesday.

Joselin probably suffered the abdominal injury two to three days before collapsing in shock at a friend’s house in June, Assistant Medical Examiner Janice Frank testified at a hearing to determine whether the child’s parents should be put on trial for murder.

She also told Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren that Joselin had burns, scars, bruises and bite marks that led her to believe the toddler had been abused.

“In my opinion, she was a battered child,” Frank said. “She had numerous injuries to various parts of her body.”

Joselin’s parents, Gabriela and Rogelio Hernandez, both 18, have pleaded not guilty to murder and felony child abuse charges.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the young parents sat motionless as Frank described the injuries she found during Joselin’s autopsy.

When she first examined the child at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard the night she died, Frank said, Joselin’s belly was swollen but showed no outward signs of being struck.

But the autopsy revealed that a “moderate to severe” blow to the child’s stomach had split apart the intestine, leaving areas of dead tissue and causing fluid to seep into Joselin’s chest cavity.

“I think this was probably a process that went on for two to three days that resulted in the child’s death,” Frank testified.

The internal wounds eventually caused the child to go into shock and die moments later, Frank said.

In addition to the internal injuries, Joselin’s body was covered with bruises, including a strange set of oval-shaped marks around the little girl’s knees. After consulting with a forensic dentist, Frank concluded that the bruises were bite marks.

“I was unable to imagine an accidental injury that could have caused those bruises,” she said.

On cross-examination, Frank acknowledged that some of the child’s bruises could be attributed to a normal 2-year-old child bumping into objects, such as one scar that defense attorneys say Joselin received after touching her grandmother’s iron.

But Frank disagreed with defense attorney Bill Maxwell’s suggestion that a series of marks on the child’s back could have been caused by paramedics who treated the girl on the lawn of a friend’s house after she collapsed June 22.

Frank also dismissed a suggestion by Maxwell that the child had ingested something that could have caused the internal injuries, explaining that the intestine was separated in a specific area that indicated a hit with a blunt object.

After Frank concluded her second day of testimony, one of Gabriela Hernandez’s younger brothers was called to the witness stand.

Speaking in a barely audible voice, the 13-year-old admitted under persistent questioning that he occasionally heard Rogelio Hernandez yell, “Shut up” at Joselin when she cried.

The boy also said he saw his brother-in-law hit the baby in the face with a spoon while trying to feed her during a trip to Mexico earlier this year. He further testified that his sister yelled at Rogelio Hernandez once after the baby fell into a friend’s pool and he stood by and watched.

Testimony in the preliminary examination is expected to continue Thursday.