Witnesses Testify About Injuries Dead Girl Suffered

After watching Oxnard toddler Joselin Hernandez wince in pain from a series of untreated injuries, family friend Rosa Flores said she asked the child’s parents if she could care for the little girl.

Her offer was refused.

Flores was one of two witnesses to testify at a hearing Thursday to determine whether Joselin’s 18-year-old parents, Gabriela and Rogelio Hernandez, should stand trial for murder.

Joselin died June 22 at a friend’s birthday party, two or three days after being struck in the stomach with a blunt object, according to a coroner’s report.

The parents have pleaded not guilty to murder and felony child abuse charges.

Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Flores testified Thursday to seeing burns, cuts, scratches and bruises on Joselin in the months before the 2-year-old’s death.

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The toddler lived with her parents behind her grandfather’s Oxnard produce store, where Flores worked and saw Joselin almost daily, she said.

On one occasion, she said Joselin’s arm appeared to hurt so badly it caused her to wince in pain for three days.

“You could see it in her face,” Flores testified. “She was very sad.”

When she asked Gabriela Hernandez what happened to the child, “she told me that she fell.”

About two months before she died, Joselin started vomiting frequently and began losing weight, Flores said. Again, she said she approached the mother about the child’s condition.

“She told me she was going to buy her some vitamins,” Flores said, adding that she suggested to Gabriela Hernandez more than once to take the child to a doctor.

At one point, Flores said she asked the mother if she could care for the child, but Gabriela Hernandez refused.

After Flores concluded her testimony, a child advocate took the witness stand and testified about similar injuries she observed and reported to a county social worker.

Parent aide Linda James was assigned by Child Abuse and Neglect, a nonprofit advocacy group working with social services officials, to advise Gabriela and Rogelio Hernandez on parenting skills after they lost custody of their child.

Joselin was put in the care of her grandmother in 1994, after she was hospitalized with broken legs, cracked ribs and burns to her hands and feet.

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James stepped in as a parent aide early this year, when the parents resumed contact with their daughter. James said Gabriela Hernandez told her that she and her husband wanted to become better parents and avoid a mistake that resulted in Joselin being taken away from them.

“She said they were young, that they had made a mistake and would do better in the future,” James said.

But in the months that followed, James said the parents canceled or missed nearly half of their 18 scheduled meetings with her.

In addition, James said she noticed that Joselin had been injured and twice reported the burns and cuts to a county social worker.

In April, she reported the toddler’s burned hand. When she inquired about how the child was burned, James said Rogelio Hernandez told her Joselin burned herself by turning on a hot water tap.

A month later, James said she reported a cut on Joselin’s forehead that Gabriela Hernandez attributed to the child falling off a milk crate in her grandfather’s store.

Testimony resumes today in the hearing. The proceeding is scheduled to continue next week.