Father Used to Flip Crying Baby, Court Told

With the help of a plastic doll, an investigator demonstrated in court Tuesday how Rogelio Hernandez would allegedly perch his young daughter on one hand and then flip her upside-down while holding her by the ankles.

Jess Velasquez, an investigator for the district attorney’s office, testified in the murder trial of Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez, who are accused of fatally beating 2-year-old Joselin Amor last year.

Prosecutors blame Rogelio for beating the girl and Gabriela for not stopping the abuse.

Defense attorneys plan to argue the couple were not malicious killers, but young, poor and ignorant.

As the trial entered its third week, Velasquez told the jury about his interview with Jorge Perez, who had lived with the couple a short time.

Velasquez said he was told by Perez that Rogelio Hernandez would often toss or swing his crying daughter for play. Perez, according to Velasquez, said he once heard Rogelio Hernandez yelling “Shut up!” when Joselin, still an infant, cried in the night.

“Then he [Perez] heard a sound of hitting,” Velasquez said, “followed by the baby crying louder.”

Joselin was taken from her parents by county social workers in July 1994 after alleged abuse that left the 6-week-old with broken bones and burns.

Prosecutors say Gabriela Hernandez’s parents, Amor and Miguel Nieto, were given custody of Joselin while the teenage couple went through months of counseling and parenting classes. According to previous testimony, social workers with the county’s Public Social Services Agency set up a plan to reunite the family.

Over time, according to testimony, the couple were allowed brief visits with their daughter. Prosecutors say early last year the couple received Joselin for a 60-day home stay, but that in March Amor Nieto was killed in a car accident.

The couple took their daughter to Mexico for Nieto’s funeral and when they returned she had a severe burn on her right hand, prosecutors say. On Tuesday several witnesses testified about that burn, including Ilma Interiano, a traditional Mexican healer who gave the couple a black ointment to treat the burn.

Interiano, who operates a store called El Indio Botanica in Oxnard, testified that the couple brought their daughter to her for treatment but she had told them to take the girl to a doctor. Rogelio Hernandez, however, said the couple had no money, Interiano said.

When Interiano applied the ointment to Joselin’s hand, she said the child did not cry out in pain. Still, tears rolled down her face, she said.

Earlier, prosecutors had described Joselin as a child who had trained herself not to cry aloud.

Along with Interiano’s testimony, the court heard from Oxnard pediatrician Dr. Ba Nguyen, who examined Joselin twice in the months before her death. Apart from the burn on her hand and a cold, Nguyen said Joselin showed no signs of abuse or injuries when he examined her in January and April.

Prosecutors alleged Joselin’s health had deteriorated badly after she was returned to her parents.

According to the county coroner, she died June 22, 1996, due to severe blows to the abdomen. Nguyen said Joselin had none of the burns, bruises or scars she had at her death when he saw her months before.

But defense attorneys Bill Maxwell and Doug Daily questioned Nguyen’s testimony, saying that during both visits Joselin was suffering from stomach problems and had been vomiting. Nguyen insisted her stomach appeared normal.

The case is scheduled to resume today.