Gabriela Hernandez

A Ventura County Superior Court judge consolidated into one trial Monday the two criminal cases pending against the Oxnard parents accused of beating their toddler to death last year. Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez, both 19, face charges of murder and felony child abuse for allegedly beating their 2-year-old daughter, Joselin, to death in June 1996 and inflicting other injuries two years earlier.

A Ventura County Superior Court judge has ruled that an Oxnard couple accused of beating their daughter to death should not have separate trials. Although attorneys for Rogelio Hernandez fear his wife Gabriela will attempt to show him as an abusive husband, thereby hampering his defense, Judge James P. Cloninger did not believe it was necessary to split the trial.

An Oxnard mother whose murder conviction was recently overturned by an appellate court in the slaying of her 2-year-old daughter will be retried for murder early next year. During a hearing Tuesday, Gabriela Hernandez, 22, stood beside her two court-appointed lawyers and agreed to a Jan. 22 retrial date. It was the first time she has appeared in Ventura County Superior Court since her sentencing hearing 2 1/2 years ago in the beating death of her daughter, Joselin.

Ending an emotional 10-day hearing, two Oxnard teenagers were ordered Monday to stand trial for murder and felony child abuse for allegedly beating their 2-year-old daughter to death last year. Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren ruled that evidence suggests Rogelio Hernandez, 18, punched or struck his daughter, Joselin, with a blunt object that ripped her intestine and slowly caused her death last June.

Trying to establish a pattern of abuse, prosecutors offered evidence Friday that the mother of a 2-year-old girl beaten to death this year had admitted two years earlier to forcefully squeezing the child and holding her by the neck. Gabriela and Rogelio Hernandez, both 18, of Oxnard, are charged with murder and felony child abuse. Joselin Hernandez died at a friend's birthday party in June of blunt force injuries to her stomach. Her parents have denied any involvement in her slaying.

Ventura County social workers visited the home of Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez five times in the months before their 2-year-old daughter died, each time observing cuts, bruises and burns on the toddler, an investigator testified Friday. Susan Creede interviewed two county social workers as part of the district attorney's investigation into the beating death of Joselin, who died in June after receiving blunt blows to her stomach.

One of the most horrific child-abuse cases in Ventura County's recent history took a sudden twist Friday when the mother changed her plea and admitted killing her 2-year-old daughter. The day her murder retrial was scheduled to begin, Gabriela Hernandez pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter in the beating death of her daughter Joselin five years ago.

One of the most horrific child-abuse cases in Ventura County's recent history took a sudden twist Friday when the mother changed her plea and admitted to killing her 2-year-old daughter. The day her murder retrial was scheduled to begin, Gabriela Hernandez pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter in the beating death of her daughter Joselin five years ago.

A 56-year-old Oxnard man killed last weekend in a car crash on Pacific Coast Highway was identified Tuesday as the same man who testified last month at a preliminary hearing for the Oxnard parents accused of murdering their 2-year-old daughter. Vincent Nobile testified Jan. 2 against Rogelio Hernandez, 19, who along with his 18-year-old wife, Gabriela, is charged with murder and felony child abuse for allegedly beating their child, Joselin, to death last year.

Standing beside an enlarged photo of Joselin Hernandez, a Ventura County prosecutor told a jury Monday that the toddler was systematically tortured and killed by her teenage father as her young mother stood by. In a solemn opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez abused their daughter to the point that the 2-year-old stifled her own cries, ultimately enduring a slow and painful death.