Parent Aide Testifies About Child’s Burn

A parent aide assigned to teach Gabriela and Rogelio Hernandez parenting skills testified Wednesday that the Oxnard couple canceled their scheduled weekly appointments in the weeks leading up to their child’s slaying last year.

Linda James told jurors at the couple’s murder trial that in the few meetings she did have with the family, she noticed injuries on 2-year-old Joselin Hernandez that concerned her enough to call a county social worker. One injury--a serious burn on the child’s hand--was quickly explained away by the little girl’s father, she testified.

“Rogelio told me that she had gotten into the bathroom and had turned on the hot water in the place they were staying in Mexico and had burned her hand,� she testified.

Joselin was too young to be able to explain the injury herself, James said.

Rogelio Hernandez, 20, and his wife, Gabriela, 19, are charged with murder and multiple counts of felony child abuse for allegedly beating their daughter to death last year.

James was assigned by a group that contracts with the county social services agency to work with parents. The Hernandezes had lost custody of their child amid abuse allegations two years earlier.

James told the jury that she was scheduled to have weekly meetings with the Hernandez family for three to six months. But in the weeks before Joselin’s death on June 22, 1996, Gabriela and Rogelio Hernandez either canceled or failed to show up for six scheduled meetings, the parent aide testified. Three of those cancellations occurred in the month before Joselin’s death, she said.

James is among the last prosecution witnesses to testify. Prosecutors also called to the stand Wednesday the coroner who examined Joselin’s injuries after her death. That witness is expected to resume the stand today.