The story about the (now) 13 year old boy charged with murdering his two year old brother has been bothering me since I read it.
Huffington Post: A decade before he was charged with murder, a 2-year-old Cristian Fernandez was found naked and dirty, wandering a South Florida street. The grandmother taking care of him had holed up with cocaine in a messy motel room, while his 14-year-old mother was nowhere to be found.
His life had been punctuated with violence since he was conceived, an act that resulted in a sexual assault conviction against his father. Fernandez' life got worse from there: He was sexually assaulted by a cousin and beaten by his stepfather, who committed suicide before police investigating the beating arrived.
Now 13, Fernandez is accused of two heinous crimes himself: first-degree murder in the 2011 beating death of his 2-year-old half-brother and the sexual abuse of his 5-year-old half-brother.
Fernandez was born in Miami in 1999 to Biannela Susana, who was 12. The 25-year-old father received 10 years' probation for sexually assaulting her.
Two years later, both mother and son went to foster care after authorities in South Florida found the toddler, filthy and naked, walking in the street at 4 a.m. near the motel where his grandmother did drugs.
In 2007, when Fernandez was 8, the Department of Children and Families investigated a report that he was sexually molested by an older cousin. Officials said other troubling incidents were reported, including claims that he killed a kitten, simulated sex with classmates and masturbated at school.
In October 2010, Fernandez and his mother were living in Hialeah, a Miami suburb, with his mother's new husband. Fernandez suffered an eye injury so bad that school officials sent him to the hospital where he was examined for retinal damage. Fernandez told officers that his stepfather had punched him. When officers went to the family's apartment, they found the stepfather dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It’s beyond horrific and disturbing that so young a young child can have experienced such trauma in his short life, but what I find equally disturbing are the comments accompanying the article...
Over and over people say “May God bless this poor child”.
Tell me this: Where was God when this was happening? If He wasn’t willing (or is it able?) to help the child while the abuse was happening, what makes you think He’s going to help him now?
Oh wait, I forgot, the devil probably made him do it.
Bah bloody humbug.
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