Marshall County Woman Faces 20 Years, Deportation
Pleads guilty to child abuse after death of infant son

WHNT News 19 Sand Mountain Bureau Reporter
Robert Richardson
5:44 p.m. CDT, October 11, 2011

ARAB, Ala.—

An illegal immigrant in Marshall County will be deported after she serves 20 years in prison for the death of her one-year-old son.

Perla Edith Hernandez was accused of capital murder, but entered a guilty plea to aggravated child abuse.

Her son Uriel died from head injuries January 1, 2008.

Investigators said Hernandez brought Uriel to Marshall Medical Center North in Arab, and claimed he fell off a bed and hit his head.

District Attorney Steve Marshall said that was not the case.

"Twice in my career have I been into a crime or seen a body that has been murdered and it's affected me in a way that this case did," Marshall said.

Marshall said he cried when he looked at photographs of the infant, who had bite marks all over his body, including his face.

The child had burns and bruises as well.

Hernandez's boyfriend, Ambrocio Ramirez-Vite, pled guilty in December to capital murder and aggravated child abuse.

After he received a life prison for murder and an additional 10 years for the abuse, Ramirez-Vite claimed all responsibility.

"Based on that statement, our issue in the case was whether or not we could prove that the mother--although she did nothing--intended for the child to die," Marshall said.

"We had nothing that we could use to substantiate that."

The prosecution had two witnesses in the case, but like Hernandez and Ramirez-Vite, they were illegal immigrants, and left the state before her trial began.

Marshall said investigators had substantial evidence she did nothing to protect Uriel, and she received the maximum sentence.

"The fact that we are paying for her imprisonment for 20 years I think is a good thing," Marshall said.

"We don't want her around children, and simply to send her back to Mexico without holding her accountable here circumvents the very principle that this case is about."

She will be deported at the end of her sentence, and faces ten years in a federal prison if she is caught attempting to return to the United States.

Her two other children, who were 2 and 4 at the time of Uriel's death, are in the custody of relatives in another state.

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