Prosecutors charged the mother and stepfather of an 8-year-old San Jose girl whose May death from an asthma attack in their vermin-ridden home was called a homicide with felony child neglect Tuesday. The case has renewed scrutiny of Santa Clara County’s child welfare system over its response to reported concerns about the child’s safety.
Gabrielle Hanson, 32, and Jacob Randolph, 39, both residents of the East San Jose home where Aurora Williams was found unresponsive May 13, were arrested Monday on charges related to Aurora’s death.
Aurora had been in medical distress for eight hours before her parents sought medical attention, according to new information revealed in a San Jose Police Department probable cause affidavit. She was taken off life support May 17.
Over prosecutor’s objections, Hanson and Randolph were granted supervised release from jail at their arraignment in court Tuesday. They did not enter pleas.
Gabrielle Hanson wipes her eye as she talks with Chief Alternate Defender Brian Matthews as she is arraigned at the Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. She has been criminally charged in the alleged neglect death of 8-year-old Aurora Williams. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Jacob Randolph enters the courtroom before he was arraigned at the Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. He has been criminally charged in the alleged neglect death of 8-year-old Aurora Williams. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Gabrielle Hanson, right, leaves the courtroom behind her husband Jacob Randolph after they were arraigned at the Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. They have been criminally charged in the alleged neglect death of 8-year-old Aurora Williams. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
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Gabrielle Hanson wipes her eye as she talks with Chief Alternate Defender Brian Matthews as she is arraigned at the Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. She has been criminally charged in the alleged neglect death of 8-year-old Aurora Williams. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Additionally, Hanson’s brother, Jonathan Hanson, was arrested Monday and charged with sexual assault of another child at the home in a separate case that lists Gabrielle Hanson as a co-defendant. Court records show that the reported victim for that allegation is Gabrielle Hanson’s stepdaughter, when she was between the ages of 11 and 14. Jonathan Hanson is being held without bail in the Elmwood men’s jail.
Jonathan Hanson, 44, of San Jose, was arrested Oct. 12, 2026 on suspicion of sexual assault of a minor. (Photo courtesy of San Jose Police Dept.)
Superior Court Judge Kelley Paul granted Gabrielle Hanson supervised release, including conditions that she not care for any children or contact her surviving children.
Paul also granted Randolph supervised release, citing similar grounds and issuing similar conditions as Gabrielle Hanson. The couple was ordered to return to court Nov. 20.
The judge revoked the initial $250,000 bail for Jonathan Hanson, after prosecutor Matthew Savage relayed a police investigation alleging that between 2021 and 2023, Hanson sexually touched the victim in her sleep and recorded her with a video camera naked.
Last month, the county Office of the Medical Examiner classified Aurora’s death as a homicide and said she died of a severe asthma attack that deprived her brain of oxygen, while fighting cold and flu-like symptoms. Dr. Michelle Jorden, the chief medical examiner, also found a “failure to provide the necessary medical care to (Aurora) on the day she became unresponsive.”
In an Oct. 1 interview with this news organization, Gabrielle Hanson said her daughter’s death stemmed from a medical emergency, not medical neglect. She defended the care she and her husband provided that morning, saying Aurora’s affliction seemed less severe than past attacks.
In an interview Tuesday from the doorway of the family home they shared, Hanson’s father, Clay Hanson, said they did the best they could to save his granddaughter that morning.
Gabrielle Hanson, 32, left, and Jacob Randolph, 39, right, both of San Jose, were arrested on suspicion of child endangerment and other crimes related to the May 2026 death of Hanson’s 8-year-old daughter. (San Jose Police Dept.)
“My daughter’s never been arrested,” Clay Hanson said. “She’s always been a good girl. She’s been a good mom. They’re adding insult to injury. She’s trying to grieve, and she can’t even do that.”
In charging documents, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office alleged abuse dating back to 2022, and that Aurora’s mother and stepfather “willfully” caused Aurora to suffer and placed her in dangerous conditions. The couple are charged with two child endangerment felonies involving Aurora’s death and 6 child endangerment misdemeanors involving their six other children who lived in the home, including stepchildren of the couple, according to the police investigation. The surviving children, who range in age from infant to teenager, are now in foster care.
Since Aurora’s asthma diagnosis in 2022, her mother had been reportedly warned by medical providers that the home’s unsanitary conditions, including cockroaches, could aggravate her condition, detectives wrote.
“Despite prior warnings from social workers, repeated medical contacts, and their documented knowledge of the residence’s condition, Ms. Hanson and Mr. Randolph continued to allow the children to live in the home without taking adequate steps to address the cockroach infestation and other unsafe and unsanitary living conditions,” the affidavit said.
Aurora Williams, 8, in a photo taken during a school field trip last year. Her death in May after an asthma attack in her cockroach-infested East San Jose home has spurred more demands for an overhaul of Santa Clara County’s child welfare agency. (Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Hanson)
The family home on Lancelot Lane, shared by the couple, their seven children and several other adult relatives, had been the scene of 12 child welfare referrals since 2022, the police report said, with reports of unsanitary conditions at the home dating back to at least 2019. In at least eight of the referrals since 2023, social workers determined the concerns of abuse or neglect were unfounded or inconclusive.
“Although there are concerns regarding the cleanliness of the household and the general appearance of the children,” a 2023 social worker’s report obtained by this news organization said, “the family appears to be struggling financially and is doing the best they can.”
In a brief interview last month with this news organization, Aurora’s stepfather said he administered two medications that morning, but neither seemed to be working.
When Randolph rushed into the bedroom holding the limp child, Hanson said she called 911 and was so panicked that she struggled to follow a dispatcher’s CPR instructions. She recalled administering rescue breaths while Randolph performed chest compressions, to no avail.
Aurora’s grandfather said Tuesday that his daughter and son-in-law tried administering albuterol, a “puffer” inhaler and her nebulizer but “nothing was working.”
“Her lips were blue and she passed out,” he said.
They didn’t take her to the hospital earlier that morning, as he had on at least one other occasion, because “we had no clue that things were as bad as they were because it’s always been we give her her nebulizer and she gets better. This time it wasn’t so,” he said.
Aurora’s death was the latest in a string of at least six deaths of children who had interactions with the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services over the past several years. Social workers had regularly inspected the home filled with cockroaches and animal feces and responded to complaints from teachers and medical providers that Aurora and her siblings appeared malnourished, according to social worker narratives released to the Bay Area News Group after a Public Records Act request.
The police report written by San Jose Police Det. Amanda Estantino reveals new details of Aurora’s life and death, including that during a search of the home after she was taken to the hospital, police could not locate Aurora’s inhaler for her asthma, and instead found a respiratory mask used with her nebulizer equipment “containing cockroaches and debris.”
On two earlier occasions, the police report said, two other children living in the house “had cockroaches stuck in their ears” and one of the children “required medical assistance to remove the cockroach lodged” in the child’s ear.
In 2023, after a visit to Kaiser Santa Clara, doctors determined that Aurora’s was underweight and “meeting the criteria for failure to thrive,” the report said. Social workers and school officials “observed the children to often smell of cat urine or marijuana and would suffer peer isolation as a result.”
The 70-year-old grandfather, a process operator who runs machinery for a living, said he had tented the house about six years ago to get rid of the cockroaches, but couldn’t afford to do so again.
About 15 months before she died, records show that Aurora visited a hospital for asthma issues and that someone observed a cockroach crawling out from under the girl’s back, and Aurora dismissing it as a normal occurrence.
After the hearing, District Attorney Jeff Rosen told reporters that Aurora’s death, one of at least six tragedies of children involved with the county’s child welfare agency, signaled “another urgent warning” to the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services.
“Why is this happening when we have a system that is supposed to save children from abuse, from drugs, and from neglect?” Rosen asked. “Of course, this is a complex problem, but public servants are supposed to solve complex and difficult problems. These children’s deaths have been met with reports and remorse and promises of reforms, and yet here we are again.”
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, center, speaks to the media about Gabrielle Hanson and Jacob Randolph arraignment outside of the Hall of Justice in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. They have been criminally charged in the alleged neglect death of 8-year-old Aurora Williams. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Rosen suggested creating a team of high-ranking specialists from different agencies, including police and behavioral health specialists, “who would jointly address the safety of our county’s most vulnerable, like Aurora.”
County Executive James Williams said Tuesday that “we welcome the District Attorney’s partnership in our ongoing efforts across the County organization and our entire community to protect children and support the needs of families.”
Aurora Williams in a photo taken when she was 4. (Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Hanson)
In her interview, Hanson said she “did everything I could” while grappling with poverty and mothering a 2-month-old. She refused to place blame on any person or entity.
Aurora’s grandfather broke down in tears Tuesday morning, leaning his head against the door.
“She was the light of this household. Everybody loved her. We put her on a pedestal,” he said. “Every day I cry she’s gone. It’s not right. Life’s not fair.”