Two of the officers who interrogated Ms. Lucio were present at Mariahs autopsy, leading to a biased autopsy process, and an incomplete investigation into Mariahs health history and causes of her injuries and death. She claims bruises found on Mariahs body were consistent with rings her mother would wear. He is now serving a 13-year federal prison sentence for bribery and extortion. And that's as much as people want to know," he said. The brief states that Lucio's subdued behavior and acquiescence during interrogation were the result of prior trauma as a survivor of abuse. [4] As of 2022, Lucio is being held on death row[14] at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas. The State of Texas has scheduled Ms. Lucios execution for April 27, for a crime that never occurred. "People generally confess falsely to get out of the interrogation room," Guarnera said. "I was not gonna admit to causing her death because I wasn't responsible," Lucio said. She also spoke in one of her sisters TikToks and claimed that blame was placed on her in an attempt to free Lucio. Lucio was convicted in the 2007 death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, and sentenced to be executed. By way of history, Mr. Alvarez found his daughter pale and not breathing in the family home and attempted to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation until EMS arrived. "Please allow us to reconcile with Mariah's death and remember her without fresh pain, anguish and grief. Updated on March 25, 2022, 2:30 p.m. Ms. Lucio received a death penalty sentence and is appealing. Officers contaminated the confession by repeatedly showing Ms. Lucio photographs of relevant evidence and suggesting certain words and facts, which she ultimately parroted back to the officers. Studies have shown that even trained forensic dentists cant agree whether or not an injury is a bite mark. Our website services, content and products are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. On April 15, Ms. Lucios attorneys filed a habeas petition with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals seeking a stay of her execution and arguing that she deserves a new trial because she is innocent and the State relied on false evidence,and hid favorable evidence, to convict her. In this undated photograph, Melissa Lucio holds one of her sons, John. They implied that if she did not confess, she wouldn't be allowed to attend Mariahs funeral. Former Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos, who was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison in 2014 for extortion in a case unrelated to Lucio's, described this statement as a confession during the trial. Family photo via AP Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. So right there and then, I knew she did something," he said. Was her child's death really a murder? This was an extremely common type of injury among toddlers that can result from a fall from standing height. The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to review a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that upheld her conviction, paving the way for her execution. The death penalty is wrong. In a previous investigation into Lucio for alleged child neglect, Child Protective Services found that his youngest kids were frequently left in the care of their older, teenage siblings. TODR - 10 years. Bite mark analysis has been. In a video, a female officer asks the boy: "Did you see your sister fall down the stairs or did somebody tell you that she fell?" She had numerous bruises, bite marks on her back, pulled-out hair patches, and a broken arm. The omission of this crucial evidence was particularly damaging because the prosecution had a weak case for capital murder, and an even weaker case for a death sentence. While she was incarcerated, she gave birth to twins, making four total. Performance & security by Cloudflare. Lucio has said that her daughter who had a condition that caused her foot to be turned in fell down a flight of outdoor stairs as the family was preparing to move to a new apartment. The Cameron County District Attorneys Office reports that Mariah was discovered at the residence with physical evidence of abuse. Click to reveal Melissa Lucio was born in Lubbock Texas on June 18 1969 as stated in court documents. "I think that's really significant that, you know, the individuals who heard the evidence against Melissa feel that the new evidence is so powerful that they may have voted differently in the case, and it just underscores the need for a court to consider the new evidence of Melissa's innocence," Potkin said. Shanda Crain, who was convicted of killing her parents in 1995 in Washington Parish, Louisiana, said in an academic paper that she found similarities between her case and Lucio's. Yara Shahidi children: Does Yara Shahidi have children? Unable to be resuscitated, her daughter was later pronounced dead at the hospital. [14], Forensic pathologist Dr. Thomas Young, the former chief medical examiner in Kansas City, Missouri, reviewed the case at the request of Lucio's post-conviction attorney. At the time, Lucio said, the toddler didn't appear to be hurt, ABC News reported, citing court records. No physical evidence showed otherwise. I'm responsible. She would be the first Latina to ever be executed in the state. I am now convinced that the jury got it wrong and I know that there is too much doubt to execute Lucio. If we had heard passionately from the defense defending her in some way, we might have reached a different decision," juror Johnny Galvan wrote in an affidavit. [9] She was then told by Escalon: "Right now, it looks like you're a cold-blooded killer. Her young daughter Mariah died and had many injuries like bruises on her head kidneys lungs spinal cord and . She wasn't a perfect mother, but she made sure we were taken care of," he said. It's like Cameron County prosecutor Alfredo Padilla said "the decision was based on evidence and evidence alone". Melissa Lucio holds her daughter Mariah. [21] Lucio subsequently petitioned for clemency. She has maintained her innocence, and Cornell Law School professor Sandra Babcock has called the prosecution "by far the weakest capital case I've ever seen". If you have experienced sexual abuse and want to speak to someone, call the free and confidential National Sexual Assault hotline (1-800-656-HOPE or 1-800-656-4673). All she had was us," she said. Selina believes her mother is guilty. In a March 2022 letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and to Governor Abbott, eighty-three members of the Texas House of Representatives, including both Democrats and Republicans, signed a letter stating that executing Lucio would be "a miscarriage of justice". Ms. Lucios execution for April 27, for a crime that never occurred. Though Selina believes her mother is guilty, she does not want her to be killed and says she signed the petition to request clemency for Lucio. They found out that Mariahs arm had been broken two to seven weeks before she died. So you respond to threats, you respond to violence, you respond to demands, you respond to the escalating voice by saying, 'Yes, yes, I'll do it,'" said Mindy Mechanic, a forensic psychologist and professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton. The project's petition, asking Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz to rescind the execution, has received over 44,000 signatures. "[10], During the trial, Lucio's recorded statements from her interrogation were described as a confession by Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos, who was seeking re-election at the time. [8] She admitted to having spanked Mariah, but denied ever having abused her, which she repeated more than 100 times. After several hours of interrogation, Lucio stated, "I guess I did it. They also argued that a judge's order to exclude expert testimony on the effects of trauma had "deprived Melissa of the only means she had of explaining that, notwithstanding her demeanor and self-incriminating statements, she was innocent of her daughter's murder. It was later discovered that Mariahs arm had been broken two to seven weeks prior to her passing away. Grants Clemency To Julius Jones Hours Before Scheduled Execution Amid Public Pressure. All Rights Reserved. "You're not making this firm division between a victim and suspect because a lot of times you don't know at the beginning who's a victim and who's a suspect.". She said that her boyfriend was often violent and used drugs and alcohol. Mariah was crying but did not appear to have any serious injuries, Lucio said. Lucio's case was the subject of a 2020 documentary, The State of Texas vs. Melissa. the youngest of her 12 children at the time Ms. Lucio was taken into police custody and immediately blamed for her daughters death. "I guess I did it," Lucio responded when asked if she was responsible for some of Mariah's injuries. Melissa Lucio's daughter Mariah Alvarez's autopsy photos got released earlier, and the results are unconvincing to experts like Dr. Thomas Young. Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP. "She was not evil. Prosecutors said that Mariah's injuries were the result of physical abuse, while Lucio's attorneys say that her death was caused by a fall down the stairs two days prior. Prosecutors say Lucio fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter but Lucio has long denied that, saying Mariah died from injuries sustained during a fall down a flight of stairs. The state argued that Lucio confessed to a pattern of abusing Mariah and to inflicting fatal blows to the . The Innocence Project, a criminal justice reform nonprofit that aims to exonerate wrongly convicted persons using DNA and other evidence, joined Lucio's legal team soon after her execution was scheduled in January. Unprecedented pictures of Melissa Lucio's examination have surfaced because of the absence of life column prisoner inside the narrative "Death by Mama" airs on ABC. Prosecutors, however, painted a different picture. In 2019, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. During the interrogation, officers berated and intimidated Ms. Lucio, who was pregnant and in shock from the loss of her child, for five hours. "And she was ashamed of what she did, and she had a hard time admitting to officers what had occurred. Abbott must undertake a meaningful review of Ms. Lucios innocence claim, the coercive tactics used in her interrogation, and the tragic circumstances of Mariahs accidental death, before an irreversible injustice occurs. Ms. Lucio is a survivor of life-long, repeated sexual assault and domestic violence. Nearly 1 in 3 exonerated women were wrongly convicted of harming children or other loved ones in their care and over 70% were wrongly convicted of crimes that never took place at all events that were accidents, deaths by suicide, or fabricated according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations. Selina recalls her mother excluding Mariah, keeping her separate from her other children on a number of occasions. Paramedics were called to Melissa Lucio's home in Harlingen, Texas, on Feb. 17, 2007, after her 2-year-old daughter Mariah Alvarez was found unresponsive and not breathing. [1] Lucio's execution was set for April 27, 2022, but an appeals court granted her a stay on April 25, 2022. Guadalupe Lucio and Melissa Lucio had their first five children together when they were just 16 years old. Please spare the life of our mother," Lucio's children wrote in a letter to Abbott and the board. He also stated that Lucio's execution would be a terrible tragedy. "When you get to this point, you find there's so many layers that most people aren't aware of and don't care about, frankly. Lucio, 40, of Harlingen was found guilty of capital murder for the death of her 21/2-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez. Calls are growing for Texas to stop the approaching execution of Melissa Lucio, who says she was wrongfully convicted of killing her toddler Mariah in 2007. However, the case of Melissa Lucio, who murdered her daughter after years of abuse, has sparked more debate than ever before. "When I walked in, she was not making eye contact with the investigator. Lucio's supporters have said her clemency request is similar in that her family would be retraumatized if she's executed. Experts said these conditions are all risk factors that make a person more likely to falsely confess. While she was in prison she gave birth to twins which made a total of four children. [3] Lucio says she was sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend for about two years, beginning when she was seven years old. Unfortunately for her, this is also around the time that she claims to have been sexually abused by her mothers boyfriend for two years starting at age seven. In 2008 a Cameron County jury found Lucio guilty on one count of capital murder for causing the death of her daughter, Mariah Alvarez. She said she believes she falsely confessed in part because of a learned fear of violence. jsTikTok.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? She had many bruises bite marks on her back patches of hair pulled out and a broken arm. . Lucio is set to be executed on April 27 for the 2007 death of her 2-year-old daughter Mariah. ", The investigator went on to say that he knew Lucio wanted to confess "because she's giving that slouched appearance.". Press "Enter" or click on the arrow to show results. I believe that she should be in prison. 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