“We do not desire our mom performed,” Melissa Lucio’s earliest boy, John, informed CNN. “We currently shed our sis. And also currently to shed our mom for a crash is simply awful.”
At test, district attorneys said Lucio was a violent mom that likely triggered the injuries that caused her little girl Mariah’s fatality. However Lucio’s clemency request claims those were the outcome of an unexpected drop the staircases outside the household’s second-story house as well as authorities, pestered by a critical misconception concerning the autumn, presumed Mariah’s injuries came from misuse as well as marked down or overlooked proof that might have verified Lucio’s virtue.
Lucio, currently 53, was founded guilty in huge component, her lawyers suggest, on the basis of a persuaded “admission” she offered authorities in an “hostile” late evening investigation the very same evening her little girl passed away. Lucio was especially prone to browbeating by authorities as a result of her background as a long-lasting survivor of sexual assault as well as residential physical violence, they state, mentioning clinical professionals that evaluated her instance.
For Lucio’s making it through youngsters like John, the possibility of shedding their mom is difficult to approve. He’s the initial to confess his mom had “flaws,” indicating her deal with medication dependency.
“However she’s a fantastic mom,” he informed CNN, that “never ever laid a hand on any one of us.”
Staying in ‘survival setting’
“It’s been a trip.”
That’s exactly how John, 32, explains the decade-and-a-half because his mom was condemned as well as punished to fatality. However the last a number of months have actually been one of the most stressful, he stated, after the court established her implementation day.
“It was ravaging information,” he stated. “It simply damaged our household totally.”
It’s a huge household. Lucio had 12 youngsters at the time of Mariah’s fatality and after that brought to life doubles while behind bars. However Lucio’s youngsters are “unified in asking that their mom not be performed,” Tivon Schardl, a government public protector as well as among Lucio’s lawyers, informed press reporters last month, “that the discomfort that they have actually been enduring all these years, that those injuries be enabled to recover as well as not be torn open by the state of Texas.”
“They have actually lived currently for 14 years with this risk hanging over them, after currently shedding Mariah to a heartbreaking crash,” he stated. “Since injury has actually gotten back.”
Lucio’s approaching implementation would certainly adhere to a lengthy collection of terrible occasions for her household, according to her boy, her clemency request as well as court records.
Maturing was hard, John stated, defining a poverty-stricken childhood years in which he saw his mom do her finest yet battle to offer. There were times the household’s electrical energy or water was shut down for nonpayment or it needed to count on neighborhood companies for food.
Youngster Safety Providers documents from that time “narrate of Melissa’s love for the youngsters, along with her lack of ability to take care of them effectively,” according to Lucio’s clemency request. The residence had not been tidy, there had not been adequate food, as well as the youngsters really did not have adequate guidance, those documents reveal, per the request. They fought with being homeless.
However amongst greater than 1,000 web pages of documents, per her lawyers, none show the youngsters ever before reported being abused by Lucio.
“Essentially, we remained in survival setting,” John stated. However his mom was familiar with that, he included: Her very own childhood years was hard, as well as currently she “was a really worried female. She was a battered female,” he stated. “She would certainly been with a whole lot.”
Lucio herself was sexually attacked, over used as well as raped by her mom’s companions as well as others throughout her childhood years, according to her request. She remained to endure misuse by her very own companions, starting at 16 when she quit of senior high school as well as wed her initial partner. By 23, she would certainly had 5 youngsters with him, yet he ultimately deserted the household, court records state. Lucio wed a 2nd time to the guy that fathered her more youthful youngsters, Mariah amongst them.
In 2004, the 7 youngest youngsters were put in foster treatment as well as broke up amongst various residences — because of forget, her lawyers stated in a court declaring, not misuse. However Lucio functioned to bring them back, obtaining a task as well as remaining off medications, the request claims. Ultimately, the household was rejoined in the autumn of 2006.
In knowledge, John feels his mom was not provided the assistance she required to effectively take care of her youngsters. She had actually remained off medications, yes, yet her life still had not been completely steady, he stated. She really did not have an auto or a trusted, long-lasting residence.
“However obviously, she’s not mosting likely to state, I can not take them,” John stated of his more youthful brother or sisters being returned residence. “My mom had actually been defending her youngsters for the previous 2 years.”
A young child’s fatality
The household took on yet one more step early the following year. Lucio awakened on February 15, 2007, obtained a few of the youngsters prepared for institution and after that transformed her focus to evacuating their “run-down, second-floor house,” the request claims.
Meanwhile, she did her finest to watch on 2-year-old Mariah, that had difficulty strolling as well as was vulnerable to dropping because of a light handicap, court filings state. However while Lucio was active, Mariah opened up an opened display door, roamed outdoors as well as dropped a “high” trip of greater than a lots staircases that brought about the house.
Lucio quickly understood Mariah was missing out on as well as discovered her little girl outside, sobbing at the end of the staircases. Her lip was hemorrhaging, yet the 2-year-old showed up not to be seriously damaged, the request claims.
However her look was misleading: The lady had actually simply endured inner injuries that Lucio’s clemency request claims would certainly bring about her fatality. Over the following 2 days, as the household relocated, Mariah’s problem weakened — she rested exceedingly as well as ultimately declined to consume. By February 17, Lucio was thinking about taking the 2-year-old to the physician yet picked to wait till the following day as well as placed Mariah down for a snooze.
Quickly, Mariah quit breathing, as well as the household called 911. Paramedics at the scene as well as the medical facility attempted yet fell short to resuscitate her. Her body was covered in swellings “in different phases of recovery,” her arm had actually been damaged a number of weeks previously as well as she ate mark on her back, according to court records stating the instance.
At the scene, Lucio informed paramedics Mariah had actually dropped the staircases days prior, yet among the emergency situation -responders was cynical, the request claims, since the house was a solitary tale with simply a couple of march front. He really did not comprehend, the request claims, that the lady had actually dropped at the household’s previous residence.
“This important misconception instated an examination pestered by one-track mind,” Lucio’s request claims, “where the detectives continuously presumed the most awful concerning Melissa without examining or thinking about choices.”
Factors for question ‘are countless,’ request claims
That evening, hrs after Mariah’s fatality, Lucio — expectant with doubles — was questioned by detectives, that, her lawyers create, “heckled Melissa; scolded her as an uncaring mom; continuously revealed her pictures of her dead kid; as well as indicated if she had not been to blame, among her various other youngsters would certainly need to be.”
Throughout the investigation, Lucio’s legal representatives state she rejected injuring Mariah greater than 100 times. Lucio confessed to occasionally spanking her little girls on the butts, according to an activity submitted by her lawyers after her implementation day was established, yet constantly rejected accusations of misuse.
Ultimately however, her willpower wound down, as well as Lucio started “slightly showing she was ‘liable’ for Mariah’s injuries,” her request claims. However she never ever admitted to being in charge of Mariah’s fatality, her lawyers state.
Lucio informed detectives she would certainly “spank” Mariah, according to court records stating the investigation.
“I do not recognize what you desire me to state,” she informed detectives when requested for even more information, per court records. “I are accountable for it.”
Hrs right into the investigation, a detective generated a doll to have Lucio show exactly how difficult she would certainly spank the kid. After she did so, the private investigator stated, “Well do it actual hard like … like you would certainly do it.”
Lucio reacted by stating she had actually shown precisely just how she would certainly have spanked Mariah, as well as the private investigator “himself executed what he assumed was a difficult spank as well as had Lucio show once again,” the court records state.
Lucio was billed with resources murder, as well as her lawyers state her supposed admission of shame was made use of to convict her in a court test.
Lucio’s protection said while she was guilty of “injury to a youngster” as well as fell short to obtain Mariah prompt clinical therapy, she was blameless of triggering the injuries that brought about her little girl’s fatality. However the clinical inspector that carried out the kid’s postmortem examination affirmed for the state that Mariah’s injuries should have taken place within 24 hr of her fatality.
“This is a battered kid” that passed away of blunt-force injury to the head, the clinical inspector affirmed, according to court records. The emergency room physician that’d tried to resuscitate Mariah similarly said it was the “absolute worst” case of child abuse he had actually seen in his career and that the injuries could not have been caused by a fall down the stairs.
Prosecutors told jurors they could “draw inferences from the evidence,” pointing to Mariah’s other injuries and arguing if Lucio had abused her daughter in the past then it would be “consistent with her behavior” to cause the injuries that prompted her death.
Lucio was found guilty, and she’s been on Texas’ death row ever since.
Her conviction has been upheld on appeal, though a panel of judges for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 she had been denied the opportunity to present a full defense.
The panel pointed to the court’s exclusion at her trial of two expert witnesses, including a psychologist who indicated he planned to testify about her “demeanor” during the interrogation and how it and her purported confession “could have been accounted for” by her abusive relationships with men.
That psychologist and a social worker indicated they would have testified about what Lucio might have been going through immediately after Mariah’s death and during the interrogation, and how that might have influenced her behavior and confession, according to court documents.
But the Fifth Circuit later reversed its decision in February 2021, and Lucio’s conviction and death sentence was reinstated.
The argument for mercy
A similar argument now sits at the heart of the last-ditch effort to save Lucio’s life. Her petition seeks clemency on five grounds, including the claim that the symptoms of her own trauma stemming from lifelong abuse were misinterpreted or dismissed by authorities at every level of the investigation and prosecution.
As a survivor of abuse, Lucio suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression and “battered woman syndrome,” her attorneys say, citing the assessment of the psychologist who reviewed her case. As a result, she turns “inwards” and becomes “passive” in the face of stressful situations — a psychological defense and “survival tactic” that Lucio’s petition says could explain her behavior during the interrogation that secured her alleged coerced confession.
This misunderstanding of her behavior and her background led “directly to her conviction and death sentence,” her petition says.
Lucio’s clemency petition in a similar way claims there are scientific explanations that explain Mariah’s severe bruising, citing their medical experts who say there were signs Mariah suffered from a blood coagulation disorder known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC, which could explain the bruising seen on her body.
Head trauma is a common cause of DIC, the petition says — head trauma that could have been sustained in her fall down the stairs two days before her death.
“The reasons for doubt here are innumerable,” Lucio’s attorneys write in her petition. “The prospect that the State might shed innocent blood for a death Melissa Lucio did not cause, much less intend, should strike righteous fury in the heart of Texans.”
‘Free Melissa Lucio’
The moment his mother was convicted was “unbelievable,” stated John, who remembered thinking, “This can’t be real. This cannot be true.”
That is how he’s felt for the last 15 years, in which he’s gotten in trouble with the law, as well, he said. He’s been out of prison now for a little over a year, and he said he’s done his best to mature and “wise up.” He was aspiring to become a barber and earn his license, while training for marathons and a triathlon in the downtime.
But once his mother’s execution date was set, he felt he needed to set those ambitions aside and throw himself into raising awareness of his mother’s instance. John feels a responsibility to be his mother’s advocate in the same way she was his, attending his own court dates when he was getting in trouble as a teenager.
Lucio’s family is not alone in believing she does not deserve to die: Dozens of Texas state legislators have actually signed a letter urging the Board of Pardons and Parole to grant clemency. Even Kardashian, who has championed other cases with the specter of wrongful conviction, voiced her support for Lucio, saying in a post on Facebook she hopes Lucio’s life is spared.
But perhaps most crucially, at least five of the jurors who convicted Lucio have come forward to call her for execution to be stopped, citing the proof they never heard.
“I was disheartened to learn that there was additional evidence that was not presented at trial,” Melissa Quintanilla, the foreperson on Lucio’s jury, wrote in a declaration. “I believe that Ms. Lucio deserves a new trial as well as for a new jury to hear this evidence. Knowing what I know now, I don’t think she should be executed.”
John also credits his mother with restoring his and his wife’s faith in God — something John said he lost when Mariah died and his mother went to prison. On fatality row, Lucio’s clemency petition says, she’s become a devout Catholic, attending Mass every week as well as reading the Bible daily.
Recently, John has actually visited his mother regularly, he said, driving concerning seven hours from his home in Harlingen, Texas, to see her where she’s held in Gatesville, Texas. Their visits always begin with a half-hour of prayer as well as worship, he said.
“She’s an amazing woman,” he said, reiterating his hope that her execution won’t just be stopped but that maybe one day she can come home.
“My vision is just tunnel vision, as well as all the walls just state, ‘Free Melissa Lucio’ all around it,” he claims. “That’s my mom. I recognize she’s innocent.”
