Speaker 1: Melissa Lucia grew up poor in South Texas, a victim
Speaker 1: of years of sexual abuse from multiple offenders in the home.
Speaker 1: At age sixteen, she married her first boyfriend to escape
Speaker 1: tying up her self worth and being a mother, so
Speaker 1: much so that she eventually had fourteen children. The final
Speaker 1: two were twins that Melissa delivered behind bars after having
Speaker 1: been accused of allegedly murdering the next youngest sibling, two
Speaker 1: year old Maria, on February fifteenth, two thousand seven. Maria's
Speaker 1: older siblings witnessed her take a tumble down the stairs.
Speaker 1: Lethargy and a lack of appetite were hoped to be
Speaker 1: symptoms of something less severe than head trauma, but when
Speaker 1: she became unresponsive on February seventeenth, they called the m s.
Speaker 1: Mariah passed away and an aggressive interrogation ensued, resulting in
Speaker 1: an admission to an overarching sense of guilt that most
Speaker 1: any mother would feel. The usual bruising from rough play
Speaker 1: with her siblings was later used to support the state's
Speaker 1: theory of a pattern of abuse. Melissa's eviction would also
Speaker 1: go a long way to shore up a tough on
Speaker 1: crime image for a corrupt district attorney embroiled in a
Speaker 1: bribery scandal during an election year, Defying logic and the
Speaker 1: scientific method, the state's forensic pathologists ruled out Marah's ball
Speaker 1: down the stairs as the cause of the failed head trauma. Further,
Speaker 1: the children who witnessed the accident and denied the pattern
Speaker 1: of abuse were not called to testify. After trial, Melissa's
Speaker 1: defense attorney was immediately hired to the d a's office
Speaker 1: with a bump and pay. The d A got re elected,
Speaker 1: but was later prosecuted by the FBI, and Melissa is
Speaker 1: still on death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Today we're
Speaker 1: talking about the case of Melissa Lucio, an innocent woman
Speaker 1: on death row in Texas. Today. To tell this incredible,
Speaker 1: harrowing and urgent story, we have with us Sabrina van Tassel.
Speaker 1: Sabrina is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist who
Speaker 1: has made forty five films. And I think maybe it
Speaker 1: was all a build up to this one. Not Sabrina,
Speaker 1: Welcome to ronfl Conviction. Thank you so much, and with
Speaker 1: her is a badass Texas attorney named Margaret Schmucker, and
Speaker 1: Margaret has been a fierce advocate for Melissa as her
Speaker 1: habeas attorney. Margaret, Welcome to ronfal Conviction. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me, and thank you both for being here. Um So,
Speaker 1: over the past few years, Sabrina has visited Melissa Lucia
Speaker 1: on death row in Texas, where she's been stuck since
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. And throughout this episode you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear excerpts from those interviews. You can also see in
Speaker 1: here in Sabrina's film The State of Texas Versus Melissa.
Speaker 1: And during those interviews, Melissa really was very candid with
Speaker 1: you about her life, which was just beyond tragic from
Speaker 1: the very beginning. So Melissa was born in Houston. Her
Speaker 1: father left the mom when she was three months old,
Speaker 1: and they moved to Harlan in Texas, and the mother
Speaker 1: kept being, you know, with different boyfriends. They were all abusive.
Speaker 1: I was molested by my mother's boyfriend. I must have
Speaker 1: been about seven years old when the abuse started. I
Speaker 1: grew up not really loved because of this incident. I
Speaker 1: continued to be molested by other family members. I just
Speaker 1: allowed myself to be a victim over and over again.
Speaker 1: She did tell her mother that the boyfriend was actually
Speaker 1: abusing her, and the mother basically did not believe her,
Speaker 1: and then she basically allowed herself to be a victim
Speaker 1: to other men in the family. Uh. And once she
Speaker 1: was about fifteen years old, the first boyfriend that she
Speaker 1: got involved with she married, and she started having a
Speaker 1: family right after. By the age of twenty two, she
Speaker 1: already had five children. Her husband introduced her to drugs,
Speaker 1: and one day her husband just left her, and so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, she's twenty two and she has
Speaker 1: five children, and she meets her other partner, Robert Alvarez,
Speaker 1: and together they're going to have nine other children, right,
Speaker 1: And two of those nine were twins that Melissa delivered
Speaker 1: in jail while she was being held for the alleged
Speaker 1: murder of her youngest child at that time, Mariah. So
Speaker 1: before Mariah died, there were five from the first guy
Speaker 1: and seven from Robert Alvarez, for a total of twelve.
Speaker 1: So some of them were still really little, some of
Speaker 1: them were teenagers. Some of them had even moved out
Speaker 1: by the time February two thousand seven rolled around, which
Speaker 1: is when this incident happened, but before that they were
Speaker 1: all living in desperate, desperate poverty and relying on a
Speaker 1: charity called Loaves and Fishes for most of their meals.
Speaker 1: Melissa and Robert had very unpredictable schedules because they were
Speaker 1: doing all sorts of odd jobs trying to support the
Speaker 1: family and to keep up with all of it, or too,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe forget their troubles. Melissa and Robert
Speaker 1: were using drugs out of the sight of the children,
Speaker 1: but regrettably also while she was pregnant with Maria. When
Speaker 1: Melissa had Maria, the seventh child with Roberta Alvarez, she
Speaker 1: was born with drugs in her system, and so she
Speaker 1: was taken from Melissa and or from Mr Alvarez by
Speaker 1: CPS Chold Detective Services, along with all of the other
Speaker 1: kids that were in the home at that time, and
Speaker 1: they were placed in foster care. They were fairly well
Speaker 1: split up. That continued for so were years, and Melissa
Speaker 1: and Roberta were given supervised visits with Chop Detective Services
Speaker 1: with the kids, and then finally, when Maria's about two
Speaker 1: years old, over Thanksgiving, CPS returned the seven children who
Speaker 1: were still miners at the time back into the home
Speaker 1: of Melissa and Roberta. And so it is from that
Speaker 1: point until the point where Mariah dies, where there's nine
Speaker 1: children in the home in this small second story apartment
Speaker 1: with a rickety, scary stairwell on the exterior, which is
Speaker 1: the access point right. And to make this accident even
Speaker 1: more likely to happen, Mariah had this is important, a
Speaker 1: physical impairment as well. One of her feet was turned
Speaker 1: in slightly, which caused her to be unstable and to
Speaker 1: fall downstairs occasionally, as was documented while she was in
Speaker 1: foster care. But that's not all that was documented in
Speaker 1: those Child Protective Services reports. There was a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of inter sibling violence while in foster care and when
Speaker 1: they were living at home, especially from the older sisters
Speaker 1: disciplining the younger ones who they resented having to care
Speaker 1: for while their parents were at work. And then the
Speaker 1: boys were very rampunctious as well. Yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: boys were fighting, you know, all the time, and you
Speaker 1: know they were big on w W E keeping. My
Speaker 1: CPS comes by once in a while, and so we
Speaker 1: have the CPS reports, and on one of those, the
Speaker 1: very last time they came to visit, which was two
Speaker 1: months prior to Mariah's death. There's concerned that, you know,
Speaker 1: the place is too small, that they're you know, small
Speaker 1: objects on the floor, that those stairs are very dangerous,
Speaker 1: and the parents are not around, and basically it's up
Speaker 1: to the teenage daughters to supervibe them. So among the
Speaker 1: many problems, they've got to move out of this decrepit,
Speaker 1: totally unfit apartment with the rickety stairs, and they found
Speaker 1: a first floor apartment with just two or three steps
Speaker 1: leading up to the door, and that move was going
Speaker 1: to be happening over the course of every fifteenth, sixteenth,
Speaker 1: and seventeen of two thousand seven, and so Melissa and
Speaker 1: Roberto were in the process of trying to get the
Speaker 1: family moved, and so some of the kids were with
Speaker 1: their moms, some of the kids were with their dad.
Speaker 1: They're going back and forth in a pickup truck taking loads. Mariah,
Speaker 1: being at that point about two and a half years old,
Speaker 1: was in the second story apartment with her mom and
Speaker 1: at least one of the teenage daughters while they were
Speaker 1: trying to pack things up. Several of the sort of
Speaker 1: younger age children about eight nine years old were downstairs
Speaker 1: playing in the backyard. At some point, Melissa and the
Speaker 1: older daughter are in one of the bedrooms. They're packing
Speaker 1: up clothes, what have you, and one of the kids
Speaker 1: who's playing in the backyard came upstairs. He went into
Speaker 1: the apartment to get a drink of water, and there
Speaker 1: was a screen door on that exterior door that had
Speaker 1: a latch on it, and when he went back downstairs
Speaker 1: to go play, he left that door unlatched. And Maria,
Speaker 1: who as we've already discussed, was unstable on her feet
Speaker 1: because of her small deformity, went to go follow her
Speaker 1: brother and she started down the stairs and felt one
Speaker 1: of her brothers saw her as she sort of tumbled
Speaker 1: the last three or four steps and hit her head
Speaker 1: on the pavement. Melissa, at this point goes looking for
Speaker 1: her and finds Maria at the bottom of the stairwell,
Speaker 1: and she checks her over and doesn't see any serious injury.
Speaker 1: Doesn't look like she's broken any bones or anything. And
Speaker 1: Mariah's not crying, she's not acting like she's hurt. And
Speaker 1: so she takes Mariah and they go back upstairs and
Speaker 1: they continue to pack and complete the move to the
Speaker 1: new apartment. So by time Saturday rolls around, Mariah has
Speaker 1: already had this closed head injury from this fall down
Speaker 1: the stairs that is not noticeable from her head or scalp,
Speaker 1: and her progression of symptoms during that time period is
Speaker 1: exactly what you would expect for a child at that
Speaker 1: age who has had a serious close head injury and
Speaker 1: who has swelling on the brain. It progresses from lethargy
Speaker 1: to know, not wanting to eat, to ultimately some more
Speaker 1: serious symptoms where she has locked jaw, and then she
Speaker 1: basically loses consciousness, although to her parents she's still just sleeping.
Speaker 1: And at that point they're already in this first floor
Speaker 1: apartment and Roberto Albarez goes out on are and he
Speaker 1: comes back and he goes to check on Mariah and
Speaker 1: she is nonresponsive, and so they do end up calling
Speaker 1: E M S. And E M S shows up at
Speaker 1: this apartment and they see injuries bruises on Mariah that
Speaker 1: they don't have any explanation for, and they hear Melissa say, well,
Speaker 1: she fell down the stairs a few days ago and
Speaker 1: we thought she was okay, but maybe she wasn't. And
Speaker 1: the E M S sort of jumped to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that the stairs Melissa is talking about are the two
Speaker 1: or three steps from the ground floor apartment they are
Speaker 1: now in. And they have no knowledge of this full
Speaker 1: flight of stairs at the prior apartment that they were
Speaker 1: living in just a few days earlier. And so the
Speaker 1: e m s are incredulous to say the least. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, a kid can't get this injured falling down
Speaker 1: two or three stairs. And so they try and resuscitate
Speaker 1: Maria unsuccessfully, which can leave its own kinds of bruises
Speaker 1: on a body. But the ms take her to the hospital.
Speaker 1: She does pass away, and Melissa is arrested and take
Speaker 1: into the police station. So when she was pronounced that Mariah,
Speaker 1: of course I'm talking about in the er, she was
Speaker 1: examined initially by any R physician named Vargas, and he
Speaker 1: noted that she had sustained significant physical abuse. He said
Speaker 1: that she had several bruises that were in very stages
Speaker 1: of healing, and that there were bite marks on her back,
Speaker 1: and that one of her arms had been broken sometime
Speaker 1: two to seven weeks prior, and that she was missing
Speaker 1: portions of her hair. But Vargas said he found no
Speaker 1: outward sign of head injury. So you can see how
Speaker 1: there's like a straight line connecting this to the interrogation.
Speaker 1: The interrogator was taking these findings from this doctor and
Speaker 1: then trying to put those words into Melissa's mouth. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not wrong. This information was all then conveyed to
Speaker 1: the police, and the police went into the interrogation room
Speaker 1: with Melissa with already the preconceived notion that this had
Speaker 1: to have been physical abuse, and it had to have
Speaker 1: been physical abuse by Melissa in their view, because she
Speaker 1: was Mariah's primary caretaker, because she was the mother, and
Speaker 1: that's where her nightmare really sort of begins ends as
Speaker 1: far as her involvement with the criminal justice system in
Speaker 1: this case, because she is interrogated at length, well into
Speaker 1: the night and early wee hours of the morning by
Speaker 1: multiple police officers who are aggressively denying her explanation that
Speaker 1: Mariah had fallen down the stairs and her attempts to
Speaker 1: explain any older injuries that Maria might have as having
Speaker 1: been the result of the rough play with her other
Speaker 1: older kids, which is well documented by CPS and by
Speaker 1: other just sort of slips and balls, because she has
Speaker 1: a tendency to do that, and they just aggressively deny this,
Speaker 1: deny this, deny this, They won't believe her, and finally,
Speaker 1: in the wee hours of the morning, they get her
Speaker 1: to say that she's responsible. And they never get her
Speaker 1: to say really that she murdered Maria or that she
Speaker 1: hit her on the head or anything. They just get
Speaker 1: her basically to admit responsibility in the sort of overarching
Speaker 1: way of a mother responsible for the circumstances that led
Speaker 1: to her child's death, and so she is charged with
Speaker 1: capital murder. At that point, it's actually remarkable that she
Speaker 1: was able to not really confess. I mean, they called
Speaker 1: it a confession, but she didn't really confess. But eventually
Speaker 1: she was questioned by a Texas ranger named Esteban. She
Speaker 1: confessed basically having spanked Mariah several times, quote, day after day,
Speaker 1: and other minor abuses which we now know didn't happen,
Speaker 1: like biting her. So she was confessing to things that
Speaker 1: didn't even make any sense at all because they weren't true.
Speaker 1: She was just basically trying to say, I guess anything
Speaker 1: she could to get out of this awful situation, and
Speaker 1: that terrging her went so far as to ask Meilissa
Speaker 1: to demonstrate the spanking on a doll, and it was
Speaker 1: encouraged by the investigator to spank the doll harder, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is on video, right, show me
Speaker 1: how you would do it, but I mean the way
Speaker 1: you actually did it. We'll just get it over. Oh,
Speaker 1: just hard on her back. We'll do it real hard.
Speaker 1: Lucky Lucky would do it. But the way you would
Speaker 1: do it, that's the way would do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't pound on her or do it do was
Speaker 1: it harder? No? Because I just I don't do it's hard. Cool,
Speaker 1: you're doing it on yourself. This is I mean, I
Speaker 1: was in polling on her exactly. You can do it, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: and this is just what spanking. My name is. Dr
Speaker 1: John pinkerman I was the clinical psychologist appointed to Miss
Speaker 1: Melissa Lucio's defense team. Melissa had a history of certainly abuse,
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, and mistreatment going back into adolescence and can
Speaker 1: tinuing throughout her adulthood in which she acquiesced to multiple
Speaker 1: individuals that abused her. She became pretty compliant with individuals,
Speaker 1: didn't tend to break free from them, and often continued
Speaker 1: the relationships even though they were really self defeating. For
Speaker 1: so we felt this was you know, and I felt
Speaker 1: it was really a problem issue that helped explain some
Speaker 1: of the behavior that she evidenced during the interrogation and
Speaker 1: how she came to provide an acquiescence. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to call it a confession, but an
Speaker 1: acquiescence to the investigators in regard to her conduct. I
Speaker 1: was struck by how she was explaining that she was
Speaker 1: spanking the children, or spanking Melissa, and she was it
Speaker 1: appeared like coach too, to show stronger force in striking
Speaker 1: the table in the interview room. You know, all of
Speaker 1: that contradicted every piece of information that we had that
Speaker 1: she provided physical discipline to the children. You know, we
Speaker 1: never heard that from any of the children, and certainly
Speaker 1: not to the extent of causing the alleged injury and
Speaker 1: subsequent death. It's important to note that he didn't just
Speaker 1: encourage her to spank the dull harder. I mean, he
Speaker 1: encouraged her to confess to things which she had no
Speaker 1: knowledge of or had no part of. He told her
Speaker 1: there was a bite on Mariah's back and got her
Speaker 1: to confess to having bitten Mariah, and at least my
Speaker 1: medical expert so that wasn't even a bite mark. It
Speaker 1: was parallel striation bruises from having fallen down the flight
Speaker 1: of stairs on her shoulder blade. And so Ranger Eskalan
Speaker 1: got Melissa to admit to a type of abuse of
Speaker 1: Mariah that did not exist, that had not happened at all.
Speaker 1: And again that's sort of hallmark of a false confession,
Speaker 1: is getting somebody to confess to something that there's no
Speaker 1: evidence off at the end of it. And this really
Speaker 1: is such a painful thing to think about. And I
Speaker 1: saw it, of course in the film. But you know,
Speaker 1: she ultimately says, I wish it was me that got hurt,
Speaker 1: and then started crying, how are you do when you
Speaker 1: see these pictures? No, she was maybe about hurt. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else you want to add? Very yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you listen. It's three am, and that will end the interview.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison,
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
Speaker 1: criminal justice area. So during the interrogation, Escalon asked Melissa
Speaker 1: if they would find a fractured skulled during the autopsy,
Speaker 1: even though the e er physicians said there was no
Speaker 1: sign of head injury. But Escalan had a theory right.
Speaker 1: So on Monday February two thousand seven, the chief forensic
Speaker 1: pathologist of Cameron and Nidago County is a woman named
Speaker 1: Norma Jeane Farley had conducted an autopsy and ruled that
Speaker 1: due to the presence of blood poolled and the crandial vault,
Speaker 1: that the cause of death was quote blunt force head trauma.
Speaker 1: And then she went on during the trial to say
Speaker 1: that a fall downstairs could not possibly have been the cause.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't sound like science. That sounds like conjecture, right.
Speaker 1: My name is Dr Thomas Young. I am a forensic pathologist.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and ten, I was contacted by
Speaker 1: Margaret Schmucker, who served as an appellate attorney on the
Speaker 1: case of Texas versus Melissa Lucio. She wanted me to
Speaker 1: look at the records and offer opinions that I could
Speaker 1: make to a reasonable degree of medical certainty. Dr Norma
Speaker 1: Jean Farley, who was also forensic pathologist, has made a
Speaker 1: mistake very common in forensic pathologist, the idea that you
Speaker 1: can look at an autopsy, that you can look at
Speaker 1: findings on a body and be able to determine the
Speaker 1: very very complex succession of events that happened in the
Speaker 1: past to lead to that event. This is reasoning backwards.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It is like trying to solve blank
Speaker 1: plus blank equals four. If you think four is the
Speaker 1: consequence of blank plus blank, looking at four doesn't give
Speaker 1: you the answer to what goes in the blanks. They
Speaker 1: are already numerous witnesses as to what happened to see
Speaker 1: the succession of events that occurred that led to the outcome.
Speaker 1: What Dr Farley did was she reasoned backwards, ignoring all
Speaker 1: these witness accounts. She says that she knows for certain
Speaker 1: what happened here to Mariah Alvarez. And this is arrogant
Speaker 1: where you ignored what multiple witnesses say who were there
Speaker 1: to actually see what happened. This is absurd. This is
Speaker 1: just a flat out guess. But Dr Farley approaches it
Speaker 1: as if he is certain about this. How did she
Speaker 1: know that? You cannot get high trauma from a full
Speaker 1: down the stairs. I mean, it makes no sense. You know,
Speaker 1: the science has developed at the time of Moriah's death,
Speaker 1: and sinse that it is possible for a child to
Speaker 1: fall down even a very short flight of stairs and
Speaker 1: have a fatal head injury. All I can say is
Speaker 1: Norma Farley was just wrong on the science on that.
Speaker 1: You know, you put an expert on the witness stand
Speaker 1: and the jury, you know, gives them an awful lot
Speaker 1: of credence if they have appropriate credentials. And of course
Speaker 1: Norma Jeane Farley was the medical examiner for the county,
Speaker 1: and so they give her testimony quite a bit of
Speaker 1: credibility clearly in reaching the verdict that they did. It
Speaker 1: sure sounds like the science is being adjusted to fit
Speaker 1: the narrative when that is exactly the opposite of how
Speaker 1: this all should function. Right now, we get to the trial,
Speaker 1: which the state argued that Melissa had confessed to a
Speaker 1: pattern of abuse and inflicting the fatal blows that killed Mariah.
Speaker 1: Even oh, the video clearly shows that that is not
Speaker 1: the case. So they supported the theory that Melissa was
Speaker 1: abusive with evidence that Mariah had bruises, which you know
Speaker 1: she did that were at various stages of healing. But
Speaker 1: we also have covered why they were there, and that
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with Melissa's after the fact that
Speaker 1: she was not in control of her own life at
Speaker 1: that point. Right, and Norma Jean Farley, again as the
Speaker 1: chief forensic pathologist, testified that Mariah's death was the result
Speaker 1: of blood force head trauma. She continued that it must
Speaker 1: have occurred within twenty four hours of death and that
Speaker 1: it would have been immediately apparent that Mariah was in
Speaker 1: distress and in need of medical attention. Now, Farley testified
Speaker 1: that Mariah suffered multiple contusions to her head area, but
Speaker 1: somehow she was magically able to rule out that the
Speaker 1: strikes to the head were not the result of tumbling
Speaker 1: down the stairs. Now, I don't think she witnessed the
Speaker 1: tumbling down the stairs, So again, how in the world
Speaker 1: would she know that, Well, she wouldn't, but this is
Speaker 1: probably what she thought that the authorities wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: So just just so we're clear, Melissa's defense did put
Speaker 1: on the stand an expert named Dr Curry. Correct, yes,
Speaker 1: they did. But when they qualified Dr Curry as an
Speaker 1: expert since he was a pediatric neurologist. He was not
Speaker 1: a forensic scientist, and so they did not allow him
Speaker 1: to testify it regarding the source of any of her
Speaker 1: other injuries anywhere below the neck. And so because of
Speaker 1: the defense didn't hire a better expert or more appropriate expert,
Speaker 1: they were not able to counter the state's case that
Speaker 1: all of these prior injuries were from being beaten repeatedly
Speaker 1: over a period of weeks or months. But he did
Speaker 1: contradict nor Regine Farley's testimony in the timing of the
Speaker 1: head injury that caused her death. Normagine Farley had said
Speaker 1: that the injury had to have occurred approximately twenty four
Speaker 1: hours prior to her death. Dr Curry, who was a
Speaker 1: pediatric neurologist, testified that it could have occurred earlier than that,
Speaker 1: you know, anywhere from forty eight to seventy two hours
Speaker 1: before she died. And so that becomes important when you
Speaker 1: look at the timeline of events of the family moving
Speaker 1: and everybody being together, you know, either at the old place,
Speaker 1: in the new place, or in transit about whether or
Speaker 1: not Melissa was ever alone with Maria. Melissa was never
Speaker 1: alone with Mariah. Yeah, when you go back through all
Speaker 1: of the evidence that the state had collected, whether they
Speaker 1: used it or not at trial, you find that Melissa
Speaker 1: was never alone with the kids at all, whether you
Speaker 1: look at the timeline suggested by Dr Farley or you
Speaker 1: look at the timeline suggested by Dr Curry. She was
Speaker 1: always with family members. They were always together as a family,
Speaker 1: either you know, a few kids or more everybody during
Speaker 1: that whole seventy two hour period. And not one of
Speaker 1: those kids has ever said that during that time period
Speaker 1: that Melissa ever hurt Mariah, ever touched her in any
Speaker 1: kind of aggressive way. How could you possibly be alone
Speaker 1: in the two room or so apartment with nine kids
Speaker 1: is It's preposterous. So they did not present the evidence
Speaker 1: that she was never alone within that seventy two hours
Speaker 1: prior to Mariah's death, and that the kids were never
Speaker 1: allowed to testify that they had never seen their mom
Speaker 1: hit Maria during that period time and she was never
Speaker 1: alone with Maria during that period of time. And then
Speaker 1: there's the issue with Dr Pekerman. The defense did try
Speaker 1: to put Dr Pinckerman on to talk about why Molyssa
Speaker 1: might have made this so called confession of being responsible,
Speaker 1: when in fact she was not and the court refused
Speaker 1: to allow Dr Pancerman to testify to that. My colleague
Speaker 1: Normal Villanueva and was a social worker, and she and
Speaker 1: I developed different viewpoints and theory about the case as
Speaker 1: we went along in our meetings with the defense team.
Speaker 1: We raised questions in our meetings, and I can remember
Speaker 1: at least on one occasion going to this second Share
Speaker 1: Councils just sort of asking, you know, is it possible
Speaker 1: that we could take a look at these issues and concerns.
Speaker 1: That individual said that he thought it might be a
Speaker 1: good idea, but he deferred to the lead attorney, Mr. Gilman.
Speaker 1: I was not asked to provide any testimony during the
Speaker 1: guilt innocence phase of the trial, but in the sentencing
Speaker 1: phase I felt my testimony was abbreviated and truncated in
Speaker 1: a way because there was a lot of background information
Speaker 1: that I was prepared to offer to the court that would,
Speaker 1: I hope, mitigate the ultimate sentence. It seemed that there
Speaker 1: was not much interest in having that information, as I understand,
Speaker 1: of course, the appeal was based on specifically on my
Speaker 1: opportunity or lack of opportunity to present that kind of viewpoint.
Speaker 1: Melissa didn't have anybody on her behalf. Her kids weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to testify, nobody was allowed to defy. She was
Speaker 1: alone in her defense because no one was really brought
Speaker 1: in to testify. Even though her trial attorneys knew that
Speaker 1: the older girls had admitted to causing Mariah's injuries, They
Speaker 1: knew that the younger kids had testified to seeing Mariah
Speaker 1: fall down the stairs. And they knew, or should have
Speaker 1: known if they put sort of two and two together
Speaker 1: of all the various pieces of evidence that were available
Speaker 1: to them, that Melissa was never alone with Maria at
Speaker 1: the time, but they never put any of that evidence
Speaker 1: on with what the jury was presented with. The results
Speaker 1: were as predictable as they were tragic and wrong. She
Speaker 1: was convicted and sentenced to death. When the jury came
Speaker 1: back and said that they found me guilty, even though
Speaker 1: I did hear the word guilty, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: accept it. The best way to describe it is I
Speaker 1: felt like I was in a dream and then I
Speaker 1: would wake up and I would be at home with
Speaker 1: my kids. You know. Everybody was screaming and crying, and
Speaker 1: they let me out from the courtroom and they took
Speaker 1: me back to my cell and I remember I slept.
Speaker 1: I just tried to block out everything that had happened
Speaker 1: in that courtroom. I figured my children would would be
Speaker 1: able to testify, that they would be able to get
Speaker 1: on that stand, and I know that they would, they
Speaker 1: would come out and say the truth. And Mr Gilman
Speaker 1: he didn't want to. He told me no because he
Speaker 1: didn't know what the prob secutors had in store for them,
Speaker 1: and he didn't want them to try to manipulate them.
Speaker 1: And he felt that it wasn't there wasn't a need
Speaker 1: for my children to be understand. You know, someone listening
Speaker 1: to this cold would probably come away with the impression
Speaker 1: that the defense attorney was almost like an adjunct prosecutor.
Speaker 1: And as crazy as that sounds, it's not that crazy
Speaker 1: when you think about the fact that he went to
Speaker 1: work for the prosecutor immediately after the trial, and why
Speaker 1: would the prosecutor's office hire him at a higher salary
Speaker 1: than the season prosecutors that were already working there immediately
Speaker 1: after having watched him do as terrible of a job
Speaker 1: as an attorney can possibly do for their client. It's
Speaker 1: just stinks so bad. It's it does stink, But let
Speaker 1: me make some clarifying points about what really happened. Right
Speaker 1: before Mariah dies, there was another murder case in the
Speaker 1: Brownsville area and the defendant was a guy by the
Speaker 1: name of Ahmad Livingston. And Mr Livingston ends up, I believe,
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to murder, but with the agreement of the
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office Armando via Lobos, he is released in
Speaker 1: order to go put his affairs in order before he
Speaker 1: has to go to prison. When he's released, he disappears
Speaker 1: into the wind. He's found more than a decade later,
Speaker 1: hiding out in India. But in any event, at the
Speaker 1: time he's gone missing in action. And the newspapers picked
Speaker 1: this up and they're like, you know, why did the
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office agree with this? You know what's going
Speaker 1: on here? This was all very bad press for Mr. Violobos,
Speaker 1: who was getting ready to run for re election of
Speaker 1: the District Attorney of Cameron County. He needed a win,
Speaker 1: and he needed a win big. And right after all
Speaker 1: this happened is when Mariah died. And Melissa's the perfect target.
Speaker 1: She's poor, she's Hispanic. There's a dead baby, you with
Speaker 1: a lot of bruises. This is the perfect vehicle for
Speaker 1: Mr vo Lobos to go. I'm hard on crime, re
Speaker 1: elect me to District Attorney's office. So obviously Melissa gets
Speaker 1: convicted since to death. Mr via Lobos gets re elected,
Speaker 1: and within a fairly reasonable time after Mr Vio Lobos
Speaker 1: is reelected, that's when Pete Gilman goes to work for
Speaker 1: the District Attorney's office. Un fucking believable. Please continue now.
Speaker 1: I did an open records request to find out about
Speaker 1: the hiring process for Mr. Gilman, and what I found
Speaker 1: out was he was supposedly interviewed on an unknown or
Speaker 1: unstated date by Mr via Lobos himself and was hired
Speaker 1: and had accepted the job before he had even submitted
Speaker 1: a CD or a resume to the human resources department.
Speaker 1: He was hired first and then he submitted those papers,
Speaker 1: so that was kind of shady. And then you find
Speaker 1: out that he gets a pretty good salary. District attorneys
Speaker 1: don't usually get paid the way attorneys in private practice do.
Speaker 1: It's usually a starter salary, a stepping stone to something bigger.
Speaker 1: He gets hired in at a pretty significant rate, and
Speaker 1: then his wife is also hired at the courthouse, and
Speaker 1: between the two of them are bringing down a six
Speaker 1: figure salary. Wow, you know, just when you think you've
Speaker 1: heard everything, and I always think every week I said,
Speaker 1: I think I've heard it all, and then then then
Speaker 1: there's this. I mean, where where do these people come from?
Speaker 1: How do they sleep at night? I mean, just to recap.
Speaker 1: So he's accepted the job. We don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: it could have been before the trial. For all we know, right,
Speaker 1: he could have actually been working for the prosecution while
Speaker 1: supposedly defending Melissa. And let's just look at what he
Speaker 1: did and did not do during the trial. This Gilman
Speaker 1: character failed to call as witnesses enyable US's children who
Speaker 1: had seen my rifle down the stairs. Okay, that alone
Speaker 1: is sucking shocking. Then there's just there was the social worker, right,
Speaker 1: Norma Villenueva, to whom Melissa's daughter Alexandra bravely had said
Speaker 1: that she was the reason Mariah fell down the stairs.
Speaker 1: The social worker was instructed by Gilman to not alert
Speaker 1: anyone to this statement that sounds like the work of
Speaker 1: an adjunct prosecutor. She was not, of course, called to testify.
Speaker 1: That testimony could have been extremely valuable. There was also
Speaker 1: a host of witnesses that were interviewed and or put
Speaker 1: on the stand by the state that together never placed
Speaker 1: Melissa alone with Mariah. The had to that no witness
Speaker 1: ever saw Melissa beat Mariah at any time, and Melissa
Speaker 1: Maria whever alone. We know that Farley's theory. A first
Speaker 1: year law student could have connected these dots and shown
Speaker 1: that Farley's theory was nonsense, but none of that was
Speaker 1: ever done for the jury. And then just process this
Speaker 1: with me for a second. Right, So there's a horrible
Speaker 1: interview with Gilman after he had already joined the prosecutor's
Speaker 1: office formally, instead of only you know well anyway, but
Speaker 1: he said and I quote, she was not a good mother.
Speaker 1: Did she kill her child? I don't know? End quote. Well,
Speaker 1: I can tell you something. When I interviewed Peter Gillman,
Speaker 1: because that's in the film, you would have thought that
Speaker 1: Melissa was his worst enemy. He had nothing nice to
Speaker 1: say about her. He went on and on. It was
Speaker 1: quite an extraordinary And I said to him, I kept
Speaker 1: asking him. I was like, what was your strategy? What
Speaker 1: was your strategy at Trow? And he couldn't answer. I
Speaker 1: think I asked him that question maybe seven times. What
Speaker 1: was your strategy? I mean, did you believe that it
Speaker 1: was an accident? Did you believe? He couldn't answer, he
Speaker 1: had no strategy. He had a strategy. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: defense strategy, but he had a strategy and to get
Speaker 1: himself a better job. So, in case you haven't heard
Speaker 1: enough yet, and in case you were looking for an
Speaker 1: even more terrible villain in this story, if such a
Speaker 1: thing is possible, boy, do we have one for you now.
Speaker 1: The elected district attorney, a gentleman named Armando via Lobos
Speaker 1: and Mr via Lobos was at the time of this
Speaker 1: all that stuff taking place. He himself was at the
Speaker 1: center of an FBI investigation and for good reason. There
Speaker 1: was a public scandal that emerged because he was using
Speaker 1: his office to enrich and empower himself through several different schemes,
Speaker 1: one of which was bribery and exchange for favorable outcomes
Speaker 1: at trial. He was involved with cartels. He would bring
Speaker 1: lawyers and judges to Las Vegas and pretend to lose
Speaker 1: and poker games so you know, he could drive them.
Speaker 1: It goes on and on. Basically, his agenda was to
Speaker 1: take money from you know, people who could pay him
Speaker 1: and then for people like Melissa. He would use to
Speaker 1: be reelected. The moment he heard about Melissa's case, he
Speaker 1: was at the police station, I mean, while Melissa's being interrogated.
Speaker 1: I mean he's already there. He just completely used her case.
Speaker 1: You know, Margaret will tell you how it's very rare
Speaker 1: for d As to actually get personally involved, you know,
Speaker 1: in cases. I mean, he even did the ending statement
Speaker 1: at her trial. He not only did the ending statement,
Speaker 1: but he actually examined one of the state's witnesses, and
Speaker 1: he had the state's witness get up off the witness
Speaker 1: stand and pretend to shake a child like shaking baby syndrome,
Speaker 1: which has questionable scientific background, especially for a child of
Speaker 1: Mariah's age. If you talk to the scientists, they will
Speaker 1: tell you that a child as large as Mariah, if
Speaker 1: you'd shaken her heart enough to cause brain to sort
Speaker 1: of shake back and forth inside the skull and be damaged,
Speaker 1: you have to have broken her neck. But he nevertheless
Speaker 1: has this witness get up off the witness stand and
Speaker 1: stand in front of the jury and pretend to violently
Speaker 1: shake a child as a demonstration. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how intensely that played into the jury's verdict, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure it wasn't ignored. And then he took part
Speaker 1: in this sentencing phase to make sure that she got
Speaker 1: death I mean, and he had to prove to the
Speaker 1: jury future dangerousness, right, and Melissa had never been arrested before,
Speaker 1: and Melissa had no prior history of violence whatsoever. So
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, he needs to prove to the
Speaker 1: jury that, you know, she is so violent that she
Speaker 1: actually might be a danger two prisoners, and that's why
Speaker 1: she needs to be on death throw. Right, Let's put
Speaker 1: it this way. I mean, if Melissa Lucio is the
Speaker 1: type of person that is actually the most dangerous person
Speaker 1: in America, that she would end up on death row.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we were in trouble. She wasn't
Speaker 1: even the most dangerous person in the courtroom. That d
Speaker 1: A was the most dangerous person in the courtroom. He
Speaker 1: was running a continuing criminal enterprise. He's doing back room
Speaker 1: deals with cartel's, he's bribing judges and lawyers, He's selling verdicts,
Speaker 1: letting murders, serial murderers run free. I mean, this guy,
Speaker 1: he would be a cartoon villain, except there's nothing funny
Speaker 1: about any of it, so we know how rare it
Speaker 1: is for prosecutors to be prosecuted, but this one the
Speaker 1: FBI took very seriously and they got involved, to say
Speaker 1: the least. Right, How did it end up? Well, I
Speaker 1: interviewed Michael Wynn, who was the lead prosecutor against Armande
Speaker 1: Villa Lobos, and of course I never had any contact
Speaker 1: with the ABI, but he told me that they were
Speaker 1: trying to get him because he was running for Congress
Speaker 1: and they wanted to make sure that that did not happen.
Speaker 1: So they were trying to get him, and they had
Speaker 1: so much on him, you know. The feedback that I
Speaker 1: got on that eight or was there was so much
Speaker 1: on Mr va Lobo's that they decided to stick to
Speaker 1: sort of their slam dunk case for conviction because they
Speaker 1: just needed him gone. And so Melissa's stuff it came
Speaker 1: out a little bit in the Via Lobo's trial. Um,
Speaker 1: the bit about Ahmed Livingston and all of that did
Speaker 1: come out at trial, and Melissa's involvement and that came
Speaker 1: out in trial, but it was very very limited. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the focus of their energies at Mr VA Lobos's
Speaker 1: Federal criminal truck, you know, I find that extraordinary as
Speaker 1: an outsider that you know you have, you know, a
Speaker 1: courter pointed attorney who now works at the d a's office,
Speaker 1: who basically did not defend Melissa at all. And then
Speaker 1: you have a d A who got thirteen years of
Speaker 1: federal prison, but you know that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Melissa's case, and you know her kids should not
Speaker 1: be re examined. Gets infuriating. No, You're absolutely right. Every
Speaker 1: single case that this guy had anything to do with
Speaker 1: needs to be immediately reopened and thoroughly re examined. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, to be clear that everybody that he
Speaker 1: prosecuted is innocent, but a lot of them probably are.
Speaker 1: And in any case, it's abundantly clear that almost none
Speaker 1: of them could have possibly gotten a fair trial. And
Speaker 1: Melissa absolutely did not get what she is constitutionally guaranteed,
Speaker 1: which is a fair trial. And what I find particularly
Speaker 1: shocking is that Gilman hasn't even been disbarred. I mean,
Speaker 1: this case is a literal poster child for ineffective assistance
Speaker 1: of counsel. But Melissa remains a death row to this
Speaker 1: very day, and the State of Texas is desperately continuing
Speaker 1: to try to execute her. So her direct appeal was denied,
Speaker 1: you filed her state habeas and then it moved on
Speaker 1: to federal habeas and ended up in the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals, which is the conservative federal court that
Speaker 1: sits on top of Texas among other states. And it's
Speaker 1: at that point that I end up kind of being
Speaker 1: dropped out of the case. But what ended up happening
Speaker 1: there was ultimately the Fifth Circuit, a panel of the
Speaker 1: Fifth Circuit three judges who initially heard the case, ordered
Speaker 1: that Melissa should get a new trial. UM. The state
Speaker 1: was not happy with that outcome. They asked for what's
Speaker 1: called a rehearing on bunk, which is a rehearing in
Speaker 1: front of all of the justices of the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 1: Court of Appeal. UM. The request for on bunk rehearing
Speaker 1: was granted, and there was another argument, and just recently
Speaker 1: the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion which was deeply divided
Speaker 1: UM that denied Melissa the right to a new trial
Speaker 1: and again affirmed what happened in the state court. So
Speaker 1: from here, she has basically ninety days from that day
Speaker 1: to file a request for her case to be heard
Speaker 1: in the United States Supreme Court and we take what
Speaker 1: one percent of cases, probably probably less than one percent
Speaker 1: of cases. So you know, her her odds, you know,
Speaker 1: of having her case taken are not good, and you know,
Speaker 1: once it's in the Supreme Court, it can take a while.
Speaker 1: But if they a nicer it's it's all over. There
Speaker 1: are some some additional post conviction procedural maneuvers which may
Speaker 1: take place. Since I'm no longer her attorney, I don't
Speaker 1: know what they're going to be doing, but from my perspective,
Speaker 1: because the state used what I would consider to be
Speaker 1: junk science, the shaking baby testimony, the fall down the
Speaker 1: stairs can't cause the head injury testimony, That's where I
Speaker 1: think that potentially her new council could go back into
Speaker 1: the courts on what's called a junk science writ on
Speaker 1: her behalf, and they may also be able to file
Speaker 1: a civil rights action on her behalf, maybe going back
Speaker 1: to some of the issues with Mr via Lobos, that
Speaker 1: the way that her case was even presented and ended
Speaker 1: up in the court in the first place was a
Speaker 1: result of a violation of her civil rights. I ask
Speaker 1: you to please join me in supporting Melissa. The one
Speaker 1: simple step you can take is go to action network
Speaker 1: dot org. That's at network dot org to sign a
Speaker 1: petition and there will be more links in our bio
Speaker 1: for other constructive steps you can take. Your voice matters,
Speaker 1: so please spread the word, get involved. Let's save Melissa
Speaker 1: before it's too late. And Sabrina, I watched your movie
Speaker 1: and in no small part that's why we're here, because
Speaker 1: your movie is such a powerful piece of documentary filmmaking
Speaker 1: and tells this story so hauntingly. How can people access
Speaker 1: the film? Well, the film is called The State of
Speaker 1: Texas Versus Melissa being streamed right now. It's on Hulu.
Speaker 1: And now we turned to the part of our show
Speaker 1: that always seems to be the best, closing arguments, and
Speaker 1: how this works is very simple. First of all, I
Speaker 1: want to thank our two esteemed guests for just coming
Speaker 1: and sharing your passion and your expertise. Of course I'm
Speaker 1: talking about Sabrina and Tassel and Margaret Schmucker. Thank you
Speaker 1: both again for being here, Thank you for having us,
Speaker 1: Thank you Jason so much. Closing arguments works like this, Um,
Speaker 1: I turned off my microphone, kick back in my chair
Speaker 1: and just listen to whatever you have to say. Whatever
Speaker 1: you feel there is left to say, Um, after this
Speaker 1: extraordinary conversation, So we'll start off with Margaret, then Sabrina,
Speaker 1: and then Melissa. I've talked about other lawyers in this
Speaker 1: I feel like I need to make it clear that
Speaker 1: you know, there's nothing I've said today that isn't readily
Speaker 1: available as a matter of court record. It's been in
Speaker 1: the state courts, it's been in the federal courts. If
Speaker 1: you've got the energy, you can go look it up.
Speaker 1: But you know the key take home points, Um, you
Speaker 1: know that there's is and was, you know, some level
Speaker 1: of corruption involved in this case. And that's a concern
Speaker 1: that there is evidence that you know, Melissa could not
Speaker 1: have caused more injuries in the timeframe that she was
Speaker 1: said to have caught them in. Um, that she's never
Speaker 1: been violent with her kids. There is an absolute difference
Speaker 1: between physical abuse, which is a positive action, and neglect,
Speaker 1: which is an absence of an action. And her entire
Speaker 1: history is neglect because she just had too many kids.
Speaker 1: And we have to always also be concerned about the
Speaker 1: fact that are we looking at all of this evidence
Speaker 1: through the lens of sort of white privilege, and we
Speaker 1: have to take a step back and say you can't
Speaker 1: do that. You have to look at it from her
Speaker 1: perspective and what was going on in her life and
Speaker 1: why she was acting the way she was. And of
Speaker 1: course for that we had Dr Pinkerman. And as to
Speaker 1: the physical stuff, obviously we have Dr Young, who has
Speaker 1: been very helpful in this case. I would really hope
Speaker 1: that at some point Melissa's case will get back into
Speaker 1: court and that she will be fully exonerated and will
Speaker 1: be set free to be with her children. I want
Speaker 1: to say her name. Her name is Melissa Lucio, and
Speaker 1: she's been away from her children for thirteen years. She
Speaker 1: hasn't seen most of her kids in that length of time,
Speaker 1: and she's never seen her mother again. She's never seen
Speaker 1: her brothers and sisters. I mean, she's been all alone
Speaker 1: on that throw twenty four hours a day, waiting for
Speaker 1: her fate. And she's someone who didn't stand, you know,
Speaker 1: a chance from the first day. And I hope and
Speaker 1: pray that, you know, people will get interested in her
Speaker 1: case and start tweeting about her and talking about her
Speaker 1: and and raise this horrible story. You know, together, will
Speaker 1: you know, find a way to get her out of there.
Speaker 1: And now we'll hear from Melissa. My name is Melissa
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Lucio. I'm forty eight years old. I have parking children.
Speaker 1: It's been very hard to wake up each morning and
Speaker 1: not not hear them calling out for me. The State
Speaker 1: of Texas wants to kill me every day. I asked
Speaker 1: God why I often think about my daughter Mariah. I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of dreams about her. I've dreamed that
Speaker 1: her and I are out there and that she's running
Speaker 1: around in her little dress and she's wanting me to
Speaker 1: comb her hair, brush her hair, put Bretts on her hair,
Speaker 1: paint her nails, paint her toe nails, and put some
Speaker 1: lipstick on her lips. It's hard to have dreams about
Speaker 1: your children because when you wake up and then you
Speaker 1: see where you're at, you wish that it wouldn't happen
Speaker 1: a dream, that it would have been reality. There are
Speaker 1: days that then I feel that I could just leave
Speaker 1: this place in be reunited with Mariah and just tell
Speaker 1: her I'm sorry that I wouldn't care to protect her,
Speaker 1: and I felt her my beldre in many ways. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please
Speaker 1: support your local Innocence Projects and go to the link
Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne
Speaker 1: and Kevin Warns. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good. Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association would signal company number one