Speaker 1: Since the initial release of our coverage of Melissa Lucio's case,
Speaker 1: there have been some developments. This is a re release
Speaker 1: of that coverage with brand new content. Melissa Lucia grew
Speaker 1: up poor in South Texas, a victim of years of
Speaker 1: sexual abuse from multiple offenders in the home. At age sixteen,
Speaker 1: she married her first boyfriend to escape tying up her
Speaker 1: self worth and being a mother, so much so that
Speaker 1: she eventually had fourteen children. The final two were twins
Speaker 1: that Melissa delivered behind bars after having been accused of
Speaker 1: allegedly murdering the next youngest sibling, two year old Maria,
Speaker 1: on February fifteenth, two thousand seven. Mariah's older siblings witnessed
Speaker 1: her take a tumble down the stairs. Lethargy and a
Speaker 1: lack of appetite were hoped to be symptoms of something
Speaker 1: less severe than head trauma, but when she became unresponsive
Speaker 1: on February seventeenth, they called the m s. Mariah passed away,
Speaker 1: and an aggressive interrogation ensued, resulting in an admission to
Speaker 1: an overarching sense of guilt that most any mother would feel.
Speaker 1: The usual bruising from rough play with her siblings was
Speaker 1: later used to support the state's theory of a pattern
Speaker 1: of abuse. Melissa's conviction would also go a long way
Speaker 1: to shore up a tough on crime image for a
Speaker 1: corrupt district attorney embroiled it up scandal during an election year,
Speaker 1: Defying logic and the scientific method, The state's forensic pathologists
Speaker 1: ruled out Maria's ball down the stairs as the cause
Speaker 1: of the fatal head trauma. Further, the children who witnessed
Speaker 1: the accident and denied the pattern of abuse were not
Speaker 1: called to testify. After trial, Melissa's defense attorney was immediately
Speaker 1: hired to the d a's office with a bump and pay.
Speaker 1: The d A got reelected, but was later prosecuted by
Speaker 1: the FBI, and Melissa is still on death row. This
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about the case of Melissa Lucio, an
Speaker 1: innocent woman on death row in Texas. To tell this incredible,
Speaker 1: heroin 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. Sabrina, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Ronful Conviction, Thank you so much. And with her
Speaker 1: is a Texas attorney named Margaret Schmucker, and Margaret has
Speaker 1: been a fierce advocate for Melissa as her habeas attorney. Margaret,
Speaker 1: welcome to ronfle Conviction. Thank you for having me, and
Speaker 1: thank you both for being here. Um. So, over the
Speaker 1: past few years, Sabrina has visited Melissa Lucia on death
Speaker 1: row in Texas, where she's been stuck since two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. And throughout this episode, you're going to hear
Speaker 1: excerpts from those interviews that 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: She did tell her mother that the boyfriend was sexually
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: two 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 and seven rolled around,
Speaker 1: which is when this incident happened. But before that, they
Speaker 1: were all living in desperate, desperate poverty and relying on
Speaker 1: a 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 from Mr Alvarez by CPS
Speaker 1: CHOLD Protective Services, along with all of the other kids
Speaker 1: that were in the home at that time, and they
Speaker 1: were placed in foster care. They were fairly well split up.
Speaker 1: That continued for several years, and Melissa and Roberta were
Speaker 1: given supervised visits with CHOBD Detective Services with the kids.
Speaker 1: And then finally, when Maria's about two years old, over Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: CPS returned the seven children, who were still miners at
Speaker 1: the time, back into the home of Melissa and Roberta.
Speaker 1: And so it is from that point until the point
Speaker 1: where Maria dies, where there's nine children in the home,
Speaker 1: in this small second story apartment with a rickety, scary
Speaker 1: stairwell on the exterior, which is the access point right
Speaker 1: And to make this accent even more likely to happen,
Speaker 1: Mariah had this is important, a physical impairment as well.
Speaker 1: One of her feet was turned in slightly, which caused
Speaker 1: her to be unstable and to fall downstairs occasionally, as
Speaker 1: was documented while she was in foster care. But that's
Speaker 1: not all that was documented in those Child Protective Services reports.
Speaker 1: There was a tremendous amount of inter sibling violence while
Speaker 1: in foster care and when they were living at home,
Speaker 1: especially from the older sisters disciplining the younger ones who
Speaker 1: they resented having to care for while their parents were
Speaker 1: at work. And then the boys were very rampunctious as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the boys were fighting, you know, all the time,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were big on w W E keeping.
Speaker 1: My CPS comes by once in a while, and so
Speaker 1: we have the CPS reports, and on one of those
Speaker 1: the very 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 places too small, 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 February 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 aged 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 Mariah,
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 fell. 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 is not crying, she's not acting like she's hurt,
Speaker 1: and so she takes Mariah and they go back upstairs
Speaker 1: and they continue to pack and complete the move to
Speaker 1: the new apartment. So by time Saturday rolls around, Mariah
Speaker 1: has already had this closed head injury from this fall
Speaker 1: down the stairs that is not noticeable from her head
Speaker 1: or her scalp, and her progression of symptoms during that
Speaker 1: time period is exactly what you would expect for a
Speaker 1: child at that age who's had a serious close head
Speaker 1: injury and who has swelling on the brain. It progresses
Speaker 1: from lethargy to know not wanting to eat, to ultimately
Speaker 1: some more serious symptoms where she has locked jaw, and
Speaker 1: then she basically loses consciousness, although to her parents she's
Speaker 1: still just sleeping. And at that point they're already in
Speaker 1: this first floor apartment and Roberto Alvarez goes out on
Speaker 1: are and he comes back and he goes to check
Speaker 1: on Mariah and she is nonresponsive, and so they do
Speaker 1: end up calling E M S. And E. M S
Speaker 1: shows up at this apartment and they see injuries bruises
Speaker 1: on Mariah that they don't have any explanation for, and
Speaker 1: they hear Melissa say, well, she fell down the stairs
Speaker 1: a few days ago, and we thought she was okay,
Speaker 1: but maybe she wasn't. And the E. M S sort
Speaker 1: of jumped to the conclusion that the stairs Melissa is
Speaker 1: talking about are the two or three steps from the
Speaker 1: ground floor apartment they are now in, and they have
Speaker 1: no knowledge of this full flight of stairs at the
Speaker 1: prior apartment that they were living in. Just a few
Speaker 1: days earlier, and so the E M s are incredulous
Speaker 1: to say the least. Oh, you know, a kid can't
Speaker 1: get this injured falling down to or three stairs. My
Speaker 1: 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 on the case of Texas versus Melissa Lucio,
Speaker 1: Melissa Lucio's little girl. She was not noted at first
Speaker 1: to have any significant bruising, and eventually she came to
Speaker 1: the point here where she stopped breathing. The bruising that
Speaker 1: was noted later on was not present at first. It
Speaker 1: developed over time. When a child the age of Mariah
Speaker 1: has even a minor head injuries, some children will develop
Speaker 1: brains swelling. The reasons for the brain swelling are not
Speaker 1: always entirely clear, but this has been called malignant brain adema.
Speaker 1: What ends up happening here with the brain swelling is
Speaker 1: the pressure becomes high enough in the head that there
Speaker 1: is an adequate blood from the usual blood pressure coming
Speaker 1: from the heart to allow circulation to blood through the brain.
Speaker 1: So as the brain swells, there's less blood flow to
Speaker 1: the brain and that causes the brain to be starved
Speaker 1: for oxygen and blood flow, which causes more swelling, which
Speaker 1: causes less circulation to the brain. What you have there
Speaker 1: is a vicious cycle. As the brain is being damaged
Speaker 1: here from a lack of oxygen, there are substances that
Speaker 1: are released into the bloodstream that can cause widespread clotting.
Speaker 1: Plotting factors that normally circulate in the blood will be
Speaker 1: triggered and consume just like kindling into a fire. And
Speaker 1: so what then happens here is that her clotting factors
Speaker 1: disappear and this leads to very very easy bleeding beneath
Speaker 1: the skin. So any movement on the child's part, or
Speaker 1: even any minor handling of the child can lead to bruising.
Speaker 1: And so the e m s try and resuscitate Mariah unsuccessfully,
Speaker 1: which can leave its own kinds of bruises on a body.
Speaker 1: But the ms take her to the hospital, she does
Speaker 1: pass away, and Melissa is arrested and take into the PlayStation. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when Mariah was pronounced dead in the R she
Speaker 1: was examined initially by the R physician named Vargas. The
Speaker 1: autopsy later revealed pooling of blood in the cranial ball
Speaker 1: which forms the opinion about head trauma as the cause
Speaker 1: of death, but at this time Bargas noted no ourd
Speaker 1: signs of head injury and what appeared to be evidence
Speaker 1: of significant physical abuse in the form of injuries and
Speaker 1: widespread bruising in various stages of healing, including pulled hair,
Speaker 1: a broken arm from two to seven weeks prior, and
Speaker 1: an injury that Bargas he mistook it for a bite mark,
Speaker 1: but as was explained, the CPS reports documented a history
Speaker 1: of inter sibling violence. Then you not only have the
Speaker 1: external injuries from the fall down the stairs, but also
Speaker 1: the internal chain reaction that led to her death among
Speaker 1: other medical issues, and as was explained by Dr Young,
Speaker 1: all the cloddic factors in her blood stream had been
Speaker 1: used up, causing widespread bleeding under the skin, resulting in
Speaker 1: bruises under even the slightest pressure, let alone CPR. This
Speaker 1: condition is commonly known as d i C, which is
Speaker 1: disseminated intravascular coagulation, and so with the appearance of all
Speaker 1: her prior injuries are the ones that stayed down the
Speaker 1: stairs and then the bruising from d i C, her
Speaker 1: poor little body looked like it had been through a
Speaker 1: horrific ordeal. So you can easily see how there's a
Speaker 1: straight line from Vargas's report of what appears to be
Speaker 1: rampant child abuse and Melissa's terribly flawed interrogation. 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, is far
Speaker 1: as her involvement with the criminal justice system in this case,
Speaker 1: because she is interrogated at length, well into the night
Speaker 1: and early wee hours of the morning by multiple police
Speaker 1: officers who are aggressively denying her explanation that Maria had
Speaker 1: fallen down the stairs and her attempts to explain any
Speaker 1: older injuries that Maria might have as having been the
Speaker 1: result of the rough play with her other older kids,
Speaker 1: which is well documented by CPS and by other just
Speaker 1: sort of slips and balls. Because she has a tendency
Speaker 1: to do that, and they just aggressively deny this, deny this,
Speaker 1: deny this, They won't believe her, and finally, in the
Speaker 1: wee hours of the morning, they get her to say
Speaker 1: that she's responsible. And they never get her to say
Speaker 1: really that she murdered Maria or that she hit her
Speaker 1: on the head or anything. They just get her basically
Speaker 1: to admit responsibility in the sort of overarching way of
Speaker 1: a mother being responsible for the circumstances that led to
Speaker 1: her child's death, and so she is charged with capital murder.
Speaker 1: At that point, it's actually remarkable that she was able
Speaker 1: to not really confess. I mean, they called it a confession,
Speaker 1: but she didn't really confess. But eventually she was questioned
Speaker 1: by a Texas ranger named Escalan. She confessed basically having
Speaker 1: spanked Mariah several times and other minor abuses which we
Speaker 1: now know didn't happen, like biting her. So she was
Speaker 1: confessing to things that didn't even make any sense at
Speaker 1: all because they weren't true. She was just basically trying
Speaker 1: to say, I guess anything she could to get out
Speaker 1: of this awful situation, and that terrging her went so
Speaker 1: far as to ask Meilissa to demonstrate the spanking on
Speaker 1: the doll, and it was encouraged by the investigator to
Speaker 1: spank the doll harder, right, I mean, and this is
Speaker 1: on video, right, show me how you would do it,
Speaker 1: but I mean the way you actually didn't just get
Speaker 1: a oh, just back hard on her back. We'll do
Speaker 1: it real hard, lucky Lucky will do it. But the
Speaker 1: way you would do it, that way would do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't pound on her or do it
Speaker 1: was it harder? No, because I just I will do
Speaker 1: it hard. Cool, you're doing it on yourself. This is
Speaker 1: I mean, I was in calling on her exactly what
Speaker 1: you can do? Yes, okay, and this is just what respected.
Speaker 1: My name is Dr John pinkerman I was the clinical
Speaker 1: psychologist appointed to Miss Lissa Lucio's defense team. Melissa had
Speaker 1: a history of certainly abuse, sexual abuse, and mistreatment going
Speaker 1: back into adolescence and continuing throughout her adulthood, in which
Speaker 1: acquiesced to multiple individuals that abused her. She became pretty
Speaker 1: compliant with individuals, didn't tend to break free from them,
Speaker 1: and often continued the relationships even though they were really
Speaker 1: self defeating. For so, we felt this was, you know,
Speaker 1: and I felt it was really a problem issue that
Speaker 1: helped explain some of the behavior that she evidenced during
Speaker 1: the interrogation, and how she came to provide an acquiescence.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to call it a confession,
Speaker 1: but an acquiescence to the investigators in regard to her conduct.
Speaker 1: I was struck by how she was explaining that she
Speaker 1: was spanking the children, or spanking Melissa, and she was
Speaker 1: it appeared like coach too, to show stronger force in
Speaker 1: striking the table in the interview room. You know, all
Speaker 1: of that contradicted every piece of information that that we had.
Speaker 1: You know, we never heard from any of the children
Speaker 1: that she provided physical discipline, and certainly not to the
Speaker 1: extent of causing the alleged entry and subsequent death. It's
Speaker 1: important to note that he didn't just encourage her to
Speaker 1: spank the dull harder. I mean, he encouraged her to
Speaker 1: confess to things which she had no knowledge of or
Speaker 1: had no part of. He told her there was a
Speaker 1: bite on Mariah's back and got her to confess to
Speaker 1: having bitten Mariah and at least my medical expert, So
Speaker 1: that wasn't even a bite mark. It was parallel striation
Speaker 1: bruises from having fallen down the flight of stairs on
Speaker 1: her shoulder blade. And so Ranger Eskalan got Melissa to
Speaker 1: admit to a type of abuse of Mariah that did
Speaker 1: not exist, that had not happened at all. And again,
Speaker 1: that's sort of a hallmark of a false confession, is
Speaker 1: getting somebody to confess to something that there's no evid
Speaker 1: and stuff 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
Speaker 1: hurt and then started crying, how are you do when
Speaker 1: you see these pictures? No, she was maybe about hurt.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want to ye? Yeah, yeah, okay, 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, Horton 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 sculptor in the autopsy,
Speaker 1: even though the E R physicians said there was no
Speaker 1: sign of head injury. But Escalon had this theory right.
Speaker 1: So on Monday February nine, two thousand seven, Escalon went
Speaker 1: to the chief forensic pathologist of Carmen and Hidalgo Counties,
Speaker 1: a woman named Norman Jean Farley, after having extracted this
Speaker 1: coerced and patently false statement, which I think it could
Speaker 1: be said was at least leading information, and that's probably
Speaker 1: too gentle of a word. And then Farley made her findings,
Speaker 1: ruling that due to the presence of blood in the
Speaker 1: cranial vault, that the cause of death was in fact
Speaker 1: blood force had trauma. And then she went on during
Speaker 1: the trial to say that a fall down those same
Speaker 1: rickety stairs could not possibly have been the cause of
Speaker 1: blood force had trauma. But that doesn't sound anything like science.
Speaker 1: That sounds like pure conjecture, right absolutely. My name is
Speaker 1: Dr Thomas Young. Dr Norma Jean Farley, who was also
Speaker 1: forensic pathologist, has made a mistake very common in forensic mythologists.
Speaker 1: The idea that you can look at an autopsy, that
Speaker 1: you can look at findings on a body and be
Speaker 1: able to determine the very very complex succession of events
Speaker 1: that happened in the past to lead to that event.
Speaker 1: This is reasoning backwards. It doesn't work. It is like
Speaker 1: trying to solve blind plus blank equals four. If you
Speaker 1: think four is the consequence of blank plus blank, looking
Speaker 1: at four doesn't give you the answer to what goes
Speaker 1: in the blanks. What Dr Farley did was she reasoned backwards,
Speaker 1: ignoring all these witness accounts. She says that she knows
Speaker 1: for certain what happened here to Mariah Alvarez. And this
Speaker 1: is arrogant where you ignore what multiple witnesses say who
Speaker 1: were there to actually see what happened. This is absurd.
Speaker 1: This is just a flat out guess. But Dr Farley
Speaker 1: approaches it as if she is certain about this. How
Speaker 1: does she know that you cannot get blackhead trauma from
Speaker 1: a full down the stairs. I mean, it makes no sense.
Speaker 1: You know, the science has developed at the time of
Speaker 1: Maria's death, incense that it is possible for a child
Speaker 1: to fall down even a very short flight of stairs
Speaker 1: and have a fatal head injury. All I can say
Speaker 1: is Norma Farley is 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
Speaker 1: trial which the state argued that Melissa had confessed to
Speaker 1: a pattern of abuse and inflicting the fatal blows that
Speaker 1: killed Maria, even though the video clearly shows that that
Speaker 1: is not the case. So they supported the theory that
Speaker 1: Melissa was abusive with evidence that Maria had bruises, which
Speaker 1: you know she did, that were at various stages of healing.
Speaker 1: But we also have covered why they were there, and
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with Melissa excepter, the fact
Speaker 1: that she was not in control of her own life
Speaker 1: at that point, and Norma Jeane Farley, again as the
Speaker 1: chief forensic path bologists, testified that Mariah's death was the
Speaker 1: result of blood force head trauma. She continued that it
Speaker 1: must have occurred within twenty four hours of death, and
Speaker 1: that it would have been immediately apparent that Mariah was
Speaker 1: in distress and in need of medical attention. We of course,
Speaker 1: now know that one can experience up to seventy two
Speaker 1: hours of lucidity after blunt force head trauma, as the
Speaker 1: brain swelling and bleeding develops over time, resulting in an
Speaker 1: eventual death. So, like so many instances in which the
Speaker 1: doctor is trying to diagnose child abuse, Farley's assertion here
Speaker 1: is one of many leaps in logic, and Farley continued
Speaker 1: to testify that Mariah suffered multiple contusions to her head area,
Speaker 1: but somehow she was magically able to rule out that
Speaker 1: the strikes to the head were not the result of
Speaker 1: tumbling down the stairs. Now, I don't think she witnessed
Speaker 1: the tumbling down the stairs, so again, how in the
Speaker 1: world would she know that? While she wouldn't, but this
Speaker 1: is probably what she thought that the authorities wanted to hear. So,
Speaker 1: just just so we're clear, Melissa's defense did put on
Speaker 1: the stand an expert named Dr Curry. Correct, yes, they did.
Speaker 1: But when they qualified Dr Curry as an expert, since
Speaker 1: he was a pediatric neurologist, he was not a forensic scientist,
Speaker 1: and so they did not allow him to testify it
Speaker 1: regarding the source of any of her other injuries anywhere
Speaker 1: below the neck. And so because of the defense didn't
Speaker 1: hire a better expert or more appropriate expert, they were
Speaker 1: not able to counter the state's case that all of
Speaker 1: these prior injuries were from being beaten repeatedly over a
Speaker 1: period of weeks or months. But he did contradict nor
Speaker 1: Regine Farley's testimony in the timing of the head injury
Speaker 1: that caused her death. Norm Regine Farley had said that
Speaker 1: the injury had to have occurred approximately twenty four hours
Speaker 1: prior to her death. Dr Curry, who was a pediatric neurologist,
Speaker 1: testified that it could have occurred earlier than that, you know,
Speaker 1: anywhere from forty eight to seventy two hours before she died.
Speaker 1: And so that becomes important when you look at the
Speaker 1: timeline of events of the family moving and everybody being together,
Speaker 1: you know, either at the old place, in the new
Speaker 1: place or in transit about whether or not Melissa was
Speaker 1: ever alone with Maria. Melissa was never alone with Mariah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you go back through all of the evidence that
Speaker 1: the state had collected, whether they used it or not
Speaker 1: at trial, you find that Melissa was never alone with
Speaker 1: the kids at all. Whether you look at the timeline
Speaker 1: suggested by Dr Farley or you look at the timeline
Speaker 1: suggested by Dr Curry. How could you possibly be alone
Speaker 1: in a two room or so apartment with nine kids? Preposterous.
Speaker 1: They did not present the evidence that she was never
Speaker 1: alone within that seventy two hours prior to Mariah's death,
Speaker 1: and that the kids were never allowed to testify that
Speaker 1: they'd never seen their mom hit Mariah during that period time.
Speaker 1: She was never along with Maria during that period of time.
Speaker 1: And then there's the issue with Dr Pekerman. The defense
Speaker 1: did try to put Dr Peckerman on to talk about
Speaker 1: why Molyssa might have made this so called confession of
Speaker 1: being responsible when in fact she was not, And the
Speaker 1: court refused to allow Dr Pancerman to testify to that.
Speaker 1: My colleague, Normal Villanueva, was a social worker, and she
Speaker 1: and I developed different theories about the case. As we
Speaker 1: went along in our meetings with the defense team, we
Speaker 1: raised questions in our meetings to the secondary council, just
Speaker 1: sort of asking is it possible that we could take
Speaker 1: a look at these issues and concerns that individual deferred
Speaker 1: to the lead attorney, Mr. Gilman. I was not asked
Speaker 1: to provide any testimony during the guilt innocence phase of
Speaker 1: the trial, but in the sentencing phase. I felt my
Speaker 1: testimony was abbreviated in a way because there was a
Speaker 1: lot of background information that I was prepared to offer
Speaker 1: to the court that would, I hope, mitigate the ultimate sentence.
Speaker 1: It seemed that there was not much interest in having
Speaker 1: that information, as I understand, of course, the appeal was
Speaker 1: based on, specifically on my lack of opportunity to present
Speaker 1: that kind of viewpoint. Melissa didn't have anybody on her behalf.
Speaker 1: Her kids weren't allowed to testify, nobody was allowed to justify.
Speaker 1: She was alone in her defense because no one was
Speaker 1: really brought in to testify. Even though her trial attorneys
Speaker 1: knew that the older girls had admitted to causing Maria's injuries,
Speaker 1: they knew that the younger kids had testified to seeing
Speaker 1: Mariah fall down the stairs, and they knew, or should
Speaker 1: have known, if they put sort of two and two
Speaker 1: together 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 out 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 do you want
Speaker 1: to step it. The best way to describe it is
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in a dream and then
Speaker 1: I will wake up and I would be at a
Speaker 1: home with my kids. You know. Everybody was screaming and crying,
Speaker 1: and they let me out from the court room. They
Speaker 1: took 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 be able
Speaker 1: to testify, that they would be able to, you know,
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 prosecutors 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 does stink. But let me
Speaker 1: make some clarifying points about what really happened. Right before
Speaker 1: Mariah dies. There was another murder case in the Brownsville
Speaker 1: area and the defendant was a guy by the name
Speaker 1: of Ahmad Livingston. Mr Livingston ends up I believe, pleading
Speaker 1: guilty to murder, but with the agreement of the District
Speaker 1: Attorney's office Armando via Lobos, he is released in order
Speaker 1: to go put his affairs in order before he has
Speaker 1: to go to prison. When he's released, he disappears. He's
Speaker 1: found more than a decade later, hiding out in India.
Speaker 1: But in any event, at the time he's gone missing
Speaker 1: in action. And the newspapers picked this up and they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, why did the District Attorney's office agree with this?
Speaker 1: This was all very bad press for Mr. Violobos, who
Speaker 1: was getting ready to run for re election of the
Speaker 1: District Attorney of Cameron County. He needed a win, and
Speaker 1: he needed a win big and right after all this
Speaker 1: happened is when Mariah died. And Melissa's the perfect target.
Speaker 1: She's poor, she's Hispanic. There's a dead baby with a
Speaker 1: lot of bruises. This is the perfect vehicle for Mr.
Speaker 1: Via Lobos to go, I'm hard on crime. Re elect
Speaker 1: me to District Attorney's office. So obviously Melissa gets convicted
Speaker 1: since to death, Mr via Lobos gets re elected, and
Speaker 1: within a fairly reasonable time after Mr Vio Lobos is reelected,
Speaker 1: that's when Pete Gilman goes to work for the District
Speaker 1: Attorney's ox. Unfucking believable. Please continue now. I did an
Speaker 1: open records request to find out about the hiring process
Speaker 1: for Mr. Gilman, And what I found out was he
Speaker 1: was supposedly interviewed on an unknown or unstated date by
Speaker 1: Mr via Lobos himself and was hired and had accepted
Speaker 1: the job before he had even submitted a CD or
Speaker 1: a resume to the human resources department. He was hired
Speaker 1: first and then he submitted those papers, so that was
Speaker 1: kind of shady. And then you find out that he
Speaker 1: gets a pretty good salary. District attorneys don't usually get
Speaker 1: paid the way attorneys in private practice do. It's usually
Speaker 1: a starter salary, a stepping stone to something bigger. He
Speaker 1: gets hired in at a pretty significant rate, and then
Speaker 1: his wife is also hired. Wow, you know, just when
Speaker 1: you think you've heard everything, So he's accepted the job.
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly when it could have been before
Speaker 1: the trial for all we know, right, he could have
Speaker 1: actually been working for the prosecution while supposedly defending Melissa.
Speaker 1: And let's just look at what he did and did
Speaker 1: not do during the trial. This Gilman character failed to
Speaker 1: call as witnesses Enabless's children who had seen rifle down
Speaker 1: the stairs. Okay, that alone is sucking shocking. Then There
Speaker 1: was the social worker, right Norma Villanueva, to whom Melissa's daughter,
Speaker 1: Alexandra bravely had said that she was the reason Mariah
Speaker 1: fell down the stairs. The social worker was instructed by
Speaker 1: Gilman to not alert anyone to this statement that sounds
Speaker 1: like the work of an adjunct prosecutor. She was, not,
Speaker 1: of course, called to testify. There was also a host
Speaker 1: of witnesses that were interviewed and or put on the
Speaker 1: stand by the state that together never placed Melissa alone
Speaker 1: with Mariah. Y had to that no witness ever saw
Speaker 1: Melissa beat Mariah at any time, and Melissa Doria whever alone.
Speaker 1: We know that Farley's theory. A first year law student
Speaker 1: could have connected these dots and shown that Farley's theory
Speaker 1: was nonsense. But none of that was ever done for
Speaker 1: the jury. And then just process this with me for
Speaker 1: a second. Right, So there's a horrible interview with Gilman
Speaker 1: after he had already joined the prosecutor's office formally, instead
Speaker 1: of only you know well anyway, but he said and
Speaker 1: I quote, she was not a good mother. Did she
Speaker 1: kill her child? I don't know? End quote. When I
Speaker 1: interviewed Peter Gilman, because that's in the film, you would
Speaker 1: have thought that Melissa was his worst enemy. He had
Speaker 1: nothing nice to say about her. He went on and on.
Speaker 1: It was quite an extraordinary And I said to him,
Speaker 1: I kept asking him. I was like, what was your strategy?
Speaker 1: What was your strategy at troll? And he couldn't answer.
Speaker 1: I think I asked him that question maybe seven times.
Speaker 1: What was your strategy? I mean, did you believe that
Speaker 1: it was an accident? Did you believe? He couldn't answer
Speaker 1: He had no strategy. He had a strategy. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a defense strategy, but he had a strategy and to
Speaker 1: get himself a better job. So, in case you haven't
Speaker 1: heard enough yet, and in case you were looking for
Speaker 1: an even more terrible villain in this story, if such
Speaker 1: a thing is possible, boy, do we have one for
Speaker 1: you now. The elected district attorney, a gentleman named Armando
Speaker 1: via Lobos, and Mr via Lobos was at the time
Speaker 1: of this all that stuff taking place, He himself was
Speaker 1: at the center of an FBI investigation, and for good reason.
Speaker 1: There was a public scandal that emerged because he was
Speaker 1: using his office to enrich and empower himself through several
Speaker 1: different schemes. One of which was bribery and exchange for
Speaker 1: favorable outcomes at trial. He was involved with Cartel's. He
Speaker 1: would bring lawyers and judges to Las Vegas and pretend
Speaker 1: to lose and poker games so you know, he could
Speaker 1: drive them. It goes on and on. Basically, his agenda
Speaker 1: was to take money from, you know, people who could
Speaker 1: pay him, and then for people like Melissa, he would
Speaker 1: use to be reelected. The moment he heard about Melissa's case,
Speaker 1: he was at the police station. I mean while Melissa's
Speaker 1: being interrogated. I mean he's already there. He just completely
Speaker 1: used her case. You know, Margaret will tell you how
Speaker 1: very rare for d As to actually get personally involved,
Speaker 1: you know, in cases. I mean, he even did the
Speaker 1: ending statement at her trial. He not only did the
Speaker 1: ending statement, but he actually examined one of the state's witnesses,
Speaker 1: and he had the state's witness get up off the
Speaker 1: witness stand and pretend to shake a child like shaking
Speaker 1: baby syndrome, which has questionable scientific background, especially for a
Speaker 1: child of Mariah's age. If you talk to the scientists,
Speaker 1: they will tell you that a child as large as Mariah,
Speaker 1: if you'd shaken her hard enough to cause the brain
Speaker 1: to sort of shake back and forth inside the skull
Speaker 1: and be damaged. You have to have broken her neck.
Speaker 1: But he nevertheless has this witness pretended violently shake a
Speaker 1: child as a demonstration. You know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: intensely that played into the jury's verdict, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: it wasn't ignored. And then he took part in the
Speaker 1: sentencing phase to make sure that she got death. I mean,
Speaker 1: and he had to prove to the jury future dangerousness.
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 and that's why she needs
Speaker 1: to be on death row. Right, let's put it this way.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Melissa Lucio is the type of person
Speaker 1: that is actually the most dangerous person in America, that
Speaker 1: she would end up on death row. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we were in trouble. She wasn't even the most dangerous
Speaker 1: person in the courtroom. That d A was the most
Speaker 1: dangerous person in the courtroom. He was running a continuing
Speaker 1: criminal enterprise. He's doing back room deals with Cartel's he's
Speaker 1: bribing judges and lawyers. He's selling verdicts, letting murders, serial
Speaker 1: murderers run free. I mean, this guy, he would be
Speaker 1: a cartoon villain, except there's nothing funny about any of it.
Speaker 1: So we know how rare it is for prosecutors to
Speaker 1: be prosecuted, but this one the FBI took very seriously
Speaker 1: and they got involved, to say the least, Right, how
Speaker 1: did it end up? Well? I interviewed Michael Wynn, who
Speaker 1: was the lead prosecutor against Armando Villa Lobos, and of
Speaker 1: course I never had any contact with the ABI, but
Speaker 1: he told me that they were trying to get him
Speaker 1: because he was running for Congress and they wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that that did not happen. So they were
Speaker 1: trying to get him, and they had so much on him.
Speaker 1: You know. The feedback that I got on that later
Speaker 1: was there was so much on Mr. Va Lobos that
Speaker 1: they decided to stick to sort of their slam dunk
Speaker 1: case for conviction because they just needed him gone. And
Speaker 1: so Melissa's stuff, it came out a little bit in
Speaker 1: the Via Lobo's trial, Um, the bit about ahm It
Speaker 1: living Ston and Melissa's involvement in that came out in trial,
Speaker 1: but it was very, very limited. It wasn't the focus
Speaker 1: of their energies at Mr Vilibas's federal criminal truck. You know,
Speaker 1: I find that extraordinary as an outsider that you know
Speaker 1: you have, you know, a courter pointed attorney who now
Speaker 1: works at the d a's office, who basically did not
Speaker 1: defend Melissa at all, and then you have a d
Speaker 1: A who got thirteen years of federal prison, but you
Speaker 1: know that has nothing to do with Melissa's case, and
Speaker 1: you know her kids should not be re examined. Gets infuriating.
Speaker 1: Every single case that this guy had anything to do
Speaker 1: with needs to be immediately reopened and thoroughly re examined.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying to be clear that everybody that
Speaker 1: he 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 constitutional guaranteed,
Speaker 1: which is a fair trial. And what I find particularly
Speaker 1: shocking is if 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 ended up kind of being
Speaker 1: dropped out of the case. But what ended up happening
Speaker 1: there was ultimately a panel of the Fifth Circuit three
Speaker 1: judges ordered that Melissa should get a new trial. The
Speaker 1: state was not happy with that outcome. They asked for
Speaker 1: what's called a rehearing on bunk, which is a rehearing
Speaker 1: in front of all of the justices of the Fifth
Speaker 1: Circuit Court of Appeal. The request for on bunk rehearing
Speaker 1: was granted, and just recently the Fifth Circuit issued an
Speaker 1: opinion which was deeply divided, that denied Melissa uh the
Speaker 1: right to a new trial and again affirmed what happened
Speaker 1: in the state court. So from here she has to
Speaker 1: file a request for her case to be heard in
Speaker 1: the United States Supreme Court, and we pick what one
Speaker 1: percent of cases, probably probably less than one percent of cases.
Speaker 1: So you know, her auds, you know of having her
Speaker 1: case taken are not good, and there are some additional
Speaker 1: post conviction procedural maneuvers which may take place. Since I'm
Speaker 1: no longer her attorney, I don't know what they're going
Speaker 1: to be doing. We had a chance to speak with
Speaker 1: Melissa's current council, Vanessa Potkin, who heads up Melissa's team,
Speaker 1: from the Innocence Project to New York. Vanessa, please bring
Speaker 1: us up to date on what has been filed on
Speaker 1: Ulissa's behalf and where we're at now. In the middle
Speaker 1: of January, the state of Texas set an execution date
Speaker 1: for Melissa Lucio for April twenty seventh, and after that
Speaker 1: date was set, the Innocence Project joined Melissa's legal team.
Speaker 1: We recognize the urgency that was involved here and that
Speaker 1: Texas was on the verge of executing an innocent woman,
Speaker 1: and so we teamed up to look into the forensic
Speaker 1: issues that existed at the time of trial, and since
Speaker 1: that time have just worked with over seven new forensic
Speaker 1: and medical experts that supported a clemency petition that was
Speaker 1: filed on Melissa's behalf on March twenty two, and we're
Speaker 1: also looking into, you know, whether we can get back
Speaker 1: into court with some of this new evidence that supports
Speaker 1: Melissa's innocence and that no court has ever considered. It's
Speaker 1: so terrifying that here we are again on the verge
Speaker 1: of another state, another southern state, in this case, executing
Speaker 1: another innocent person and Vanessa. My understanding is that there's
Speaker 1: a politically diverse array of groups and folks who have
Speaker 1: made their concerns known about this innocent woman who, let's
Speaker 1: face it, she suffered a grave tragedy that was bad enough,
Speaker 1: right she lost her little daughter, and now has had
Speaker 1: that tragedy compounded. Can you tell us about this coalition
Speaker 1: that's joined together in support of this innocent woman, Melissa Lucio.
Speaker 1: What we're seeing is really unprecedented here. There is a
Speaker 1: group of nearly a hundred of lawmakers from Texas Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democrats that have come forward to try to stop
Speaker 1: this execution and to call on the Board of Partners
Speaker 1: and Parole of Governor Abbot to issue clemency here. And
Speaker 1: I think that's reflective of this innocence claim, and people
Speaker 1: are seeing that this was a rush to judgment, that
Speaker 1: there's evidence of Melissa's innocence that no court has ever considered,
Speaker 1: and just what is at stake here if this execution
Speaker 1: goes forward. So you have people who are proponents of
Speaker 1: the death penalty stepping in and saying, you know, this
Speaker 1: can't go forward because there's too much doubt. There's too
Speaker 1: much inequity between the sentence that Melissa got and what
Speaker 1: her husband got. There's too many questions given this new
Speaker 1: medical evidence of her innocence. Right. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: tremendous outpouring of support, hundreds of faith based groups, dozens
Speaker 1: of anti domestic violence and sexually saw it grew, axonorees themselves,
Speaker 1: death Row, Axonorees. It's all over social media now. Kim
Speaker 1: Kardashian and the people who are most affected by this, right,
Speaker 1: the brothers and sisters of the little girl who tragically died,
Speaker 1: are unanimous in their support of their mother. And they
Speaker 1: were there absolutely. They lost their youngest sibling, and their
Speaker 1: mother has been on death row for nearly a decade
Speaker 1: and a half now, and so I imagine the trauma
Speaker 1: that this family has endured, and executing her for something
Speaker 1: she didn't do, for what was a tragedy not a crime,
Speaker 1: would just exponentially increase the injustice in the family's pain.
Speaker 1: But still these efforts, which would seem to be a
Speaker 1: you know, a tidal wave, I haven't been enough yet anyway,
Speaker 1: So if our audience wants to join, which there's still
Speaker 1: more to be done. She's still sitting on death row.
Speaker 1: So what can people do to help? So we would
Speaker 1: ask people to go to Save Melissa dot org. There's
Speaker 1: a petition. Sign your name to the petition. If you
Speaker 1: live in Texas, call Governor Abbott and the Texas Board
Speaker 1: of Pardons and Parole and let them know that you
Speaker 1: support clemency for Melissa Lucio. If you live in Texas,
Speaker 1: you can call the Cameron County District Attorney and ask
Speaker 1: him to withdraw Melissa Lucio's execution date. You can make
Speaker 1: a video opposed a story about Miss Lucio's case on Instagram, TikTok,
Speaker 1: or any other platform and use the hashtag save Melissa Lucio.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put links in the bio to all of
Speaker 1: these different actions that you can take. Every single person
Speaker 1: make your voice heard, and let's save Melissa Lusio's life
Speaker 1: before it's too late. And now we turn to the
Speaker 1: part of our show that always seems to be the best,
Speaker 1: closing arguments, and how this works is very simple. First
Speaker 1: of all, I want to thank our two esteemed guests
Speaker 1: for just coming and sharing your passion and your expertise.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm talking about Sabrina van Tassel and Margaret Schmucker.
Speaker 1: Thank you both again for being here, Thank you for
Speaker 1: having us, Thank you Jason so much. Closing arguments works
Speaker 1: like this. UM, I turned off my microphone, kicked back
Speaker 1: in my chair and just listen to whatever you have
Speaker 1: to say, whatever you feel there is left to say. Um,
Speaker 1: after this extraordinary conversation. So we'll start off with Margaret,
Speaker 1: then Sabrina, and then Melissa. I've talked about other lawyers
Speaker 1: in this I feel like I need to make it
Speaker 1: clear that you know, there's nothing I've said today that
Speaker 1: isn't readily available as a matter of court record. But
Speaker 1: you know the key take home points. You know that
Speaker 1: there is is and was, you know, some level of
Speaker 1: corruption involved in this case. There is evidence that you
Speaker 1: know Melissa could not have caused more eye injuries in
Speaker 1: the timeframe that she was said to have caused emmen.
Speaker 1: That she's never been violent with her kids. There is
Speaker 1: an absolute difference between physical abuse, which is an action,
Speaker 1: and neglect, which is an absence of an action. And
Speaker 1: her entire history is neglect because she just had too
Speaker 1: many kids. And we have to always also be concerned
Speaker 1: about the fact that are we looking at all this
Speaker 1: evidence through the lens of sort of white privilege, and
Speaker 1: we have to take a step back and say, you
Speaker 1: can't do that. You have to look at it from
Speaker 1: her perspective and what was going on in her life
Speaker 1: and why she was acting the way she was. And
Speaker 1: of course for that we had Dr Pinkerman, and as
Speaker 1: to the physical stuff, obviously we have Dr Young. I
Speaker 1: would really hope that at some point Melissa's case will
Speaker 1: get back into court and that she will be fully
Speaker 1: exonerated and will be set free to be with her children.
Speaker 1: She's been away from her children for thirteen years. She
Speaker 1: hasn't seen most of her kids, and that Len at
Speaker 1: the time, and she's never seen her mother again. She's
Speaker 1: never seen her brothers and sisters. I mean, she's been
Speaker 1: all alone on that throw twenty four hours a day
Speaker 1: waiting for her fate. And she's someone who didn't stand
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 fourteen children.
Speaker 1: It's been very hard to wake up its morning and
Speaker 1: not and I hear them calling out for me. The
Speaker 1: state of Texas wants to kill me every day. I
Speaker 1: asked God, why I often think about my daughter Maria.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of dreams about her. I've dreamed
Speaker 1: that her and I are out there and that she's
Speaker 1: running around in her little dress and she's wanting me
Speaker 1: to comb her hair, brush her hair, put breads on
Speaker 1: her hair, paint her nails, paint her toe nails, and
Speaker 1: put some lipstick on her lips. It's hard to have
Speaker 1: dreams about your children because when you wake up and
Speaker 1: then you see where you're at, you wish that it
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen a dream that it would have been reality.
Speaker 1: There are days that that I feel that I could
Speaker 1: just leave this place and be reunited with Maria and
Speaker 1: just tell her I'm sorry. Then I wasn't there to
Speaker 1: protect her, and I felt her my beildren. Anyways, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis
Speaker 1: with research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flom. Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
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