WEBVTT - #253 Jason Flom on Melissa Lucio 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.400 Since the initial release of our coverage of Melissa Lucio's case, 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.280 there have been some developments. This is a re release 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:12.320 of that coverage with brand new content. Melissa Lucio grew 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.080 up poor in South Texas, a victim of years of 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:19.160 sexual abuse from multiple offenders in the home. At age sixteen, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.440 she married her first boyfriend to escape tying up her 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.279 self worth and being a mother, so much so that 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.639 she eventually had fourteen children. The final two were twins 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.000 that Melissa delivered behind bars after having been accused of 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.080 allegedly murdering the next youngest sibling, two year old Mariah, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.320 on February fifteenth, two thousand and seven. Mariah's older siblings 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.680 witnessed her take a tumble down the stairs. Lethargy and 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.120 a lack of appetite were hoped to be symptoms of 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.920 something less severe than head trauma, but when she became 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:53.640 unresponsive on February seventeenth, they called the MS. Mariah passed away, 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.440 and an aggressive interrogation ensued, resulting in an admission to 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.840 an overarching sense of guilt that most any mother would feel. 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.160 The usual bruising from rough play with her siblings was 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.080 later used to support the state's theory of a pattern 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.880 of abuse. Melissa's conviction would also go a long way 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.640 to shore up a tough on crime image for a 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.080 corrupt district attorney and broiled it up scandal during an 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.760 election year. Defying logic and the scientific method, the state's 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.319 forensic pathologists ruled out Maria's fall down the stairs as 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.280 the cause of the fatal head trauma. Further, the children 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.319 who witnessed the accident and denied the pattern of abuse 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:35.440 were not called to testify. After trial, Melissa's defense attorney 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.160 was immediately hired to the DA's office with a bump 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.919 and pay. The DA got reelected, but was later prosecuted 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.960 by the FBI, and Melissa is still on death row. 0:01:46.959 --> 0:02:03.160 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.720 Jason Flamm. Today we're talking about the case of Melissa Lucio, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.440 an innocent woman on death row in Texas. To tell 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:18.040 this incredible, heroin and urgent story, we have with us 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:23.080 Sabrina van Tasseled. Sabrina is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.240 investigative journalist who has made forty five films. And I 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.239 think maybe it was all a build up to this one. Sabrina, 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.520 Welcome to Wronful Conviction, Thank you so much. And with 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:39.359 her is a Texas attorney named Margaret Schmucker, and Margaret 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:45.040 has been a fierce advocate for Melissa as her habeas attorney. Margaret, 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:46.280 welcome to Ronful Conviction. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:47.680 Thank you for having me. 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.240 And thank you both for being here. So over the 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.760 past few years, Sabrina has visited Melissa Lucia on death 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.600 row in Texas, where she's been stuck since two thousand 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.760 and eight. And throughout this episode, you're going to hear 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.000 excerpts from those interviews that you can also see in 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.679 here in Sabrina's film The State of Texas Versus Melissa. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.240 And during those interviews, Melissa really was very candid with 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.920 you about her life, which was just beyond tragic from 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:16.720 the very beginning. 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.840 So Melissa was born in Houston. Her father left the 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.760 mom when she was three months old, and they moved 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.080 to Harlingen, Texas, and the mother kept being, you know, 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:32.239 with different boyfriends. They were all abusive. She did tell 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.800 her mother that the boyfriend was sexually abusing her, and 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.000 the mother basically did not believe her, and then she 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.680 basically allowed herself to be a victim to other men 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.720 in the family. And once she was about fifteen years old, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.720 the first boyfriend that she got involved with she married, 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:55.120 and she started having a family right after. By the 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.000 age of twenty two, she already had five children. Her 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.200 husband introduced her to drugs, and one day the husband 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.440 just left her, and so all of a sudden, she's 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.800 twenty two and she has five children, and she meets 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.360 her other partner, Robert Alvarez, and together they're going to 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.040 have nine other children, right. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.560 And two of those nine were twins that Melissa delivered 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.239 in jail while she was being held for the alleged 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.279 murder of her youngest child at that time, Mariah. So 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.120 before Mariah died, there were five from the first guy 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.520 and seven from Robert Alvarez, for a total of twelve. 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.520 So some of them were still really little, some of 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.560 them were teenagers. Some of them had even moved out 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.760 by the time Febuary two thousand and seven year old around, 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.400 which is when this incident happened. But before that they 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.400 were all living in desperate, desperate poverty and relying on 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.680 a charity called Loaves and Fishes. For most of their meals. 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.560 Melissa and robert had very unpredictable schedules because they were 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.919 doing all sorts of odd jobs trying to support the 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.400 family and to keep up with all all of it, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.800 or to I don't know, maybe forget their troubles. Melissa 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:04.960 and robert were using drugs out of the site of 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.840 the children, but regrettably also while she was pregnant with Mariah. 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.520 When Melissa had Mariah, the seventh child with Roberta Alvarez, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.680 she was born with drugs in her system, and so 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:23.520 she was taken from Melissa or mister Albarez by CPS 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.440 Child Protective Services, along with all of the other kids 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.520 that were in the home at that time, and they 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.920 were placed in foster care. They were fairly well split up. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.440 That continued for several years, and Melissa and Roberta were 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:41.320 given supervised visits with Child Protective Services with the kids, 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:46.720 and then finally, when Mariah's about two years old, over Thanksgiving, 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:52.080 CPS returned the seven children, who were still minors at 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.000 the time, back into the home of Melissa and Roberta, 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.000 And so it is from that point until the point 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.559 where Mariah dies, where there's nine children in the home 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:06.120 in this small second story apartment with a rickety, scary 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.599 stairwell on the exterior, which is the access point right. 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.560 And to make this accent even more likely to happen, 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.159 Mariah had this is important, a physical impairment as well. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.839 One of her feet was turned in slightly, which caused 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.880 her to be unstable and to fall downstairs occasionally, as 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.039 was documented while she was in foster care. But that's 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:29.000 not all that was documented in those Child Protective Services reports. 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:33.120 There was a tremendous amount of inter sibling violence while 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.679 in foster care and when they were living at home, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.320 especially from the older sisters disciplining the younger ones who 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.000 they resented having to care for while their parents were 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:46.039 at work. And then the boys were very rambunctious as well. 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:48.880 Yeah, I mean the boys were fighting, you know, all 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.680 the time, and you know, they were big on Wwe 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.080 keep in mind, CPS comes by once in a while, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.440 and so we have the CPS reports, and on one 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.559 of those the very less time they came to visit, 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.240 which was two months prior to Mariah's death, there's concern that, 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.159 you know, the place is too small, that those stairs 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.080 are very dangerous, and the parents are not around, and 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.040 basically it's up to the teenage daughters to supervise them. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.920 So among the many problems, they've got to move out 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:25.000 of this decrepit, totally unfit apartment with the rickety stairs, 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.520 and they found a first floor apartment with just two 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.960 or three steps leading up to the door, and that 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.720 move was going to be happening over the course of 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.600 February fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of two thousand and seven, and. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.840 So Melissa and Roberto were in the process of trying 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.480 to get the family moved, and so some of the 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.360 kids were with their mom, some of the kids are 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.080 with their dad. They're going back and forth in a 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.640 pickup truck taking loads. Mariah, being at that point about 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.640 two and a half years old, was in the second 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.560 story apartment with her mom and at least one of 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.080 the teenage daughters. While they were trying to pack things up. 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.520 Several of the younger age children about eight nine years 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.200 old were downstairs playing. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:10.560 In the backyard. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.880 At some point, Melissa and the older daughter are in 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.200 one of the bedrooms. They're packing up clothes, what have you, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.360 and one of the kids who's playing in the backyard 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.000 came upstairs he went into the apartment to get a 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.480 drink of water, and there was a screen door on 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.760 that exterior door that had a latch on it, and 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.760 when he went back downstairs to go play, he left 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:38.800 that door unlatched. And Mariah, who as we've already discussed, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.640 was unstable on her feet because of her small deformity, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.800 went to go follow her brother and she started down 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.080 the stairs and fell. One of her brothers saw her 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.600 as she sort of tumbled the last three or four 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.439 steps and hit her head on the pavement. Melissa, at 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.560 this point goes looking for her and finds Maria at 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.560 the bottom of the stairwell, and she checks her over 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.959 and doesn't see any serious injury. Doesn't look like she's 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.400 broken any bones or anything, and Mariah's not crying, she's 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.720 not acting like she's hurt, and so she takes Mariah 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.640 and they go back upstairs and they continue to pack 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:19.480 and complete the move to the new apartment. 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:21.920 So by time Saturday rolls. 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:26.439 Around, Mariah has already had this closed head injury from 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.920 this fall down the stairs that is not noticeable from 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.800 her head or her scalp, and her progression of symptoms 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.240 during that time period is exactly what you would expect 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.240 for a child of that age who's had a serious 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.640 close head injury and who has swelling on the brain. 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:48.000 It progresses from lethargy to not wanting to eat, to 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.679 ultimately some more serious symptoms where she has lockjaw, and 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.520 then she basically loses consciousness, although to her parents she's 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.880 still just sleeping. And at that point they're already in 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.920 this first floor apartment, and Roberto Alvarez goes out on 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.200 air and he comes back and he goes to check 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.080 on Mariah and she is non responsive, and so they 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.280 do end up calling EMS, and EMS shows up at 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:21.000 this apartment and they see injuries bruises on Mariah that 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:26.520 they don't have any explanation for, and they hear Melissa say, well, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.960 she fell down the stairs a few days ago, and 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.360 we thought she was okay, but maybe she wasn't. And 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:36.480 the EMS sort of jumped to the conclusion that the 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.319 stairs Melissa is talking about are the two or three 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.960 steps from the ground floor apartment they are now in, 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.560 and they have no knowledge of this full flight of 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.200 stairs at the prior apartment that they were living in 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:55.479 just a few days earlier, and so the EMS are incredulous, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.079 to say the least, they go, oh, you know, a 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.840 kid can't get this injured falling down two or three stairs. 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.160 My name is doctor Thomas Young. I am a forensic pathologist. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:09.600 Back in twenty ten, I was contacted by Margaret Schmucker 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.880 on the case of Texas versus Melissa Lucio, Melissa Lucio's 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.480 little girl. She was not noted at first to have 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.040 any significant bruising, and eventually she came to the point 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.520 here where she stopped breathing. The bruising that was noted 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.040 later on was not present at first. It developed over time. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.600 When a child the age of Mariah has even a 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.440 minor head injury, some children will develop brain swelling. The 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.480 reasons for the brain swelling are not always entirely clear, 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.040 but this has been called malignant brain edema. What ends 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.800 up happening here with the brain swelling is the pressure 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.440 becomes high enough in the head that there isn't adequate 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.319 blood from the usual blood pressure coming from the heart 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.640 to allow circulation to blood through the brain. So as 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.800 the brain swells, there's less blood flow to the brain, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.800 and that causes the brain to be starved for oxygen 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.080 and blood flow, which causes more swelling, which causes less 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.640 circulation to the brain. What you have there is a 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.920 vicious cycle as the brain is being damaged here from 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.400 a lack of oxygen, there are substances that are released 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.200 into the bloodstream that can cause widespread clotting. Clotting factors 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.439 that normally circulate in the blood will be triggered and consumed, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.760 just like kindling into a fire. And so what then 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.920 happens here is that her clotting factors disappear, and this 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.400 leads to very very easy bleeding beneath the skin. So 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.800 any movement on the child's part, or even any minor 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:38.760 handling of the child can lead the bruising. 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:45.400 And so the EMS try and resuscitate Mariah unsuccessfully, which 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.640 can leave its own kinds of bruises on a body. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.240 But the MS take her to the hospital, she does 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:57.160 pass away, and Melissa is arrested and taken to the PlayStation. 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.800 Okay, so when Mariah was pronounced dead in the er, 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.120 she was examined, initially by an r physician named Vargas. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.640 The autopsy later revealed pooling a blood in the cranial ball, 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.120 which forms the opinion about head trauma as the cause 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.120 of death, but at this time Bargas noted no outer 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.800 signs of head injury and what appeared to be evidence 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.120 of significant physical abuse in the form of injuries and 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:24.240 widespread bruising in various stages of healing, including pulled hair, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.480 a broken arm from two to seven weeks prior, and 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.200 an injury that Bargas he mistook it for a bite mark, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:35.280 but as was explained, the CPS reports documented a history 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.360 of inter sibling violence. Then you not only have the 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.199 external injuries from the fall down the stairs, but also 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.320 the internal chain reaction that led to her death among 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.199 other medical issues, and as was explained by doctor Young, 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.440 all the clotting factors in her bloodstream had been used up, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:56.959 causing widespread bleeding under the skin, resulting in bruises under 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:02.240 even the slightest pressure, let alone CPR. This condition is 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:09.120 commonly known as DEIC, which is disseminated intravascular coagulation. And 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.679 so with the appearance of all her prior injuries are 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.280 the ones that stayed on the stairs and then the 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.520 bruising from DIC, her poor little body looked like it 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.880 had been through a horrific ordeal. So you can easily 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.440 see how there's a straight line from Vargas's report of 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:32.280 what appears to be rampant child abuse and Melissa's terribly 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:33.400 flawed interrogation. 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:34.920 I mean, you're not wrong. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.960 This information was all then conveyed to the police, and 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.960 the police went in to the interrogation room with Melissa 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.120 with already the preconceived notion that this had to have 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.800 been physical abuse, and it had to have been physical 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:52.720 abuse by Melissa in their view, because she was Mariah's 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:57.600 primary caretaker, because she was the mother, And that's where 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.000 her nightmare really sort of begins as her involvement with 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.000 the criminal justice system in this case, because she is 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.360 interrogated at length, well into the night and early wee 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.760 hours of the morning by multiple police officers who are 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:18.520 aggressively denying her explanation that Mariah had fallen down the 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.840 stairs and her attempts to explain any older injuries that 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.120 Mariah might have as having been the result of the 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.640 rough play with her other older kids, which is well 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.440 documented by CPS and by other just sort of slips 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:35.320 and falls because she has a tendency to do that, 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.560 and they just aggressively deny this, deny, this deny this, 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.760 they won't believe her, and finally, in the wee hours 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:46.000 of the morning, they get her to say that she's responsible. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.440 And they never get her to say really that she 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.640 murdered Mariah, or that she hit her on the head 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.520 or anything. They just get her basically to admit responsibility 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.400 in the sort of overarching way of a mother being 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.040 responsible for the circumstances that led to her child's death, 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.000 and so she is charged with capital murder. 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.200 At that point, it's actually remarkable that she was able 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.800 to not really confess. I mean, they called it a confession, 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:17.120 but she didn't really confess. But eventually she was questioned 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:22.680 by a Texas ranger named Escalon. She confessed basically having 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:27.360 spanked Mariah several times and other minor abuses which we 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:29.880 now know didn't happen, like biting her. So she was 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.680 confessing to things that didn't even make any sense at 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.040 all because they weren't true. She was just basically trying 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:36.920 to say, I guess anything she could to get out 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:41.400 of this awful situation, and Tarriget went so far as 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.000 to ask Willista to demonstrate the spanking on a doll, 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:50.240 and it was encouraged by the investigator to spank the 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.800 doll harder, right, I mean, and this is on video, right, 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:56.320 show me how you. 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:57.920 Would do it, but I mean the way you actually 0:16:57.960 --> 0:16:58.280 did it. 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.760 Just give on her back. 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:07.160 We'll do it real hard, do it. But the way 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.159 you would do it. 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:11.879 I mean, I wouldn't found on her. 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:13.760 M hmm. 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.400 It was it harder. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.120 Because I just I will do it hard. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.680 Well, you're doing it on yourself. 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:25.240 This is. 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:29.880 I mean, I wasn't polling on her. 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:37.159 Yes, okay, and this is just what it waspect. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.960 My name is doctor John Pinkerman. I was the clinical 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:50.160 psychologist appointed to Miss Melissa Lucio's defense team. Melissa had 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:55.119 a history of certainly abuse, sexual abuse, and mistreatment going 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.920 back into adolescence and continuing throughout her adulthood in which 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:06.520 she acquiesced to multiple individuals that abused her. She became 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:11.920 pretty compliant with individuals, didn't tend to break free from them, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.520 and often continue the relationships even though they were really 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.520 self defeating. For so, we felt this was you know, 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.960 and I felt it was really a problem issue that 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.760 helped explain some of the behavior that she evidenced during 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:30.680 the interrogation and how she came to provide an acquiescence. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:32.440 I don't know if I want to call it a confession, 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:37.040 but an acquiescence to the investigators in regard to her conduct. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.520 I was struck by how she was explaining that she 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.960 was spanking the children, or spanking Melissa, and she was 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:51.440 it appeared like coach to show stronger force in striking 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.399 the table in the interview room. You know, all of 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:59.280 that contradicted every piece of information that we had. You know, 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.359 we never heard from any of the children that she 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.600 provided physical discipline, and certainly not to the extent of 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.879 causing the alleged injury and subsequent death. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.240 It's important to note that he didn't just encourage her 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:14.800 to spank the dull harder. 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.680 I mean, he encouraged you to confess to things. 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:19.720 Which she had no knowledge of or had no part of. 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.160 He told her there was a bite on Mariah's back 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:28.800 and got her to confess to having bitten Mariah and 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.919 at least my medical expert, so that wasn't even a 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:37.080 bite mark. It was a parallel striation bruises from having 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:39.840 fallen down the flight of stairs on her shoulder blade. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:46.879 And so Ranger Escalon got Melissa to admit to a 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:52.560 type of abuse of Mariah that did not exist, that. 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:54.760 Had not happened at all. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.640 And again, that's sort of a hallmark of a false confession, 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.439 is getting somebody to confess to something that there's no 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:02.120 evidence of. 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:04.600 At the end of it. And this really is such 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.199 a painful thing to think about. And I saw it, 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:11.119 of course in the film. But you know, she ultimately says, 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:13.399 I wish it was me that got hurt and then 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:14.400 started crying. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:17.840 How do you feel when you see these pictures. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:20.800 Noises? 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:21.680 Maybe it not hurt. 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:51.040 Is there anything else you want to add? Okay, listen, 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.560 it's three fifteen am, and that will end the interview. 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.600 This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Porton and Garrison, 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.280 a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:13.600 an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.159 to the most vulnerable members of our society and in 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:20.000 support of the public interest, including extensive work in the 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:32.000 criminal justice area. So during the interrogation, Escalon asked Melissa 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.160 if they would find a fractured skull during the autopsy, 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.280 even though the er physician said there was no sign 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.240 of head injury. But Escalon had this theory right. So 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.440 on Monday February nineteenth, two thousand and seven, Escalon went 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.920 to the chief forensic pathologist of Carmen and Hidalgo Counties, 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:53.840 a woman named Norman Jean Farley, after having extracted this 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.359 coerced and patently false statement, which I think it can 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.320 be said was at least leading information, and that's probably 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.440 too gentle of a word, and then Farley made her findings, 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:07.639 ruling that due to the presence of blood in the 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.240 cranial vault, that the cause of death was in fact 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.119 blunt force had trauma. And then she went on during 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.800 the trial to say that a fall down those same 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.879 rickety stairs could not possibly have been the cause of 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:26.840 blood force head trauma. But that doesn't sound anything like science. 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:29.720 That sounds like pure conjecture, right. 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:30.960 Absolutely. 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.919 My name is doctor Thomas Young. Doctor Norma Jean Farley, 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.160 who is also a forensic pathologist, has made a mistake 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.440 very common in forensic pathologists, the idea that you can 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.520 look at an autopsy, that you can look at findings 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.720 on a body and be able to determine the very 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:52.600 very complex succession of events that happened in the past 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.320 to lead to that event. This is reasoning backwards. It 0:22:56.440 --> 0:23:00.399 doesn't work. It is like trying to solve blind plus 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:04.800 blank equals four. If you think four is the consequence 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:07.720 of blank plus blank, looking at four doesn't give you 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.479 the answer to what goes in the blanks. What doctor 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:16.440 Farley did was she reasoned backwards, ignoring all these witness accounts. 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.600 She says that she knows for certain what happened here 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:25.160 to Mariah Alvarez. And this is arrogant where you ignore 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:28.760 what multiple witnesses say who were there to actually see 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:33.040 what happened. This is absurd. This is just a flat 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:37.040 out guess. But doctor Farley approaches it as if she 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:38.360 is certain about this. 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.480 How does she know that you cannot get blad trauma 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:46.200 from a fall down the stairs. I mean, it makes 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:46.720 no sense. 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:50.320 You know, the science has developed at the time of 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.840 Maria's death in since that it is possible for a 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:56.240 child to fall down even a very short flight of 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:58.320 stairs and have a fatal head injury. All I can 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:01.960 say is Norma Farley just wrong on the science on that. 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:04.119 You know, you put an expert on the witness stand 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:06.119 and the jury, you know, gives them an awful lot 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:08.640 of credence if they have appropriate credentials, And of course 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.160 Norma Jean Farley was the medical examiner for the county, 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:14.919 and so they give her testimony quite a bit of 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:18.680 credibility clearly in reaching the verdict that they did. 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:21.760 Yeah, it sure sounds like the science is being adjusted 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:24.640 to fit the narrative when that is exactly the opposite 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:27.280 of how this all should function. Right. So now we 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:31.000 get to the trial, which the state argued that Melissa 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:33.960 had confessed to a pattern of abuse and inflicting the 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:38.560