[flipping through papers]
Downloaded from YTS.MX
[Victor Escalon] What about her legs?
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
The bruising around her legs, around her thighs,
between the knee
and her hip.
Now what's that from?
- [Melissa] Spankings. - How'd you spank her there?
Her laying down? Standing up?
No, her lying down. I'd be dressing her,
and I'd just go like that[slaps] on her leg.
- That's pretty hard. - Mm-hm.
How would you spank her?
Lay her down and show me how'd you spank.
Was it one time or several times?
Several times.
Show me how but show me the same force you'd use.
With your right or left hand?
Left, right hand.
Would you be standing or sitting?
Both.
How'd you do it sitting?
Show me how you'd do it. The way you did it.
- [inhales] - Just get it over with.
I'd spank her real hard on her back.
Well do it real hard like you'd do it.
- I'd spank her hard. - The way you'd do it.
That's the way I'd do it.
- I wouldn't pound on her. - But...
- [spanks] - Mm-hm.
Well, do it.
- Like that. - Was it harder?
No.
[spanks] Because what I'm doing is hard.
Well, okay, you're doing it on yourself. This is...
I mean, I wasn't pounding on her or anything.
Show me how'd you do it. Like this?
Yes.
Okay.
And this is just what? Spanking?
- Did you hit her with a stick? - Uh-uh.
- Did you use anything? - Uh-uh.
How do you feel when you see these pictures?
[inhales]
What's going through your head?
[exhales]
I wish it was me that got hurt.
[flipping through papers]
[exhales]
Is there anything else you wanna add?
[cries]
[crying]
Okay, Melissa.
It's 3:15 AM and I will end the interview.
[soft music]
[police radio]
[police siren]
[Melissa] I've lost 12 years without my children.
Some of them have memories of me.
And some of them don't.
It's been very hard to wake up each morning and not...
not hear them.
Not hear them calling out for me.
It's confusing at times.
It's confusing because...
I don't understand... how...
the court system could have done this to me.
The state of Texas wants to kill me.
Every day I ask:
"God, why?"
[keys jangling]
My name is Melissa Elizabeth Lucio.
I'm 48 years old.
I have 14 children. [breathes deeply]
I've been on Death Row 11 years.
I often think about my daughter Mariah.
I've had a lot of dreams about her.
I've dreamed that...
her and I are out there
and that she's
running around in her little dress.
And that she's wanting me to comb her hair,
brush her hair,
put barrettes on her hair.
Paint her nails,
paint her toenails,
and put some lipstick on her lips.
You know it's um...
It's hard to have dreams about your children because
when you wake up,
and then you see where you're at,
you wish it wouldn't have been a dream,
that it would have been reality.
There are days
that I feel that I could just
leave this place
and be reunited with Mariah.
And just...
[sniffles] tell her I'm sorry
that I wasn't there to protect her.
And I failed her. I failed her in many ways.
[intriguing music]
[enters code]
[Norma Farley] I got a call Saturday evening
that a child had passed,
and they wanted an autopsy on this case.
This was the worst case of child abuse I had ever seen.
There were bruises from head to toe.
There were bruises on the face, in the hair, on the chest.
There were even abrasions or scrapes on the neck.
On internal examination,
I was wanting to know,
what's the injury that killed her on this day.
There was blood that had accumulated
in the cranial vault where the brain sits.
I do believe that was probably
due to a punch, or a kick or something.
Some type of injury, a significant injury.
[soft music]
I did think this was a homicide.
And once I looked at the head,
and saw there were contusions on both sides and in the back,
I did think this was a homicide.
I'm going to have to read you your rights
before I talk to you. Okay?
[Margaret Schmucker] I've been working on Melissa Lucio's case
for a decade.
I took it on in what's called The State Habeas Proceedings
that come after her direct appeal is concluded.
The case was very large.
2,000 to 3,000 pages long
of paperwork from Child Protective Services
and elsewhere
that indicated she was non-violent.
There is no evidence anywhere
that I could find in the CPS records
that she was violent towards any of her kids, ever.
There's just no evidence anywhere in there
that any of these bruises
that Mariah had on her body at the time of her death,
um, which the state attributed to being beaten by Melissa
over a period of weeks or months.
There's no indication anywhere that it is Melissa's nature
or that it would have been her.
It's not possible that the other kids hadn't seen or known
that her mom was beating her if she was beating her.
And none of those kids ever said
that their mom was beating Mariah.
Melissa was never alone with Mariah
during that applicable time frame.
The 24 to 72 hours during which
her bump on the head, uh, progressed from,
you know, a close head injury to coma to death.
There was always at least one or two other children with her,
um, if not the whole family.
[birds chirping]
Mm-hm.
Mom.
Pictures of Mel.
Mel.
- [Hope] That Mel? - Mm-hm.
Oh okay, it was a prayer that I put in here.
- You wrote it? - I wrote it.
For Melissa to come out of prison.
- For her to come out of prison? - Mm-hm.
It has to be in a box.
Take the tape off.
I'll read it.
It was written October the 20th, 2007.
My name is Esperanza.
They call me Hope.
And I am Melissa's mom.
My kids kept saying:
"She didn't do it. She didn't do it".
And I would say:
"What if she did?"
They said so in the court.
The judge... The judge and the jurors.
Because they said so, I believed them.
What else could I do?
I don't know why.
Because Melissa was a loving person.
She just had a rough life.
And a poor life.
Her kisses on the cheek
and her being my child,
those were the happy memories.
When she was happy, when she should smile.
That's what I remember about Melissa. [sniffles]
[Diane] Melissa was a good person, even as an adult.
I never had a disagreement with Mel.
Never. Never. Not that I remember.
My mom was always working.
So, we went spent most of our time Melissa, me, and Sonya.
I remember I was always the one to defend Melissa
because Sonya was very...
She used to like to fight with us.
Me and Melissa always shared a bedroom,
so we did a lot of things together.
She was quiet,
but she was well-liked.
And Melissa was more the caring one.
And she got married very young, so she wasn't really home.
[soft music]
It's never really crossed my mind
why she got married young.
She just got married.
Maybe there was a lot of things lacking.
Maybe it's something that she was missing
or maybe that's why she wanted to get away.
[Melissa] By the age of 24, I already had 5 children.
I got married very young, at the age of 16
to escape
my childhood.
I was
molested by my mother's boyfriend,
[inhales] at a very young age.
Um.
I must have been about 7 years old
when the abuse started.
I grew up
feeling hurt.
I grew up
not feeling loved.
Because of this incident,
I continued to be molested by other family members.
I just allowed myself to be a victim
over and over again.
[Hope] I remember I was in the kitchen,
and she was crying or something like that.
And she told me that
Kelo had abused her.
And I said be quiet Melissa, don't you ever say that again.
That's not true.
She said: "Yes he did, Mom, he did."
And
I didn't believe her
because she was little.
She was a little child, and I didn't believe her.
Maybe it's true.
I'm not saying it's not.
I don't think about... about that.
I never think about that because...
Because my mind doesn't let me.
I shut it out.
[birds chirping]
My name is Dr. John Pinkerman. I'm a licensed psychologist.
I was approached to be a part of the defense team
to represent Melissa Lucio
in her upcoming trial for capital murder.
When talking with Melissa Lucio,
I found that the abuse wasn't reported.
And she never found
a consistent treatment setting
to really work on the kinds of problems
that she was facing.
She had a history of really inadequate men in her life,
and being very exploitive, abusive,
who were also very troubled individuals
that were doing illegal things including drug dealing.
And she was, um, caught up in that maelstrom.
And from what I put together, my formulation for her is that
she found a way of finding meaning in her own life
in her role as a mother.
In my review of all the background information,
she didn't meet the criteria for mothers
who kill their children.
Those mothers were categorized
into approximately six different groups.
One was the mother who was subject
to severe mental illness.
Melissa didn't have severe mental illness.
Another kind of parent might be one who, um,
was retaliatory toward the child.
That the child offended or let them down,
and the mother retaliated.
And she didn't fit that kind of criteria.
Another one would be
they had a history of violence against children.
That wasn't the case.
There was likely something more that accounted for what happened
because it didn't seem to be
that Melissa's personality and history
fit the nature of the crime.
[soft music]
My name is Daniella.
I'm Melissa's daughter.
Come on, guys. Come on.
I wanted a big family like my mom.
Wait, Ronny!
So yes, I have nine of my own. [chuckles]
Ronny!
I was the oldest, so I helped my mom a lot.
Watching the kids when she had to go grocery shopping
or she had to go out and do something else.
I would watch the kids, bathe them,
um, feed them, diaper change, all that stuff.
I was like a second mom to them.
I'm the oldest, and then we have Melissa,
John,
Alexandra, Selina,
and then it's Rene, Richard,
Robert,
Gabriel, Adriana, Sara,
and then Mariah.
And then the two twins.
The two twins who were born in jail
that we never got to see.
Every day after school,
we'd have to walk to Loaves & Fishes.
That's where they'd give the free dinner.
After dinner,
we'd walk to the park on our way home,
and she'd play with us.
You know, pushing us on the swings.
I thought our mom was fun.
I mean it was just the littlest things
that we did, that we have good memories.
It stays with us.
I didn't see my mom being violent.
When my mom would get after us, it was a pinch on our arm
or a pat on the butt.
She was always so calm.
She always had us with her. She never left us with nobody.
She was a good mom to us,
I didn't see anything wrong with her.
I didn't. I mean she had her drug problem
and not whatnot, but... [sniffles]
I mean it wasn't like she was...
Like she was in the restroom all day, and you know,
doing her drugs and stuff, you know?
She made sure we ate and we were able to take a bath.
I miss her. [sniffles]
[band music]
[song ends] [crowd cheers]
[Rene] Me and my sister Melissa were close.
She loved to dance.
She loved to dance and she loved to listen to music.
It's kinda like in the bloodline, you know?
You'd be surprised by the miracles
music can have on people and their ears.
It can soothe your body, your mind, and your soul.
Your heart.
We'd drive all the way to Corpus just to dance,
and she was always the first one our mom would invite.
To make her go out because she did have kids
and to give her, you know, a night out.
Me and her were always close.
She was my big sister, my second mom.
- No, not me! - What are you gonna say?
Happy birthday to my sisters Sonya and Diane Valencia
from Mr. and Mrs. Guadalupe Lucio Jr. from Houston.
[Rene] I was at her house daily.
You know, it was a loud house, her house was loud.
They were, you know, going crazy and running around.
But how can you control eight kids, ten kids,
you know, all at once?
She was addicted.
It was almost every day that she was doing it.
That was her little one or two hours to just, uh,
get away, get away from everything.
She was scared. When she would do it,
she would lock herself in the restroom
and stay in there a couple of hours, you know?
Kids would be knocking on there,
and she'd try and hush them away:
"Leave me alone. Leave me alone."
And she wouldn't come out until she sobered up.
She'd finish and wouldn't come out until an hour later.
Till she knew she was ready to face her kids...
You know? I don't think...
she wanted her kids to see her like that.
Um, even though at times I know they did see her.
[intriguing music]
You know her demons took over, everything she had.
[dog barking]
[Sonya] I think Melissa,
because she had so many children,
and she lived in poverty,
that she felt she was the black sheep.
She lived in run-down apartments.
Maybe a one bedroom, two bedroom.
You know, not sufficient rooms for all of them to live in.
I don't even think Melissa ever owned a piece of new furniture.
They found, you know, a pile of trash...
and if there was a chair, a table that they could use,
they would take it.
Yeah we knew she struggled.
You could see it in her face, you know, the tiredness.
[chattering in Spanish]
It's not on.
You're lying, Diane!
[Sonya] She never complained.
She never talked about her life.
If she needed help, she never told us.
As close as we were,
there was a lot of things happening
that we didn't know about.
Maybe we just wanted to block it out.
[intriguing music]
[Margaret Schmucker] The CPS files basically say that
her children we removed from her because of neglect,
not violence.
There were records that Mariah
was prone to falling down stairs.
One foot was turned in,
um, which made her gait awkward
and made her to prone to falling,
so she'd fall and injure herself.
One of the other children, right after this all happened,
told an interviewer
that he'd seen Mariah fall down a flight of stairs.
And not just any flight of stairs,
but the white flight of stairs.
And the white flight of stairs was
the exterior stairwell at the family's prior
apartment complex.
And it was rickety, and it was old,
and it was white.
That interview with the other child,
who was about 9 years old at the time of Mariah's death,
um, was never presented to the court.
[soft music]
For whatever reason, Melissa's attorney at trial
decided that it wasn't important.
Rene, did anybody
like tell you all like what to say?
Or for you not to say anything?
Did anyone ever ask any questions
or anything like that?
- No. - No?
And Rene, let me ask you, um,
what happens to you when you, like, would misbehave
or get in trouble, or anything like that?
My mom would get mad.
She'd get mad, and what would happen?
- She would put me in a corner. - M'kay.
And what about your brothers and sisters?
What would happen to them when they would misbehave?
They were put in the corner.
Do you know why you're talking to me?
Mariah died.
- Who's Mariah? - My sister.
Your sister.
Had she had any accidents or had anything happened to her?
She fell down some steps.
And did you see her fall or did someone tell you that?
No, I saw.
[Daniella] Oh my gosh!
How scary, this is where they say she fell from.
Imagine, all the way down from there!
Right here, baby.
Right here was where my mom lived.
They're abandoned now.
She fell all the way down?
She fell all the way down.
From the first step up there, all the way down here.
- Imagine? The baby falls? - A baby?
Imagine a baby falls. That's how old Mariah was.
[somber music]
I saw some pictures of her.
And she had a lot of scratches on her face,
and she had bruises everywhere.
So I wanted to know if you knew about those, how she got those?
I don't know.
I didn't know she had bruises or anything.
Did you ever see them though?
Well, I saw one bruise when she fell down the steps.
Where was it? Where did you see it?
Uh...
I think there was one on her eye.
Um...
I think on her arm too.
Do you feel safe now?
- Right now? - Mm-hm.
Uh, no.
How come?
Because I miss my mommy and my daddy.
- You miss them? - Mm-hm.
- Have you seen them? - No.
Do you know where they are now?
No.
- Have you talked to them? - No.
[drawing]
I miss Mommy and Daddy.
[slow music]
[ceremonial music]
[Announcer 1] Keep your right hand over your heart
for the Texas pledge.
"Honor the Texas flag.
"I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas,
"one state, under God, one and indivisible."
[Announcer 2] Summa cum laude:
Alex Fernando Gutierrez.
[crowd cheers]
Robert Andrew Alvarez.
[crowd cheers]
My name is Bobby.
I'm Melissa's son.
And I was 8 when she was sentenced to death row.
After it happened, we lived in foster care.
So we were all separated.
Every night, we would cry
and say that we missed our mom.
There's all this time that was lost.
If they actually investigated, you know,
like looked into what happened,
we wouldn't be here.
We'd be with her.
Everything would have been different.
[soft music]
They didn't really ask any of us who were there
what happened.
My mom, she just wasn't the one to, like, discipline us.
I mean there were a lot of kids,
but my mom wasn't a violent person.
Mariah never really looked sick.
Yeah, she would cry,
but that's what all babies do.
Every time, whenever we'd, like, go to places, she was fine.
Like, you know, she still didn't talk, but um...
She didn't like...
There was no symptoms where you could tell
like, she doesn't look good
or like, her arm seems out of place.
The only time that I ever saw bruises
was whenever she fell.
I was at the way bottom.
Of course she cried, but...
She was fine.
I remember all of us being with, um, the younger kids.
We were all in the one of the rooms, just watching TV,
and I remember that because I was by Mariah.
[soft music]
We had just moved to the house.
That day my mom was cleaning
and she was putting everything in the right place.
Mariah, she was very tired.
And I was talking to her, and I was like: "Oh, you're tired."
And I had kissed her forehead,
and I guess she had closed her eyes.
She just fell asleep and didn't wake up.
We were all crying.
And my mom was just there. She was just sitting down.
Her eyeliner was all messed up because she'd been crying.
I remember trying to cheer her up,
but she wouldn't.
[sniffles]
That's when CPS came.
Um...
And they took us away from...
my family.
And I was like: "Oh, I don't wanna go."
But, they were like: "You have to."
And when they took us, um...
I remember just, like, leaving them,
asking: "Oh, what's gonna happen?"
[breathes deeply]
But they didn't answer.
[police siren]
[Sonya] So we get there.
[inhales] There's police officers
and there's the ambulance, and there's a fire truck.
And I sit there with Melissa and I ask her:
"What happened, Melissa?
"What happened?
"Where's the baby?"
And she was stone-cold.
She wasn't saying anything.
And then they close up her house
and they take them all in for questioning.
It was like 2 in the morning, and we go home,
and we're still there crying and wondering
[voice shakes] what was happening.
And it didn't feel real.
Like, I don't...
We had never been through anything like that.
That doesn't seem real, Melissa.
Then our nightmare started,
and she never came home.
[Detective 1] First of all,
I'm very sad that this child died.
But when I first saw you in there,
I knew something was wrong.
You know something is wrong.
No, Sir, I don't.
- You know something is wrong. - No, Sir, I don't.
If I bring you pictures,
if I beat you half to death like that little child was beat,
I bet you, you'd die to!
Sir, I did not beat my daughters.
No?
I'm not that cruel.
What are all those bruises on your little child?
[Detective 2] Thing is that I got a mom,
you can clearly see here,
who doesn't know who did that.
Yeah. "It wasn't me.
"I didn't cause her death."
[door closes]
Okay, Melissa...
My name's Victor Escalon.
[Melissa] Basically what they were doing
is they were trying to...
make me admit that I was
the one responsible for her fall.
And I kept telling them
that I hadn't hurt my daughter,
and they were very vulgar.
Very...
Very rough, very, um...
resistant.
They wanted me to admit to something that I was not
capable of doing to my child.
And, um...
The interrogation continued
for maybe six...
six, seven hours,
until 3 o'clock in the morning.
[Victor Escalon] Set it straight.
It looks like capital murder.
Right now, it looks like you're a coldblooded killer.
- Are you a killer? - No.
Or were you a frustrated mom who took it out on her?
[Detective 1] We know somebody did it.
We're trying to find out who did it.
If it wasn't you,
I don't think somebody crept in there at night
and went up to her and singled her out,
so he could bite her back.
- [sniffles] - Melissa, look, it happens.
Okay, we all make mistakes.
We all make mistakes. We all get upset.
We already know what happened.
We already know.
They just kept
pointing fingers at me
and threatening me, and telling me
I was gonna spend the rest of my life in prison
and that I wouldn't see the rest of my children grow up
and get married.
You know, they just kept throwing so many words at me.
And I just told them,
I'm responsible for Mariah's bruises.
They wanted to hear something. I mean...
I was not gonna admit to
causing her death because I wasn't responsible.
In the end,
they left the room, the detectives.
There was 3 detectives and the ranger.
They left the room.
They left me in
the interrogation room by myself.
And I could hear them out in the hallway
deciding what to charge me with.
If they should charge me with injury to a child
or capital murder.
They couldn't decide.
[Victor Escalon] Ready.
- You gonna hold it like that? - Yeah.
- Is it better that way? - Uh, yeah.
'Cause I guess we're gonna be moving around, so.
- Ready? - Mm-hm.
- Say when. - Go.
- Melissa? - Huh?
Okay.
Today's date is 2/18/2007. It is 3 AM.
We are here at the Harlingen Police Department.
I am here with Melissa Lucio.
My name is Victor Escalon with the Texas Rangers.
I am also in this room
with Officer Harlingen Police Detective Javier Villareal.
[Dr. Pinkerman] She's being interrogated
without having any water.
I don't know if they had a bathroom break.
And she didn't have anything to eat the whole day.
Those are circumstances
that are conducive to getting people to confess.
Here's a woman who has acquiesced
to the most horrific stuff
by men in her life, since the age of seven.
And has shown very little assertion
against adult males in her life.
And, um...
now is grieving for the death of her daughter.
And, um...
is in a sense,
caving in to the whole process of the interrogation.
She also has in her psychological make-up
a sense of disassociation.
Disassociation is almost like entering a hypnotic state
where you just shut down.
And that's what abuse victims do all the time.
That's how they survive
from childhood on.
The trauma's overwhelming, their defenses get overwhelmed.
Their ability to cope is overwhelmed,
and they just start folding in on themselves.
What did you do?
- Show me. - I was combing her hair.
[Dr. Pinkerman] Using the doll, they asked her to show them
how the child was struck.
And you can see that her mind is working.
- Did she make you mad? - Uh-uh.
Then why'd you do it?
I just did it.
[Dr. Pinkerman] You can see the wheels turning
with her to say:
"Well, if indeed I did it,
"this is how I must've done it.
"I'm gonna just go with it,
and I'll comply, and I'll show you."
I don't think she's showing them actual behavior that she did.
[intriguing music]
[Judge's gavel]
[Margaret Schmucker] One they decided the mom did it,
they put blinders on,
and that was the end of the investigation.
I don't think they played the whole
six or seven hours of her interrogation for the jury.
I think they just played the last part of it.
Anything deemed a confession
by someone who'd abused a child to death
would have an enormous impact on the jury.
Most trial attorneys
would have filed what's called
a Pretrial Motion to Suppress a Statement.
And would have brought in an expert
during a motion hearing
to testify that it was in fact a false confession.
That it was coerced.
I thought it was odd that in a capital murder case
there was no effort to suppress a statement like that.
[birds chirping]
[Melissa] "It's hard to wake up every morning
"in this same old ugly cage.
"It's hard to get along with these people full of rage.
"It's hard to move ahead when the clock is running slow.
"It's hard to have so many questions
with answers I don't know.
"It's hard to think I'm smart when I lost everything so fast.
"It's hard to think about the future
when I'm still stuck in the past.
"It's hard to feel their love when my family is so far.
"It's hard to forget about the mistakes
when they've left so many scars.
"It's hard to move on when in life I have no role.
"With everything being so hard, you'd think I'd just give up.
"But the only thing about being in the bottom
"is that the only way is up."
[intriguing music]
I'd never been arrested before, I'd never been incarcerated.
So I didn't know what to expect.
All I knew was that
somehow, someway,
I would be able to go back home
and be reunited with my children.
I went to court for my arraignment,
and I hadn't yet met my attorney. I didn't know...
if I even had an attorney yet.
So when I sat down at the table,
probably 10-15 minutes later Mr. Gilman comes in,
sits next to me and he, uh, introduces himself to me.
And he tells me his name is Mr. Gilman,
and he's gonna be my Defense Attorney.
The DA had come to him
and offered him, told him to offer me 30 years.
And...
I said no right away because I wasn't guilty.
I felt that:
"Why should I take 30 years
"when I'm not the one that caused my daughter's death?"
So...
He said:
"Miss Lucio, how old are you right now?"
and I said: "I'm 38."
He says: "Look at the good side,
if you take 30 years, you'll be 68 when you come out,"
[sniffles] and you'll be able to see your children again."
And I said: "I'm not gonna take 30 years,
"I'm not guilty."
When I spoke to my sister,
and I asked her about the 30 years, she said:
"Don't take it.
"There has to be somebody on that jury
that has to believe you.
"You know, you had all these kids, you were moving.
"You know, you couldn't keep up with them.
"And this was an accident."
So I believed her and I took this to trial.
I figured my children would be able to testify,
that they would be able to get on that stand.
And I know that they would.
They would come out and say the truth.
And he didn't want to.
He told me no because
he didn't know what the prosecutors had
in store for them.
And he didn't want them to try to manipulate them,
and they'd probably get confused by what they were being asked.
And he felt that it wasn't...
There wasn't a need for my children
to be on the stand.
[Diane] Peter Gilman,
he never talked to us, he didn't acknowledge us.
We were nobody.
You would think that an attorney that is, uh...
trying to defend your sister,
he would wanna know something about us. And never, never.
Nobody spoke on her behalf, nobody.
My mom... Why didn't my mom get up there?
My mom is her mother,
that person that gave birth to her, that knew her.
Her children.
Nobody!
Nobody.
Her friends or people...
You know, did they even care to ask people that knew her?
Her tenants or anybody that lived around her?
Nobody. There was nobody on her behalf.
Nobody.
[intriguing music]
[Margaret Schmucker] The state's case was bad.
There's nothing that any of those people
could have said
that would have presented a worse case
than what the jury saw anyways.
I don't think he had a strategy.
I think he left a lot of evidence on the table
that he could have brought in.
In her affidavit, the mitigation specialist,
a woman by the name of Norma Villanueva,
who had been hired by the Defense Attorney,
explained that she was denied access to the kids
until very late in the process.
And when she finally was able to talk to some of them,
um, there was an indication
that one of the daughters, Alexandra, had admitted to her
that she was responsible for Mariah falling down the stairs.
This was brought to Pete Gilman's attention
in a team meeting for the Defense Council,
and she was told that the information
was not to be conveyed
to anyone outside...
the room.
That she was not to repeat it,
and it was not to be discussed at all.
Mr. Gilman then did not bring that information
before the jury during Melissa's trial at all.
[Daniella] We went to speak to my mom's lawyer.
My Aunt Sonya and I were in the room.
There was something I wanted to tell him.
I saw Alex bang Mariah's head onto the ground.
And with no feelings. She didn't care what she did.
She didn't care that she hurt Mariah the way she did.
So yes, there are those two important people I told.
And I'm pretty sure that Mr. Gilman wrote it down,
but he never brought it up, and nothing.
[intriguing music]
Mariah really was terrified of Alex.
Because Alex was real mean to her.
So I know that a lot of the bruises and marks
were from Alexandra.
She was real mean to Mariah.
I told my mom: "Let's visit Melissa without the kids.
"We're not taking the kids."
So it was just me and my mom.
So I get there, Melissa comes out with a smile.
And she sat there.
And I ask her: "Melissa, I'm gonna ask you something.
"I'm gonna ask you something.
"But don't answer me, just nod your head yes or no."
I know my mom turned around
'cause I had discussed it with my mom.
And I told her: "Would Alex hit Mariah?"
And she just stared at me.
She didn't say yes, she didn't say no.
She just put her hand here, and she put her head down,
and she started to cry.
"Well, that's all you had to tell me, Melissa."
Because what mother's gonna admit?
She didn't admit it to me,
but her actions told me everything.
[keys jangling] [intriguing music]
[door slams shut]
My daughter Alexandra,
she hated Mariah.
She hated Mariah because Mariah was...
not her sister.
Mariah was from another man, and, um...
She basically told me she didn't love Mariah,
and that she was never gonna love Mariah.
On several occasions, I saw...
bruises on Mariah.
I had a clue that they were done by Alex.
I admitted to causing Mariah's bruises.
I admitted that so I could protect my daughter Alexandra.
I figured that
if I said that I did it, [sniffles]
they wouldn't do anything to Alex.
[intriguing music]
My name is Alexandra Marie.
I am Melissa Lucio's daughter.
[baby coos]
I didn't really have a bond with Mariah
because I didn't know her.
I guess I can say I didn't feel like
she was my sibling.
I didn't hit her, no. I mean like not in a forceful way.
I mean maybe like a spanking because we'd be the ones
to discipline our little sisters.
We'd spank them if they didn't listen
or if our parents were out,
because, you know, they used to be doing...
or using, you know, drugs.
But not like what I know my family has said
or what everybody else thinks or says.
I don't remember saying
that I pushed her
or she fell down the stairs and I was responsible for it.
No.
[intriguing music]
[breathes deeply]
Right in here.
Mariah, she was two years old.
To be honest with you, I probably saw her
three or four times
since she was born.
She always had little horsetails.
She had short hair, but she had her little horsetails.
I wish I would have known her.
[sighs]
We were very united
and
we still unite, but it's not the same.
It's not the same without Melissa.
[exhales]
It haunts me
because I know that she was railroaded.
And this was nothing but a damn kangaroo court.
And it would not surprise me, if within 18 months,
that we have a death date.
My name is LinMarie Garsee.
I'm a licensed Private Investigator
and Mitigation Specialist.
I worked on Melissa Lucio's appeals.
[GPS] In 1 mile,
take a slight right turn onto Saint Johns Road.
Right here's where I picked up those papers for Melissa.
Gilman's office, right here.
I just don't believe that he wanted anybody
to review them.
Or to, um...
To look at this work.
Because if he did,
he would have been a lot more forthcoming.
And he definitely was not.
I think the guy knew that he sabotaged her case,
so bad,
that he didn't want anybody to come back,
and rework it, reinvestigate it.
My gut told me it was all messed up.
That every bit of it was messed up.
[intriguing music]
This is the Cameron County courthouse,
the district courthouse.
This where Melissa was tried.
A lot of the folks still work here.
Gilman is here, he's up there on the 3rd floor.
When I went to see Peter Gilman,
I caught him in the courtroom.
I introduced myself. I told him I was a Private Investigator.
And he said: "I don't hire any of those anymore."
And I said: "I reckon you don't.
"But um, I was working on the Melissa Lucio case."
And he goes: "Oh, that's all done. That's over.
"I won't talk about that."
I said: "Would you tell me if you knew about
"that Alex is the one
"that really pushed that baby down those stairs?"
"No, I'm... No."
I said: "You knew about it, Peter."
I said: "Because it was in your notes."
And he says: "Why would I ruin a teenager's life?
He said: "She had her whole life ahead of her."
He said: "She's not my client, anyways."
And I'm like:
"No, but Melissa was your client.
"Why would you send her to death row
"when you've been told by witnesses
"that she didn't do this?"
"We're not gonna discuss this anymore.
I'm done discussing this case."
And he just scooted me right on out the door.
[intriguing music]
Common sense if you connect the dots.
It does look a little bit peculiar.
I think it was done on purpose.
I think he was looking for a better job.
Because immediately after her case ended
and she went to death row,
he was hired down at the DA's office,
making more money than those who had already been there.
My name is Peter Gilman.
I was Melissa Lucio's attorney in 2007.
If anybody would have told me
that I was gonna go work for the DA,
I'd laugh and say you're crazy.
When I met Melissa Lucio, she was very reserved,
very docile.
She was... Didn't have much expression.
She just kinda blankly looked at me.
It was just very difficult
to try and defend somebody
that didn't seem to want
a Defense Attorney there.
Or that everything was gonna be alright.
And she just didn't feel like she had to say much of anything.
[intriguing music]
She was not a good mother.
Did she kill her child? I don't know.
There were children saying
that their sister had fallen down the stairs.
The question was: Was she pushed?
Uh, where was mom?
What happened?
[intriguing music]
I remember talking
to all of the other kids. But I never had a feeling
that they could tell me anything as to what happened.
I didn't feel like any of the children would be helpful.
The children did not have much discipline, if any, growing up.
And I doubt seriously whether
they would come across in a courtroom
without getting up and running around thinking this is great.
To try and get these children to sit still long enough
to talk to you
and give you some idea as to what happened,
they couldn't do that.
I just think the jury would be
upset and turned off.
You don't wanna get your jury upset
with anything that you're doing.
[Interviewer] Did you hear that one of the daughters
was abusive to Mariah?
[stutters]
That kind of sounds right.
I... I don't remember, I don't have my file any longer.
Um, no, I don't remember.
Every information that we had available to us
we tried to use.
We listened to them and we did whatever we could.
We had nothing to lose in hindsight,
[stutters]
and maybe we couldn't do any worse.
So we could've maybe.
But would we have saved her life more?
No, I don't know.
[birds chirping]
[Michelle] How do you feel about seeing your mom?
[Bobby] Um, scared.
I mean and excited, you know.
I haven't seen her in a while.
So you know, it's just these mixed emotions.
How old were you when you last saw her?
Maybe eight or nine.
It's been a long time.
[somber music]
"Dear Mom,
"I remember when I was younger, I was the tallest in my class.
"I'm so short now, it's not even funny.
"What happened?" [chuckles]
"I know it must be lonely not having anyone to talk to,
"and I just think that me writing to you
"will bring some light where there is darkness.
"We all love you, Mom.
"Just because we all don't write to you
"doesn't mean we don't think about you.
"Adriana and Sara,
"they have your drawings hung up in their room.
"I keep all your birthday cards.
"We've all dealt with what happened in our own way.
"I'm not gonna say it wasn't hard growing up,
because it was.
"Not knowing if you were okay or if you were eating.
"I wanna be a lawyer because of you and our situation.
"But I don't think I'll be able to handle it.
"I don't think I'm good enough.
"I hope and pray you get your innocence.
"If it doesn't go through, and you get the death penalty,
"I want you to know that you're loved.
"But not only by Grandma or Sonya or the rest,
"but by your children.
"Bobby."
[Michelle] She was really surprised.
[Bobby] She was. She got all shocked.
I was just really nervous.
Then whenever we got to the gate, I was calming down.
Though whenever I saw her,
and she was all surprised, I got happy.
And I was like: "It's my mom."
Nothing has changed.
It was nice, I liked it.
Yeah.
She's still the same, the way she's always been.
She's...
Asking about everybody, Rene, Richard, all her kids.
She's missed out on a lot with you
and your brothers and sisters,
and, you know.
It's even harder
when she doesn't get to hear from you all.
You know, so.
[stutters]
She depends on other people
to tell her how her kids are doing.
We'll come again to see her soon.
Mm-hm.
[intriguing music]
[Melissa] When the jury came back
and said that they found me guilty,
I was shocked.
But I was confused.
I was confused. I...
Even though I did hear the word "guilty",
I didn't wanna accept it.
I think I could... [stutters]
The best way to describe it is I felt like I was in a dream
and that I will wake up and I will be at home with my kids.
And, uh...
Of course the reporters were there, everybody was there,
my family.
You know, everybody was screaming and crying,
and they led me out from the courtroom
and they took me back to my cell.
I remember, uh, I slept.
I... I just tried to block out
everything that had happened in that courtroom.
[Sonya] This trial was
a circus.
There's no other way of explaining it.
The jury laughs with the prosecution,
they're laughing with the judge.
And Melissa's sitting there crying,
you know, tearing.
We're watching all that.
How... That is just bizarre.
They jumped for joy
when Melissa was given the death penalty.
[Diane] Nobody was surprised.
It was something they already expected.
Like if it was something that was planned.
It was all just laughs and like a high-five.
And you know, it was just...
Everybody was happy
that she got the death penalty. That she was found guilty.
[Melissa] There was a lot going on.
It was, you know, during the election time,
and Armando Villalobos
was running again for DA, so....
He wanted to make sure that I was convicted.
I'm the first Hispanic woman on death row.
So this was a huge case for him.
[intriguing music]
[Margaret Schmucker] In Texas you have to prove
you're hard on crime
in order to get reelected as a District Attorney.
While Texas has quite a few people on death row,
the vast majority of them are men.
Um, it would have been the first time in many years
that the Cameron County DA's office
prosecuted a woman for a capital murder.
So that would have made for great press.
I'm Armando Villalobos, Cameron Country DA,
and this is my office. [cell door closes]
Last year, we worked on 26,000 cases
with a staff of 100 people,
and a budget of 5 million dollars.
[cell door closes]
We've finalized over 10,000 cases.
As a prosecutor, I deal in facts.
And the fact is I need your vote
to help me see that justice is done in Cameron County.
[Margaret Schmucker] The DA's office
was getting hammered in the media for having let
an individual who pled guilty to a murder,
literally walk out of the court house free.
So when you have someone who pled guilty
to committing murder,
and you've allowed them to walk out of the court house
and just disappear.
That obviously is not going to look very good
to your voting constituents.
Um, you're gonna get blasted in the media.
And you're gonna need to do something
to rehabilitate your public image
in order to get reelected.
And so you're going to take the first opportunity
to come your way.
And it just so happened
that five days later Mariah died.
Melissa, she was a prime target.
She was an easy mark.
Somebody that the DA's office felt that they could take down.
And they had a poor, poorly educated mother
who looked for all the world like she was responsible.
[dramatic music]
My name is Michael Wynne.
I was an Assistant United States Attorney
and the lead prosecutor against Armando Villalobos.
Bribery was endemic.
Armando Villalobos
profited from the place he was in,
and that is in the middle of a drug cartel.
The drugs would go north, the money would come south,
in return for a cut of the seized money.
He'd be compensated for, um...
favorable treatment in criminal cases.
Lesser pleadings,
not revoking probations,
but also that he used his strong arm and his influence
to get his way in the community.
And that many people were intimidated by him.
So if you didn't have the resources
then you're subject to whatever sentence
the District Attorney decides to meet out.
Which also sends a lesson to everybody else
that you better get an attorney who plays ball.
[intriguing music]
He was a rising political star.
He was running for Congress,
and had every intention of winning.
So I made it my mission to stop him.
What struck me about him
was the number of cases where he personally
came in and took over.
It is a very, very catholic area,
and appealing to that demographic
is key to any type of political success.
[Church bell rings]
A case involving potential abuse of a child,
alleged sexual misconduct,
those are the cases
that Mr. Villalobos would take on.
Uh, try to put his face in front
as the crusader for justice.
There are several cases
where Mr. Villalobos put people on death row.
And yes, every single one of those cases
should be examined.
[soft music]
[Alfredo Padilla] The case was defended well,
all fair and impartial.
Cameron Country jurors made a decision
based on the evidence, and the evidence alone.
If she was executed?
The system worked, that's what the law allows.
She had her opportunity,
she had her defense, her appeals.
The appeals is a long appeal process.
Look, it was 10 years ago.
She was given the option of doing 30 years and come out,
and she chose not to.
Don't blame the system, don't blame the attorneys,
because ultimately, it was her decision to make, you know.
And in my opinion, and this is my own opinion,
if she was arrogant enough not to think, well you know,
"They won't put me in prison,
"I'm gonna explain my way out of it or whatever",
then she has nobody to blame but herself.
She has nobody to blame but herself.
You know, people say:
"She shouldn't be there, or you know."
She put herself there.
Whose fault is it?
Whose fault is it that she's there, if it's not hers?
[intriguing music]
My name is Thomas Young.
I am a forensic pathologist.
The appellate attorney contacted me,
and I was asked to review the evidence
and the autopsy findings on the case involving Mariah.
According to witnesses who were there,
the child had fallen down the stairs.
There are witnesses who didn't see
any bruising on the child
shortly after the fall,
or even some period of time afterward.
But then as time went on,
these bruises started to show up,
they started to develop.
The bruising is the result of brain injury.
There are scientific explanations:
The brain falls apart,
there are substances that are released into the bloodstream
that will cause a cascade of reactions.
Even previous injuries will start to become unmasked.
All of a sudden, that's going to start showing up.
And even minor movement
and motion and handling of the child
will all of a sudden start to develop
lots and lots of bruises.
Because the child's not clotting anymore.
Even lying down on the bed,
just from the contact of the bed with the skin,
can cause bruises in this kind of a situation.
[soft music]
What the doctor did in this case:
She saw a horribly bruised child,
and she concluded that this had to be child abuse.
That's what she did.
This kind of situation here where a doctor does an autopsy,
concludes there's child abuse.
Something that nobody ever witnessed or saw
or even had any evidence of.
The doctor telling the police,
and then the police obtaining a confession and making a case.
This sort of problem happens all the time.
Uh, lots of people get locked in jail for it.
And it's a tragedy.
It's a tragedy.
[intriguing music]
[Diane] It's hard to imagine she's sitting there
behind four walls,
day after day,
month after month,
for over ten years.
I haven't written to her,
I would say for about seven years.
Yeah.
I just try to...
block out that she's... where she's at.
I have to keep living. I have a family of mine own.
She's there. We know she's there.
We're grateful that she's still alive,
but we try to block it
because nobody knows how we feel,
nobody walks in our shoes.
You can say: "You haven't written? She's your sister."
But sitting down, starting... We've started letters.
I'm sure she's started a letter, and it's hard to finish.
Where do you start? Where do you end?
What do you say in between all that time you haven't written?
And I know it's...
Maybe a letter that just says hi, she'd appreciate.
But it's like opening up
our wounds.
Nobody knows what we've been through,
what we suffered.
[sniffles]
How hard it is for us to know
that she's on death row when she shouldn't be.
And yet there's nobody to set her free.
She doesn't belong there.
But yet we need to continue to live.
[somber music]
[Melissa] What I miss about the outside world:
sitting at the kitchen table with all my children,
eating my food,
telling me: "Mom, I want some more."
That's my memory.
I always sit down and think about all my children
at the kitchen table eating
and saying: "Yum, this is delicious, Mom."
You know, just being able
to see their expression on their faces,
and just hear them call me,
call my name out.
Just being able to hold them,
and smell their hair. Their body scent is just...
something that I miss a lot.
[kids laugh]
The getting together with family,
being able to go dancing,
being able to spend time with my mom.
The traffic, the cars,
the people, the music...
[birds chirping]
...the birds chirping,
just the smell of nature,
the smell of fresh cut grass.
So many things
that I took for granted.
If I was out there, I would have my children with me.
I'm not afraid.
I know that one day we will be reunited again.