MELISSA LUCIO | Convicted of killing her 2yo daughter, Mariah, in 2007 | She had bruises, bite marks, a broken arm and was missing hair that had been pulled by the roots from her head | Lucio is one of 10 women on Texas death row | ALS

• Classification: Murderer

• Characteristics: Parricide

• Number of victims: 1

• Date of murder: February 17, 2007

• Date of arrest: Next day

• Date of birth: July 18, 1968 (age 55)

• Victim profile: Mariah Alvarez, 2 (her daughter)

• Method of murder: Beating (blunt-force trauma to the head)

• Location: Harlingen, Cameron County, Texas, USA

• Status: Sentenced to death on August 12, 2008ⁱ

Lucio was charged with capital murder for the death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah. A jury convicted Lucio of this offense, and the trial court sentenced Lucio to death pursuant to the jury’s answers to the special issues at the punishment phase. Lucio raises fourteen points of error on direct appeal. Finding no reversible error, we overrule these points of error and affirm the trial court’s judgment.

February 17, 2007, paramedics were dispatched to an apartment where Lucio lived with nine of her children and an adult male named Robert Alvarez, who was the father of at least seven of these children and whom Lucio referred to as her husband. One of the paramedics (Nester) testified that, when the paramedics entered the apartment, they found Mariah unattended and lying on her back in the middle of the floor not breathing and with no pulse. Nester observed that Lucio’s “distant” and not “overly distressed” behavior was “so far out of the ordinary” that he “put it into the report.” Nester also testified that he “noted the fact that [Lucio] was not–she wasn’t even within arm’s reach of the child much less trying to gasp [sic], hold her, or trying to do anything to hold them [sic].”

Lucio told police and paramedics at the scene that Mariah had fallen down some stairs. Mariah was transported to a hospital emergency room where she was pronounced dead. The condition of Mariah’s body indicated that she had been severely abused. There were bruises in various stages of healing covering her body, there were bite marks on her back. (The forensic pathologist, who conducted Mariah’s autopsy, testified that the bite marks on Mariah’s back could not be matched to anyone because “someone dragged their teeth across it.”) One of her arms had been broken probably about two to seven weeks before her death, and she was missing portions of her hair where it had been pulled out by the roots. The emergency room physician (Vargas) testified that this was the “absolute worst” case of child abuse that he had seen in his 30 years of practice. Vargas also testified that his emergency room visual and manual inspection of Mariah indicated no apparent signs of a head injury.

The chief forensic pathologist for Cameron and Hidalgo Counties (Farley), who conducted Mariah’s autopsy on Monday, February 19, 2007, testified that Mariah’s cause of death was “blunt force head trauma”, which would have occurred within 24 hours prior to her death, and it would have been immediately apparent that Mariah was in distress and in need of medical attention. Farley testified that Mariah suffered “multiple contusions” to her head area and that “blunt force head trauma … basically means, beat about the head with something–an object, a hand, a fist, or slammed”. Farley testified that these injuries would not have been caused by falling down some stairs and that this was the most severe case of child abuse she had ever seen.ⁱⁱ

During the trial, Lucio's recorded statements from her interrogation were described as a confession by Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos, who was seeking re-election at the time. A pathologist, Dr. Norma J. Farley, testified that the child’s autopsy indicated that she did not die from falling down stairs, and instead her injuries were consistent with a death from blunt force trauma. Additionally, court documents state that the emergency room physician said he had not seen a case of child abuse worse than Mariah's.

Lucio’s defense argued that Mariah's injuries were from falling down the stairs, and that Lucio's psychological functioning contributed to her conflicting reports given to authorities. Despite the defense's arguments, Lucio was found guilty of capital murder and later sentenced to death in 2008.

Lucio was pregnant with twins at the time of Mariah's death, and authorities compelled her to place them for adoption after delivering them while in jail. As of 2023, Lucio is being held on death row at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas.

In January 2022, Cameron County officials signed an execution warrant for Lucio. She was scheduled for execution on April 27, 2022. Lucio subsequently petitioned for clemency. If a majority of the Board of Pardons and Paroles were to recommend it, Governor Greg Abbott could grant clemency. The parole board was scheduled to vote on Lucio's clemency petition two days before the execution. In a March 2022 letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and to Governor Abbott, eighty-three members of the Texas House of Representatives, including both Democrats and Republicans, signed a letter stating that executing Lucio would be "a miscarriage of justice".

On April 25, 2022, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution and ordered the 138th Judicial District Court of Cameron County to consider new evidence of Lucio's innocence in the death of her daughter.

A 2020 documentary by Sabrina Van Tassel titled The State of Texas vs. Melissa follows Lucio's case. It played at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2020, and won best documentary at the Raindance Film Festival.

On March 6, 2022, in the main segment of an episode of the HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver called "Wrongful Convictions", her case was the main one to be mentioned as a reason for the reform of the American justice system and specifically, the abolition of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). On April 17, 2022, in the main segment of another episode, called "Police Interrogations", Lucio's case was mentioned again as having every hallmark of a false confession.ⁱⁱⁱ

• VIDEO: Melissa Lucio & Mariah Alvarez | JackieFlores | https://youtu.be/x7Jgw-dlbKE
  
• VIDEO: Melissa Lucio / State of Texas vs Melissa / Solved / True Crime | https://youtu.be/Il9Vvf9Nh_0

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