If no action is taken the only Hispanic woman on Texas' death row will be put to death one week from today. But the family and advocates of Melissa Lucio are fighting to stop her execution, arguing she was wrongfully convicted.
Calls for mercy have grown louder in recent days, including from Texas legislators on both sides of the aisle, and. Even some jurors in Lucio's state case now say her execution should be stopped or she should get a new trial based on evidence they did not hear.
That's how John, 32, describes the decade-and-a-half since his mother was found guilty and sentenced to death. But the last several months have been the most nerve-racking, he said, after the court set her execution date.It's a big family. Lucio had 12 children at the time of Mariah's death and then gave birth to twins while in prison.
Child Protective Services records from that time"tell a story of Melissa's love for the children, as well as her inability to care for them properly," according to Lucio's clemency petition. The home wasn't clean, there wasn't enough food, and the children didn't have enough supervision, those records show, per the petition. They struggled with homelessness.
In 2004, the seven youngest children were placed in foster care and split up among different homes -- due to neglect, her attorneys said in a court filing, not abuse. But Lucio worked to bring them back, getting a job and staying off drugs, the petition says. Eventually, the family was reunited in the fall of 2006.
Lucio soon realized Mariah was missing and found her daughter outside, crying at the bottom of the stairs. Her lip was bleeding, but the 2-year-old appeared not to be seriously injured, the petition says. "This critical misunderstanding set in motion an investigation plagued by tunnel vision," Lucio's petition says,"where the investigators continually assumed the worst about Melissa without investigating or considering alternatives.
"I don't know what you want me to say," she told investigators when asked for more details, per court documents."I'm responsible for it." Lucio's defense argued while she was guilty of"injury to a child" and failed to get Mariah timely medical treatment, she was not guilty of causing the injuries that led to her daughter's death. But the medical examiner who conducted the toddler's autopsy testified for the state that Mariah's injuries must have occurred within 24 hours of her death.
That psychologist and a social worker indicated they would have testified about what Lucio might have been going through immediately after Mariah's death and during the interrogation, and how that might have influenced her behavior and confession, according to court documents. Lucio's clemency petition similarly claims there are scientific explanations that explain Mariah's severe bruising, citing their medical experts who say there were signs Mariah suffered from a blood coagulation disorder known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC, which could explain the bruising seen on her body.
But once his mother's execution date was set, he felt he needed to set those ambitions aside and throw himself into raising awareness of his mother's case. John feels a responsibility to be his mother's advocate in the same way she was his, attending his own court dates when he was getting in trouble as a teenager.
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