‘SYSTEM LITERALLY FAILED HER’
MELISSA Lucio spends her days on death row in Gatesville, Texas, knitting blankets for her prison guards, trying to teach herself to crochet and praying for justice. Lucio, 53, who was convicted of killing her two-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez, in 2007, is scheduled to be executed on Wed., April 27. But an army of defenders, including Kim Kardashian, “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver and activist Amanda Knox — who was herself wrongly convicted of killing her roommate in Italy in 2007 — are demanding clemency.
They claim Lucio is innocent: a victim of a corrupt prosecutor, aggressive and sloppy police tactics, and a botched defense that ignored key medical evidence and her own history as an impoverished, battered mother of 14 children.
“We are on the verge of sending a woman to an execution based on false and misleading medical evidence,” said Vanessa Potkin, Director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project, a New York-based non-profit that works to free the innocent. The group took up Lucio’s case in January.
“It’s egregious to be in a situation where we are days away from execution and there was never any credible evidence to convict her,” Potkin told The Post.
Earlier this month, Kardashian posted a letter addressed to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is scheduled to rule on Lucio’s appeal on Monday, on her Twitter account, which has 72.1 million followers. The letter, which pleads with Texas authorities to spare Lucio’s life, was signed by 11 of Lucio’s children.
“There are so many unresolved questions surrounding this case and the evidence that was used to convict her,” tweeted Kardashian.
Kardashian successfully pushed to free Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence on a drug charge. Johnson’s sentence was commuted by former President Donald Trump in 2018, after she had spent 22 years in prison for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense.
If a majority of the board votes for clemency, Abbott can stop the execution.
‘The system literally failed her’
Last month, a leading forensic pediatric pathologist who reviewed Mariah’s autopsy reports noted in a bombshell court statement that “the investigation into Mariah’s death appears to have been significantly prejudiced, not evidence based and without an adequate consideration of alternative issues.”
Janice Ophoven, who is based in Minnesota, has backed up Lucio’s claim that Mariah died from complications from a fall down steep stairs, and her death had “nothing to do with intentional force.” Mariah, who had also had a medical disorder that caused bruising, was not a victim of child abuse as a Texas medical examiner argued at Lucio’s trial, court papers say.
But Lucio was convicted of capital murder in 2008 and sentenced to death. Her conviction was upheld on appeal three years later. A panel of Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judges ruled in 2019 that Lucio had been denied the opportunity to present a proper defense
Now, at least five jurors who convicted Lucio at her initial trial have come forward to demand a halt to her execution, based on evidence that was not presented at the hearing.
“I was disheartened to learn that there was additional evidence that was not presented at trial,” wrote Melissa Quintanilla, the foreperson
on Lucio’s jury. “I believe that Ms. Lucio deserves a new trial and for a new jury to hear this evidence. Knowing what I know now, I don’t think she should be executed.”
Dozens of Texas lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — have also rallied behind Lucio. Rep Jeff Leach, a Republican who heads up the Texas House of Representatives’ Criminal Justice Reform Committee, called Lucio’s case “troubling and shocking“in a statement to CNN earlier this month.
“The system literally failed her at every turn.” Leach said.
Melissa Elizabeth Correa was born into a life “shaped by physical, emotional and sexual abuse” in Lubbock, Texas, on July 18, 1968, according to a February report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has also called for her to be spared the death penalty.
By the time she was 6, Lucio was sexually abused by her mother’s partner, and later by an uncle. The verbal and physical attacks continued after she married her first husband, 20-year-old Guadalupe Lucio, at the age of 16.
The couple moved to Houston, far from family and friends in southern Texas. Guadalupe, an alcoholic and a drug dealer, abused Lucio repeatedly, according to court papers. Lucio’s sister-in-law introduced her to cocaine while she was still 16. A year later, Lucio had her first miscarriage, although she eventually gave birth to five children with Guadalupe.
By the age of 23, Lucio found herself raising her children on her own after Guadalupe abandoned her, according to court filings. The family struggled with substance abuse and extreme poverty. Lucio and her boyfriend Robert Antonio Alvarez moved 26 times between 1994 and 2007 because they were unable to pay rent or utilities, according to court papers. Electricity and running water were routinely cut off, and at various times the family — now comprised of 12 children — used a neighbor’s hose to fill a trash can with water for baths and to wash dishes.
Alvarez was abusive to both Lucio and the children, according to police reports and court filings viewed by The Post.
“He punched her. He threw beer bottles at her head. He kicked her with his steel-toed boots. He spit on her. He dragged her by her hair. He pushed her, knocking her head against the wall. He raped her repeatedly,” court papers say.
But in early 2007, Lucio’s life seemed to take a turn for the better. Pregnant with twins, she had a steady job as a janitor. Regular drug tests, administered a week before Mariah died, showed that Lucio was drug free. The family was excited about the move to a new home, and the mother was busy packing up the family’s possessions when she noticed that her youngest daughter had gone missing.
The child, who had trouble walking and suffered developmental delays since birth, had fallen down the apartment’s 14 steep outdoor stairs
“Melissa gave thanks that Mariah did not appear to be seriously injured,” court papers say. “Tragically, Mariah had in fact suffered internal injuries and would deteriorate over the next two days.”
After the family moved into their new apartment, Mariah was congested, had been sleeping excessively and refused to eat. When she stopped breathing on Feb. 17, 2007, Lucio called 911. Mariah died soon after.
‘The autopsy was so biased’
Lucio’s nightmare started with the arrival of emergency services. When she told a paramedic that the child had fallen down the stairs two days earlier, he immediately became suspicious, noting that there were very few stairs in the apartment. The fall had occurred at the old apartment but this fact was never entered into evidence.