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,” she told The Post.
Melissa Lucio has been on death row since 2008.Ilana Panich-Linsman/Redux
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, non-violent drug offense.
Kim Kardashian has pleaded with Texas authorities to spare Lucio’s life.AFP/Getty Images
If a majority of the board votes for clemency, Abbott can stop the execution.
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.
A leading forensic pediatric pathologist has backed up Lucio’s claim that her daughter died from complications from a fall down steep stairs.Ilana Panich-Linsman/Redux
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.”
Kardashian pushed for the successful release of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence on a first-time drug charge.NBC News
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.
Lucio is the mother of 14 children.Courtesy of Innocence Project
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.
Her boyfriend was abusive to both Lucio and the children, according to police reports and court filings.Courtesy of Innocence Project
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.
While Child Protective Services had visited Lucio’s home, there was no mention within the agency’s 1,000 pages of documents of her abusing her children.Courtesy of Innocence Project
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.
Mariah Alvarez reportedly suffered from a blood coagulation disorder that caused bruising.Courtesy of Innocence Project
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.
“That’s when the tunnel vision kicks in and the case keeps building around unreliable evidence,” Potkin told The Post Wednesday. “Melissa was talking about the staircase that caused the accident at her previous apartment, but when the paramedic said he was suspicious, the presumption of guilt that led to her conviction began.”
During a five-hour marathon interrogation, Lucio yielded to an interrogator’s demands to confess “to ‘get it over with,’” court papers say.APWhat followed was a “marathon” five-hour interrogation of Lucio by multiple police officers and a Texas Ranger. Lucio denied hurting Mariah more than 100 times during the late night grilling as cops showed her pictures of her dead child. But interrogators reportedly refused to accept a response that was not an admission of guilt. Overwhelmed by shock and grief, Lucio “yielded to the interrogator’s demands to ‘get it over with,’” court papers say.
In more than 1,000 pages of reports from the state’s Child Protective Services, whose agents visited Lucio’s home over the years, there are no mentions of the mother abusing her children, according to her court file.
But the forced confession colored the autopsy results that led to her conviction, Lucio’s defenders say. The state’s medical examiner, Norma Jean Farley, was influenced by the homicide hypothesis and did not examine other factors that could have contributed to Mariah’s death, according to court papers. Farley concluded that Mariah’s injuries must have occurred 24 hours before her death, and that marks on her neck were human bites. She failed to take into account that Mariah suffered from a blood coagulation disorder that caused bruising throughout her body.
The autopsy was so biased by these unreliable statements that instead of considering the cause of injury and death, the medical examiner only reached conclusions that backed up murder
Vanessa Potkin, Director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project
“The autopsy was so biased by these unreliable statements that instead of considering the cause of injury and death, the medical examiner only reached conclusions that backed up murder,” Potkin said.
The push to convict Lucio was also driven by Armando Villalobos, the Cameron County District Attorney who was facing an election and under a great deal of pressure from voters about his perceived leniency on crimes against children. Villalobos is currently serving a 13-year federal sentence for bribery and extortion that occurred between 2006 and 2012.
“Villalobos and others were involved in a scheme to illegally generate income for themselves and others through a pattern of bribery and extortion, favoritism, improper influence, personal self-enrichment, self-dealing, concealment and conflict of interest,” according to a Department of Justice statement.
When Lucio was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2008, she lost custody of her children. She gave birth in prison to her twins, who were taken away, Potkin told The Post. Alvarez, Mariah’s father, was prosecuted only for “causing injury to a child by omission.” He received a four-year prison term, and is now free.
“There are so many aspects of this case that are egregious,” Potkin said, adding that Lucio feels “encouraged” by the recent groundswell of support and is proud of the advocacy of her children on her behalf.
“The death of our sister Mariah, and the prosecution of our parents tore our family apart,” says the letter to Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, signed by the children. “The wounds never fully healed. They probably never will.”