Who is Melissa Lucio, the Texas woman just granted a stay of execution?
Melissa Lucio, the Texas woman sentenced to die this week, has been granted a stay of execution after a new court ruling on Monday.
Lucio was scheduled to be executed Wednesday for murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, in 2007. Lucio was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 2008.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent the case back to a trial court to review claims of Lucio’s innocence, meaning Lucio will not be executed this week.
“I am grateful the court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence,” Lucio said in statement to the Innocence Project. “Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren. I will use my time to help bring them to Christ. I am deeply grateful to everyone who prayed for me and spoke out on my behalf.”
Here’s what we know about Lucio and her case.
Who is Melissa Lucio?
Lucio, 53, was born in Lubbock, Texas, on July 18, 1968.
She is the mother of 14 children, including Mariah, and was last employed as a janitor.
Lucio’s life was “beset by tragedy, abuse, and unthinkable trauma from an early age,” according to court documents submitted by her attorneys. Lucio was raped by one of her mother’s boyfriends when she was 6 years old, after Lucio’s father left her mother.
The sexual abuse continued for two more years, and Lucio’s siblings were abusive to her as she grew up, according to court documents.
Her mother and mother’s boyfriend consented to Lucio dropping out of high school at 16 to get married. At the same age, court documents say, Lucio’s husband’s sister introduced her to cocaine.
By the time Lucio was 24, she had five children with her husband, who was “a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic.” Her husband left Lucio in 1994 when she was 26.
Lucio’s second husband, Robert Alvarez, was the father to seven more of her children, including Mariah. Alvarez, like Lucio’s first husband, was abusive, including punching her in a park where the family was living after becoming homeless, according to court documents.
In September 2004, Child Protective Services placed seven of Lucio and Alvarez’s children in foster care. Just over two years later, the children were returned to their care in November 2006.
What was Lucio convicted of?
In 2007, emergency responders arrived at Lucio’s apartment after the mother found Mariah unresponsive in the bedroom where she was sleeping.
Mariah wasn’t breathing, and her body was covered in bruises, according to the Texas Tribune. A medical examiner’s findings stated that Mariah had been severely beaten and ruled that her death was caused by blunt force trauma.
The evidence led to police believing Lucio murdered Mariah. She was arrested on Feb. 17, 2007, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Lucio’s attorneys recount a different story in court documents they filed against the state.
According to the documents, Lucio’s family was moving apartments and Mariah fell down a flight of stairs on Feb. 15, 2007, two days before her death. Mariah was found to have only a minor injury from the fall. When first-responders arrived at the home on Feb. 17, Lucio told them about the incident two days prior and how Mariah “had appeared healthy and uninjured since then.”
Why are supporters calling for the execution to be stopped?
Lucio’s attorneys say she was coerced into a confession after a lengthy late-night interrogation, where her history of sexual and physical abuse made her vulnerable to the officers’ tactics.
Her attorneys also claim that Lucio was not able to present her defense during the trial and that testimony from two of her expert witnesses was deemed irrelevant and excluded by the trial judge.
Along with pleas from Lucio’s children and attorneys, several Texas lawmakers have called for her execution be stopped. State Reps. Jeff Leach and Joe Moody met with Lucio earlier this month.
“We are blessed to have the opportunity to meet with Melissa, to pray with her, to spend time with her and we’re more resolute and committed than ever to fighting over the next three weeks to save her life,” Leach told the Associated Press.
Leach, a Republican, and Moody, a Democrat, are leading a bipartisan effort of 83 Texas House members seeking the execution to be stopped or her sentence commuted. The group sent letters to Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott.
Five of the 12 jurors who convicted Lucio in 2008 have questioned their decision in the case and have asked for a new trial, according to the Associated Press.
What happens next?
Other appeals in Lucio’s case are ongoing.
Abbott has the power to grant Lucio clemency. When asked about it in late March, the governor said he would “make a decision once it comes to me,” according to KRGV. Abbott added that he was awaiting a decision by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
If executed, Lucio would be the first Latina put to death in Texas and the first woman since 2014.
Other scheduled executions in Texas
Texas executed its oldest death row inmate last week. Carl Wayne Buntion was 78.
Three more executions are scheduled in Texas later this year:
- Ramiro Gonzales on July 13 after being convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman before fatally shooting her in 2001.
- Kosoul Chanthakoummane on Aug. 17 after being convicted of killing a woman in 2006.
- John Henry Ramirez on Oct. 5 after being convicted of robbing and killing a man in 2004.
Stephen Barbee from Fort Worth got a stay on his execution last year after a judge said the Department of Criminal Justice was violating his religious rights by not allowing a religious advocate to be in the room, with physical contact, while being executed.
This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 2:44 PM.
