Son of woman sentenced to death for ‘killing’ baby insists sibling’s death was ‘accident’ 

The son of a woman who was sentenced to death after she was found guilty of murdering her baby broke down in tears as he begged authorities not to ‘kill an innocent woman,’ insisting that his sibling’s death was an ‘accident.’

Melissa Lucio, 53, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 27 in Texas for the murder of her daughter Mariah in 2007 – but her son Bobby Alvarez is pleading with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to spare his mom’s life. 

Lucio – a domestic violence victim – has maintained that she is innocent, claiming she ‘falsely’ pleaded guilty to beating her two-year-old daughter to death following hours of police interrogation.

Her lawyers contend Mariah died from injuries obtained from a fall down the 14 steps outside the family’s apartment in the South Texas city of Harlingen.   

Now, Alvarez, who was seven when his sister died, has backed his mother’s claims and insisted that her death ‘was an accident.’

Melissa Lucio, 53, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 27 in Texas for the murder of her daughter Mariah in 2007. Melissa is pictured with Mariah before her death

But her son Bobby Alvarez (pictured) is now pleading with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to spare his mom’s life

Her other son John Lucio (pictured) said during a press conference, ‘I don’t want my mom to be executed,’ as he choked back sobs

‘If they go through with it, they’ll be killing an innocent woman,’ he told CBS Mornings.

When asked what it would mean to him to have his mom back with him if her execution was overturned, Bobby said it would be ‘everything.’

‘You know, it’s my mom. I even told her myself that I consider her my best friend,’ he added.

One of her other sons, John Lucio, added during a press conference, ‘I don’t want my mom to be executed,’ as he choked back sobs.

Lucio (pictured with some of her kids) has maintained she is innocent – claiming she ‘falsely’ pleaded guilty to beating her two-year-old daughter following hours of police interrogation

During five hours of relentless questioning, Lucio denied fatally beating the toddler more than 100 times.

But worn down from a lifetime of abuse and the grief of losing her daughter, her lawyers say, the Texas woman finally acquiesced to investigators at 3 A.M. on February 17, 2007. 

The decision to have her execution appealed lies in the hands of the Texas Governor, as well as the Board of Pardons and Parole, and the current Cameron County District Attorney, Luis V. Saenz.

Together, they said in a statement to CBS: ‘A jury of [Lucio’s] peers rendered to her a verdict. … We cannot allow the rule of law to be suspended and substituted by a court of public opinion.’

As the date of her upcoming execution nears, Alvarez said he is trying to enjoy every possible moment that he can have with his mother.

‘Right now, what I have is my family,’ he said. ‘That is what I cherish the most. So, I really try not to think about the future, because right now I have what I want.’

He got a special message to his mom tattooed onto his chest, ‘because, you know, it’s close to my heart,’ he told the outlet.

The ink reads: ‘I’ll always be with you, and here I’ll always stay.’ 

His pleas come just days after Kim Kardashian also spoke out and urged Governor Abbot to spare Lucio’s life. 

Her lawyers contend Mariah died from injuries obtained from a fall down the 14 steps outside the family’s apartment in the South Texas city of Harlingen

During five hours of relentless questioning, Lucio (pictured left with Mariah before her death) denied fatally beating the toddler more than 100 times

But worn down from a lifetime of abuse, her lawyers say, Lucio acquiesced to investigators at 3 A.M. in the morning on February 17, 2007. She is pictured during police questioning

‘It’s stories like Melissa’s that make me speak so loud about the death penalty in general and why it should be banned when innocent people are suffering,’ Kardashian said. 

‘I guess I did it,’ Lucio eventually said, when asked by police if she was responsible for some of Mariah’s injuries.

Her lawyers later claimed that statement was wrongly interpreted by prosecutors as a murder confession – tainting the rest of the investigation into Mariah’s death, with evidence gathered only to prove that conclusion, and helping lead to her capital murder conviction. 

Lucio, who has been on death row for more than 14 years now, had been sexually assaulted multiple times, starting at age 6, and had been physically and emotionally abused by two husbands.

Her lawyers said that this lifelong trauma made her susceptible to giving a false confession.

Lucio’s lawyers are hopeful that new evidence, along with growing public support – including from jurors who now doubt the conviction and from more than half the Texas House of Representatives – will persuade the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Abbott to grant an execution reprieve or commute her sentence. 

‘Mariah’s death was a tragedy not a murder… It would be an absolutely devastating message for this execution to go forward,’ said Vanessa Potkin, one of Lucio’s attorneys who is with the Innocence Project. 

‘It would send a message that innocence doesn’t matter.’ 

As the date of her upcoming execution nears, Alvarez said he is trying to enjoy every possible moment that he can with his mother, who is pictured at her trial in 2008

She also told CBS: ‘Over 100 times, she asserted her innocence. They refused to listen to her, sending the clear message that this interrogation wasn’t going to stop until she told the officers what they wanted to hear. 

‘Her so-called confession was the result of highly coercive interrogation tactics, some of which are so coercive that they’re no longer used today.’ 

After reading about Lucio’s case, Kardashian tweeted: ‘[Lucio] has been on death row for over 14 years for her daughter’s death that was a tragic accident.

His pleas come just days after Kim Kardashian also spoke out and urged Governor Abbot to spare Lucio’s life

‘Her 2-year-old daughter Mariah fell down a flight of stairs and two days later passed away while taking a nap.

‘After she called for help, she was taken into custody by the police. [Lucio] is a survivor of abuse and domestic violence herself and after being interrogated for hours and falsely pleaded guilty.

‘She wanted the interrogation to be stopped, but police made her words out to be a confession.’

‘She is scheduled to be executed on April 27 in Texas,’ the reality star added, as she urged the public to sign a petition by the Innocent Project in an effort to press Governor Abbott to stop Lucio’s execution.

Lucio’s lawyers claimed that jurors never heard forensic evidence that would have explained that Mariah’s various injuries were actually caused by a fall days earlier.

They also said Lucio wasn’t allowed to present evidence questioning the validity of her confession. 

However, the Texas Attorney General’s Office maintains that evidence shows Mariah suffered the ‘absolute worst’ case of child abuse her emergency room doctor had seen in 30 years. 

‘Lucio still advances no evidence that is reliable and supportive of her acquittal,’ the office wrote in court documents last month.  

Lucio (pictured leading a prayer group during a meeting with Texas lawmakers) had been sexually assaulted multiple times, and had been physically and emotionally abused

Lucio’s lawyers are hopeful that new evidence, along with growing public support will persuade the state’s Board of Pardons to grant an execution reprieve

The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Lucio, declined to comment. 

Lucio would be the first Latina executed by Texas and the first woman since 2014. 

Only 17 women have been executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on the death penalty in 1976, most recently in January 2021. 

In their clemency petition, Lucio’s lawyers said that while she had used drugs, leading her to temporarily lose custody of her children, she was a loving mother who worked to remain drug-free and provide for her family.

Lucio has 14 children and was pregnant with the youngest two when Mariah died.

Lucio and her children struggled through poverty. At times, they were homeless and relied on food banks for meals, according to the petition.

Child Protective Services was present in the family’s life, but there was never an accusation of abuse by any of her children, Potkin said.

In the 2020 documentary ‘The State of Texas vs. Melissa,’ Lucio said investigators kept pushing her to say she had hurt Mariah.

‘I was not gonna admit to causing her death because I wasn’t responsible,’ Lucio said.

Her lawyers stated that Lucio’s sentence was disproportionate to what her husband and Mariah’s father, Robert Alvarez, received.

He got a four-year sentence for causing injury to a child by omission even though he also was responsible for Mariah’s care, Lucio’s lawyers argued.

Lucio’s lawyers claimed jurors never heard forensic evidence that would have explained that Mariah’s injuries were caused by a fall days earlier. She is pictured during police questioning

However, the Texas Attorney General’s Office maintains that evidence shows Mariah suffered the ‘absolute worst’ case of child abuse her emergency room doctor had seen in 30 years

In 2019, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Lucio’s conviction, ruling she was deprived of ‘her constitutional right to present a meaningful defense.’

However, the full court in 2021 said the conviction had to be upheld for procedural reasons, ‘despite the difficult issue of the exclusion of testimony that might have cast doubt on the credibility of Lucio’s confession.’

Three jurors and one alternate in Lucio’s trial have signed affidavits expressing doubts about her conviction.

‘She was not evil. She was just struggling… If we had heard passionately from the defense defending her in some way, we might have reached a different decision,’ juror Johnny Galvan, who sentenced Lucio to death, wrote in an affidavit.

In their clemency petition, Lucio’s lawyers said that while she had used drugs, leading her to temporarily lose custody of her children, she was a loving mother who worked to remain drug-free and provide for her family

He also wrote that he was misled and pressured to return a vote in favor of the death penalty during Lucio’s trial in an essay with the Houston Chronicle.

He claimed he was wrong to succumb to ‘peer pressure’ and change his vote from a life sentence to the death penalty, adding that the jurors would ‘be there all day’ if he hadn’t done so.

‘There were so many other details that went unmentioned. It wasn’t until after the trial was over that troubling information was brought to life,’ he explained.

‘If I had known all of this information, or even part of it, I would have stood by my vote for life no matter what anyone else on the jury said.

‘I did not know that her long history of physical and sexual abuse made her vulnerable to falsely confess when subjected to aggressive interrogation tactics on the night of her daughter’s death.

‘No one took us through the interrogation to show us how many times she asserted her innocence (over 100) or how she repeated the same words the interrogators fed to her.

‘No evidence was presented of that and it would have mattered to me.’

In a letter last month to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and to Abbott, 83 Texas House members said executing Lucio would be ‘a miscarriage of justice.’

‘Her so-called confession was the result of highly coercive interrogation tactics,’ attorney Vanessa Potkin said. ‘Some of which are so coercive that they’re no longer used today’

‘As a conservative Republican myself, who has long been a supporter of the death penalty in the most heinous cases… I have never seen a more troubling case than the case of Melissa Lucio,’ said state Representative Jeff Leach, who signed the letter.

Abbott can grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve. He can grant clemency if a majority of the paroles board recommends it.

The board plans to vote on Lucio’s clemency petition two days before the scheduled execution, Rachel Alderete, the board’s director of support operations, said in an email.

A spokeswoman for Abbott’s office did not return an email seeking comment.

Abbott has granted clemency to only one death row inmate in the past – Thomas Whitaker – since taking office in 2015.

Whitaker was convicted of masterminding the fatal shootings of his mother and brother.

His father, who survived, led the effort to save Whitaker, saying he would be victimized again if his son was executed.

Lucio’s supporters have said her clemency request is similar in that her family would be retraumatized if she’s executed.

‘Please allow us to reconcile with Mariah’s death and remember her without fresh pain, anguish and grief. Please spare the life of our mother,’ Lucio’s children previously wrote in a letter to Abbott and the board.