Abby Connolly
An EMS worker took note of Melissa’s behavior, claiming that she did not act like he would “expect of a mother,” despite her being in deep shock.
That same evening, police kept Melissa in questioning for five hours, where they berated her, called her a bad mother, and even showed her pictures of her deceased daughter.
Melissa’s supporters claim that the police interrogated her in a way that would lead her into producing a false confession so they could hear exactly what they wanted to hear.
After doing her best to stay strong, asserting her innocence over and over again, the police had finally seemed to break her.
“I guess I did it,” an exhausted and grieving Melissa told the police, hoping that the brutal interrogation would end.
With that, police took her “confession” and ceased all investigations that looked into alternative explanations for Mariah’s death.
The medical examiner that examined Mariah after her death apparently ended up ignoring her medical history of having difficulty walking, which could have contributed to her fall. The examiner ended up releasing a statement that would support the conclusions of the officers.
Despite a number of medical experts, pediatricians, and pathologists stating that the accusations made against Melissa were incorrect, she was arrested for the murder of her daughter in July of 2008.
A few days after her arrest, she was sentenced to death.
“This injustice has not only robbed Ms. Lucio and her family of the chance to heal from Mariah’s death, but also compounded the trauma and hardship they have already experienced,” said the Innocence Project.
Melissa had been a victim of abuse since she was a child. She had been abused starting at the age of six. Ten years later, at the age of sixteen, she married a man who would also turn out to be abusive and abandon her and their five children when she was twenty-three.
