A mum-of-14 on death row is clinging to two pieces of video footage she hopes could clear her of murdering her two-year-old daughter who died after falling down a flight of stairs.
Melissa Lucio, from Texas, is facing death by lethal injection unless she can use new evidence from the videos to cast doubt over her conviction.
The 50-year-old was found guilty of the death of her daughter Mariah Alvarez, who died after falling down a rickety old staircase outside their apartment in 2007, reported the Daily Star.
Lucio’s life now relies on two pieces of video footage that the jury never saw when convicting her the same year as the toddler died.
Documentary maker Sabrina Van Tassell, who directed The State of Texas vs Melissa , said an interview with Ms Lucio’s son “was never presented to the court and none of those kids ever said that their mother was beating up on Mariah”.
One video shows one of her sons speaking to a detective just hours after little Mariah had died, reports news.com.au.
A female officer asks the boy: “Did you see (your sister) fall (down the stairs) or did somebody tell you that she fell?”
He responds: “No, I saw (her fall).”
The second video shows a gruelling seven-hour integration Ms Lucio went through that started just hours after her daughter passed away and lasted until 3am.
She was then told by a detective: “Right now, it looks like you’re a cold-blooded killer. Now, are you a cold-blooded killer or were you a frustrated mother who just took it out on her?”
He continued by telling her “we already know what happened”.
After several hours of integration, Ms Lucio finally said: “Guess I did it. I’m responsible.”
Lucio later claimed she took responsibility fearing another one of her children might be blamed because they were babysitting Mariah at the time.
“Basically what they were trying to make me admit was that I was the one responsible for her fall,” Ms Lucio told documentary makers in The State of Texas vs Melissa, reports news.com.au.
“And I kept telling them that I hadn’t hurt my daughter and they were very vulgar, very rough, very persistent.
“They wanted me to admit to something that I was not capable of doing to my child. The interrogation continued for maybe 6-7 hours.”
Lawyers for the state of Texas brought up bruises on Mariah’s body with a medical examiner stating it was “the worst case of child abuse I had ever seen.”
Medical reports said that Mariah had “bruises from head to toe.”
Following the reports ,detectives asked Lucio to explain the bruises on Mariah’s body and she admitted that she smacked the child on the back sometimes.
Lucio was then made to simulate the spankings that she would do during an interrogation.
Her lawyers have admitted that she had struck the child but said she was not guilty of her daughter’s murder.
If Lucio’s appeal is unsuccessful, she is due to be executed on April 27 this year.
