“There was no investigation.”
Accused of murdering her daughter, Melissa Lucio is set to be executed on April 27. Yet many say she is innocent ...
Sabrina Van Tassel directed a documentary about her case and is calling for her pardon.
Accused of murdering her daughter, Melissa Lucio is set to be executed on April 27. Yet many say she is innocent ...
Sabrina Van Tassel directed a documentary about her case and is calling for her pardon.
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NewsTranscript
00:00It is up to you right now, to all of us, to make noise and stop that execution.
00:05If that execution goes through, Melissa Lucio will be the first Hispanic woman executed in the state of Texas on April 27th.
00:15Melissa Lucio was sentenced to death in 2007 for allegedly killing her daughter.
00:21There was no investigation.
00:23She admitted after seven hours of a coerced interrogation.
00:28Basically what they were doing is they were trying to make me admit that I was the one responsible for her fall.
00:36The interrogation continued for maybe six, seven hours until three o'clock in the morning.
00:45This is your chance to set it straight because right now it looks like capital murder.
00:49Right now it looks like you're a cold-blooded killer.
00:52Now were you a cold-blooded killer or were you a frustrated mother who just took it out on her?
00:57We know somebody did it. We're trying to find out who did it.
01:01If it wasn't you, I don't think somebody crept in there in the middle of the night and went up to your child and specifically singled her out so he could bite her on the back.
01:10Please, look at me. It happens. Okay? We all make mistakes. We all make mistakes.
01:17We all get upset. We already know what happened. We already know what happened.
01:28Everything indicates that it was an accident, but she's been on death row ever since.
01:34In 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her conviction based on the fact that she did not have a fair trial.
01:41The state of Texas immediately appealed that decision and it was reversed once again.
01:49Her last hope was the U.S. Supreme Court.
01:52The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Melissa's case in October.
01:58In less than 90 days after that, the DA's office in Brownsville County decided to give her an execution date.
02:07There are people in Texas and all over the U.S. who have been waiting for an execution date for years.
02:15Why so soon? Why now?
02:18Brownsville County has been a very corrupt county for decades.
02:25Everybody knows that. The DA, in her case, is serving 13 years of prison for bribery, corruption, dealing with cartels, and so on.
02:37His entire team still works at the DA's office, including Peter Gilman,
02:42who used to be Melissa Lucio's court-appointed attorney at the time of her trial,
02:46and who, by many witnesses, sabotaged her case, refused to have any of her children testify,
02:56and went to work for the DA's office right after her trial.
03:01There is conflict of interest, and everything indicates that they want her to die as soon as possible
03:10because her case has made so much noise, and the film that I directed about her has been seen worldwide.
03:19Right after Melissa got a date, people started commenting on social media, saying,
03:29I can't believe it, the film makes a clear point that she was railroaded by the justice system and that she should not be executed.
03:39I seriously think that it's a problem for Brownsville County, and that, you know,
03:45they think that if they execute Melissa, that story will go away.
03:50Her children reached out to me. They are devastated by the news.
03:55One of her daughters has said on social media that she wants to kill herself.
04:01People don't understand the collateral damage that hits families.
04:05Children are never able to recover from that, so her children are traumatized.
04:11They are trying to do everything that they can. Please join them in that fight.
04:16The only thing that could save Melissa right now would be for you to go on social media,
04:25to make noise, to sign the petition, to call Governor Abbott in Texas, to call the DA's office,
04:32to basically stop her execution.