Posted on 08/22/2008 7:23:42 AM PDT by devane617
EDINBURG -- A nearly half-ton woman charged with capital murder in the death of her 2-year-old nephew faces additional charges following a grand jury indictment Thursday.
Investigators suspect Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, hit Eliseo Gonzalez Jr. at least two times on March 18, crushing the child's head. The bedridden woman told investigators at the time that she accidentally crushed Eliseo under her own weight while trying to pick him up.
In addition to the capital murder charge - which carries a death sentence upon conviction - she was indicted on one count of first-degree murder, a charge punishable by up to 99 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Rosales also was indicted on one count of injury to a child, a first-degree felony.
Prosecutors said the grand jury handed down the new charges after a full autopsy confirmed investigators' suspicions that the child died because someone struck him.
The formal indictments Thursday, however, revived problematic questions of how authorities will detain and prosecute a woman who is estimated to weigh close to 1,000 pounds and is unable to fit through a door to leave her home. As of Thursday evening, Rosales was not in custody.
Both Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra and Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño promised Thursday that Rosales would somehow face the charges but they remained mute about the details of that process.
Detaining her at the Hidalgo County Jail for her trial would be impossible, Treviño said.
"She would die," he said, because she needs full medical care.
Nevertheless, she will soon face arrest, he said.
Luis Garza, an Hidalgo County justice of the peace, formally charged Rosales with the death as she lay in bed at her La Joya home on March 26. She was immediately released on a personal recognizance bond, meaning she was let go without bail, based on her promise to return to court as required; the privilege is typically bestowed for minor offenses, but in this case was allowed due to her inability to leave home.
On March 18, Eliseo's mother, Jaime Rosales, left the toddler and two of his siblings with her sister. She broke an agreement she had recently signed with Child Protective Services promising not to leave the children in their aunt's care. CPS caseworkers discovered evidence of abuse a month before Eliseo's death.
The state placed Jaime Rosales's other three children - a set of infant twins and a 5-year-old - with a relative after the homicide, a CPS spokesman said at the time.
Jaime Rosales faces a first-degree felony charge of injury to a child for allegedly leaving Eliseo alone with his aunt.
The mother remained free as of Thursday evening. The grand jury recommended her bond be set at $100,000, and that her sister's bond be set at $150,000 cash surety for the woman's two latest charges.
Yeah, I knew it was a wasp, but it looks like a big ant! Yours is cooler, where did you take the shot?
susie
Yes yes, but it LOOKS like an ant! ;)
susie
On a serious note, it’s hard to imagine how the human heart can function to move enough blood around that much tissue. When he loses the weight, what will he do with all the extra skin?
At least this thread has made me feel thinner!
susie
They’re dang hard to kill, too! Even stepping on one (with a shoe on!) will not usually kill one outright unless you grind it down into pieces!.............
....guilty, the real culprit /sarc...the real culprits: HER Enablers...
...she couldn't get out the door to feed...amongst other things.
Believe it or not, this was the first one I had seen. We were on vacation in TX this summer and my son came in and said, “Bring your camera, you’ll want a shot of this!” When I saw it the word velvet ant came to mind, but I wasn’t sure, so when I got home I looked it up (hard to look up when you don’t know what it is!).
I didn’t try to kill it, but I’ll tell you what, it was FAST!
susie
They also make a high pitched buzzing sound when disturbed, kind like a rattlesnake’s warning to “STAY AWAY FROM ME!”........
Obviously you have to eat a lot of food and disdain exercise, but the fact is that the vast majority of people could spend all their lives trying to get that big and couldn’t do it. People that size would have been morbidly obese no matter what they did, short of radical surgery.
House arrest would amount to precisely zero change in her current circumstance. I see no reason to spend one cent more of taxpayer money trying and convicting this creature if she suffers no consequence. It would amount to a court order to carry on exactly the same as always. The only difference would be which state agency gets saddled with the bill for her upkeep.
If I were the judge looking at the options, I’d impose impose house arrest, with a few modifications. I’d order floor to ceiling mirrors installed in the room in which she lives. And on the ceiling. No TV. Meals to be 2 cans of Ensure a day plus 1/2 a head of plain iceberg lettuce on Sundays. I’d order the ice cream truck to drive by 3x daily with its music going, and put the neighbors on a daily rotation of outdoor barbecues outside her open window.
I know they are one the dole, I mean who actually shops for food, cooks it and bring it to their bed? Someone has to do everything for these huge fat people they can’t even get out of their beds. I think who ever that person is they are as sick as the fat ones.
They could make a couple more people with just the extra skin. I feel sorry for the guy, that must be a tough way to live.
susie
Prediction: if this gargantuan murderess is convicted and the death penalty is imposed, one of the grounds for appeal will be the accusation that the State of Texas doesn’t want to have to pay for the medical care required to keep this killer healthy during a life sentence.
We do have them (these Wasps) in Central KY....they're very neat.
Sad and disgusting.
Put her in a cell on a 1000 calorie a day diet. When she gets under 150 pounds she can start her sentence.
Yes, perhaps morbidly obese, but NOT 1000 lbs!
susie
Oh my, clearly I didn’t disturb her. She was very frantic tho, I guess looking for a meal!
Took it in New Braunfels TX this summer at a lakehouse.
We don’t need that kind o’ crap posted here.
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