WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.660 So picture this. It's November 2nd, 1990. We're 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:06.540 in Miami Beach. And, you know, it's a pretty 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:08.919 typical morning for a crew of workers from the 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:11.419 Florida Power and Light Company. Right. They're 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:13.320 just doing their rounds, cutting back some vegetation, 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.160 checking meters at a quiet residential property. 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:20.199 And then beneath the hedge, sort of hidden in 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:22.399 the bushes, they see something that just stops 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:25.120 them cold. It's the kind of discovery that, I 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.539 mean, it just... ends the innocence for an entire 00:00:27.539 --> 00:00:29.640 neighborhood. They found the body of a young 00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:32.460 boy. And the immediate tragedy wasn't just that 00:00:32.460 --> 00:00:34.840 he was dead. It was that nobody knew who he was. 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:38.020 There was no missing persons report, no frantic 00:00:38.020 --> 00:00:41.079 parents searching the streets, just a John Doe. 00:00:41.310 --> 00:00:43.329 And because the police had nothing to go on, 00:00:43.450 --> 00:00:46.049 the media latched on to the one distinctive thing 00:00:46.049 --> 00:00:47.689 they could see in the photos, which was his T 00:00:47.689 --> 00:00:50.030 -shirt. Yeah. It had this bright, colorful design 00:00:50.030 --> 00:00:52.710 of lollipops on it. And just like that, he became 00:00:52.710 --> 00:00:55.929 known across the entire nation as Baby Lollipops. 00:00:55.929 --> 00:00:58.530 That name, it really stuck. It sounds so innocent, 00:00:58.590 --> 00:01:01.469 almost sweet, but the reality behind it is one 00:01:01.469 --> 00:01:03.909 of the absolute darkest cases in South Florida 00:01:03.909 --> 00:01:06.810 history. For sure. We're talking about the murder 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:10.189 of three -year -old Lazaro Figueroa. But today, 00:01:10.329 --> 00:01:12.609 we aren't just recounting the crime itself. If 00:01:12.609 --> 00:01:14.269 you look at the source material, and we're mainly 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:16.829 drawing from the Wikipedia article on the murder 00:01:16.829 --> 00:01:19.790 of Lazaro Figueroa, what really stands out is 00:01:19.790 --> 00:01:22.769 the timeline. This was not an open and shut case. 00:01:23.069 --> 00:01:25.109 No, it definitely wasn't. This thing spanned 00:01:25.109 --> 00:01:28.189 27 years. We're talking three separate trials, 00:01:28.450 --> 00:01:31.530 two overturned death sentences. It's a legal 00:01:31.530 --> 00:01:34.489 labyrinth. Exactly. Our mission here is to sort 00:01:34.489 --> 00:01:38.989 of unpack how a case with such, I mean, overwhelming 00:01:38.989 --> 00:01:41.569 physical evidence of abuse could drag on for 00:01:41.569 --> 00:01:43.569 nearly three decades. We're going to look at 00:01:43.569 --> 00:01:47.069 the forensics, the frankly bizarre defense strategies, 00:01:47.170 --> 00:01:49.810 including a confession from a random teenager. 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:52.599 and the systemic failures that kept this story 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:55.500 in the headlines all the way until 2017. And 00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:57.379 before we get into the, you know, the really 00:01:57.379 --> 00:01:59.500 grim details of the discovery, I think we need 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:01.400 to set the stage a bit. We're looking back at 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:03.819 1990 from where we sit today, but the atmosphere 00:02:03.819 --> 00:02:06.280 in Miami back then was, well, it was very specific. 00:02:06.829 --> 00:02:09.389 That is such a crucial point. When the police 00:02:09.389 --> 00:02:11.990 eventually did identify the boy as Lazaro Figueroa, 00:02:12.050 --> 00:02:15.229 the focus shifted to his mother, Ana Maria Cardona, 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:17.990 and her partner, Olivia Gonzalez. So what you 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:21.229 have is two women, both immigrants, in a relationship 00:02:21.229 --> 00:02:23.770 involved in the drug scene. I noticed the source 00:02:23.770 --> 00:02:27.449 material references a memoir by Hakira Diaz called 00:02:27.449 --> 00:02:30.210 Ordinary Girls. And she makes a really, really 00:02:30.210 --> 00:02:32.169 interesting point about the media coverage at 00:02:32.169 --> 00:02:34.289 the time. She does. Diaz points out that the 00:02:34.289 --> 00:02:36.310 media frenzy wasn't just about the crime itself. 00:02:36.650 --> 00:02:40.030 It was fueled by the otherness of the perpetrators. 00:02:40.129 --> 00:02:44.090 Right. The coverage was heavily laced with anti 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:47.069 -LGBTQ plus and anti -Latin American sentiment. 00:02:47.330 --> 00:02:49.750 The narrative wasn't just a mother killed her 00:02:49.750 --> 00:02:52.669 son. It was painted as this sort of deviant lifestyle 00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:55.189 that led to depravity. And that bias is important 00:02:55.189 --> 00:02:57.129 to keep in mind because it very likely played 00:02:57.129 --> 00:02:59.509 a role in the public pressure and potentially 00:02:59.509 --> 00:03:01.629 the courtroom atmosphere during that first trial. 00:03:01.750 --> 00:03:04.169 That makes so much sense. It just amps up the 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:06.129 temperature in the room before the jury is even 00:03:06.129 --> 00:03:08.680 seated. Let's go back to the physical evidence, 00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:11.319 because regardless of the media spin, what the 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:13.419 medical examiner found was, well, it was objective 00:03:13.419 --> 00:03:15.639 and it was horrific. You mentioned the workers 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:18.159 found him in the bushes. What was the actual 00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:20.560 condition of the body? Catastrophic is, I think, 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:23.159 the only word for it. When the police arrived, 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:26.159 they found Lazaro wearing blue gym shorts over 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:28.819 a soiled diaper. But the diaper wasn't just, 00:03:28.819 --> 00:03:31.539 you know, put on. It was held in place with brown 00:03:31.539 --> 00:03:34.020 packaging tape. Tape. Wrapped around his body 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:37.520 multiple times. That detail alone. The tape. 00:03:37.719 --> 00:03:39.599 It's like he was being treated like a package, 00:03:39.639 --> 00:03:41.719 not a person. And it gets worse when you look 00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:44.500 at the biometrics. Lazaro was three years old. 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:47.340 A healthy three -year -old usually weighs, what, 00:03:47.379 --> 00:03:49.479 around 30 to 35 pounds? Something like that, 00:03:49.539 --> 00:03:53.379 yeah. Lazaro weighed 18 pounds. 18, that's the 00:03:53.379 --> 00:03:55.460 weight of an infant, like a large six -month 00:03:55.460 --> 00:03:58.620 -old. Exactly. He was 8 .16 kilograms. He was 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:00.219 literally half the person he should have been. 00:04:00.669 --> 00:04:03.509 The medical examiner, Dr. Bruce Heimer, he determined 00:04:03.509 --> 00:04:06.590 he was severely malnourished, anemic, and dehydrated. 00:04:07.129 --> 00:04:10.129 But the starvation. That was just the baseline. 00:04:10.330 --> 00:04:13.069 The autopsy revealed a roadmap of torture that 00:04:13.069 --> 00:04:15.289 had been going on for at least 18 months. So 00:04:15.289 --> 00:04:17.550 this wasn't a sudden snap or a one -time thing. 00:04:17.670 --> 00:04:20.990 This was a lifestyle. Precisely. And the forensics 00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:23.629 tell that story so clearly. Dr. Heimer found 00:04:23.629 --> 00:04:26.089 a cigarette burn on his left cheek. His upper 00:04:26.089 --> 00:04:28.230 front teeth had been knocked out. But the bone 00:04:28.230 --> 00:04:31.279 injuries. That's what really indicates the duration 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:33.860 of the abuse. He had fractures in his arms, but 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:36.120 one arm was permanently fixed at a 90 degree 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:38.680 angle. Stuck at 90 degrees? How does that even 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:40.660 happen? It happens when a bone breaks, and you 00:04:40.660 --> 00:04:42.660 don't go to a doctor. The body tries to heal 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:45.220 itself, but without a cast, without setting the 00:04:45.220 --> 00:04:47.620 bone, it just calcifies in whatever position 00:04:47.620 --> 00:04:49.800 it's held in. It suggests he was left in pain 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:52.759 for weeks while that bone fused completely incorrectly. 00:04:53.180 --> 00:04:56.000 That is just agonizing to even think about. And 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:57.740 then there were the bed sores. We usually associate 00:04:57.740 --> 00:05:00.660 bed sores with elderly patients in hospitals 00:05:00.660 --> 00:05:03.420 who can't move. For a toddler to have bed sores, 00:05:03.420 --> 00:05:05.279 it means he was bound to a mattress for extended 00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:08.100 periods. unable to shift his own weight. The 00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:10.060 diaper was caped with excrement and taped to 00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:12.379 his skin, causing chemical burns. Okay, so we 00:05:12.379 --> 00:05:14.980 have this picture of long -term systematic neglect 00:05:14.980 --> 00:05:17.920 and torture, but what actually killed him? Was 00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:21.319 it the starvation? No. The immediate cause of 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:23.040 death was a blow to the head with a baseball 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:26.319 bat. It fractured his skull. And the autopsy 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:29.660 found a really specific injury, a tear to the 00:05:29.660 --> 00:05:32.560 corpus callosum. I've heard that term, but break 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.300 that down for us. What does a tear there signify? 00:05:35.420 --> 00:05:39.339 The corpus callosum is the bundle of nerve fibers 00:05:39.339 --> 00:05:41.000 connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. 00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:43.920 To tear that, you need massive force. We're talking 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:46.240 something like a high -speed car crash or a violent 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.800 shaking combined with impact. It causes a shearing 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:51.519 effect in the brain. And Dr. Haima dated this 00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:54.139 injury to just hours, maybe days before death. 00:05:54.379 --> 00:05:56.639 So despite months of starvation, he was ultimately 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:58.889 beaten to death. And while this is happening, 00:05:58.910 --> 00:06:01.310 or immediately after, we have to look at the 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:03.949 behavior of the mother, Ana Maria Cardona, and 00:06:03.949 --> 00:06:06.730 her girlfriend, Olivia Gonzalez. They dump the 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:10.350 body in Miami Beach, and then they go on a trip. 00:06:10.550 --> 00:06:12.750 This is one of those details that really blurs 00:06:12.750 --> 00:06:15.810 the line between denial and just psychopathy. 00:06:16.490 --> 00:06:18.930 Shortly after leaving Lazaro's body in the bushes, 00:06:19.189 --> 00:06:21.689 Cardona and Gonzalez fled to central Florida. 00:06:22.089 --> 00:06:23.949 And they went to Disney World. Disney World, 00:06:24.149 --> 00:06:26.569 the quote, happiest place on earth. While her 00:06:26.569 --> 00:06:28.790 son was decomposing in a hedge. I'm trying to 00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:30.189 wrap my head around the psychology there. Is 00:06:30.189 --> 00:06:33.230 that just fleeing? Or is it a complete dissociation 00:06:33.230 --> 00:06:35.529 from reality? I think it's likely a mix of both. 00:06:35.949 --> 00:06:38.389 It suggests a profound compartmentalization. 00:06:39.069 --> 00:06:41.769 They were escaping the crime scene, yes, but 00:06:41.769 --> 00:06:44.189 choosing an amusement park. It suggests they 00:06:44.189 --> 00:06:46.170 were trying to overwrite the horror with some 00:06:46.170 --> 00:06:49.069 artificial good time. Or maybe they just lacked 00:06:49.069 --> 00:06:51.389 the emotional capacity to process what they had 00:06:51.389 --> 00:06:54.129 done. It speaks to a profound lack of empathy. 00:06:54.370 --> 00:06:57.149 So the police eventually connect the body to 00:06:57.149 --> 00:07:00.629 Cardona. They arrest both women. And immediately 00:07:00.629 --> 00:07:04.129 the finger pointing starts. This brings us to 00:07:04.129 --> 00:07:06.610 the core dynamic that drove this legal saga for 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:09.709 the next three decades. Who turned on whom? Well, 00:07:09.790 --> 00:07:11.990 it's the classic prisoner's dilemma playing out. 00:07:12.250 --> 00:07:14.910 Olivia Gonzalez cracked first. She took a plea 00:07:14.910 --> 00:07:17.790 deal. She agreed to testify against Cardona in 00:07:17.790 --> 00:07:20.250 exchange for a 40 -year sentence for second -degree 00:07:20.250 --> 00:07:22.750 murder. 40 years is still a hefty sentence. She 00:07:22.750 --> 00:07:24.470 must have been absolutely terrified of the electric 00:07:24.470 --> 00:07:26.829 chair. Oh, absolutely. And in exchange, she gave 00:07:26.829 --> 00:07:29.589 the prosecution the narrative they needed. Gonzalez 00:07:29.589 --> 00:07:31.810 claimed that on the last day of October, Cardona 00:07:31.810 --> 00:07:34.329 got angry because Lazar was moving too slowly 00:07:34.329 --> 00:07:37.029 while taking off his diaper. She testified that 00:07:37.029 --> 00:07:39.649 Cardona hit him with the bat until, and this 00:07:39.649 --> 00:07:41.870 is a quote, a hole was opened up in his head. 00:07:42.029 --> 00:07:44.610 In Cardona's defense, what was her story? Cardona 00:07:44.610 --> 00:07:47.449 played the battered woman card, but with a twist. 00:07:47.810 --> 00:07:49.949 She claimed she came from this wealthy lifestyle 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:51.850 that fell apart when her husband, who was a drug 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.649 dealer, died. She claimed she fell under the 00:07:54.649 --> 00:07:57.430 spell of Gonzales. She painted Gonzales as the 00:07:57.430 --> 00:07:59.819 monster. the one who beat the boy, the one who 00:07:59.819 --> 00:08:02.079 controlled the house. Cardona claimed she was 00:08:02.079 --> 00:08:04.560 so traumatized by seeing the abuse that she did 00:08:04.560 --> 00:08:06.639 copious amounts of coping and just to numb herself. 00:08:06.899 --> 00:08:09.120 So the defense was, I was high and scared, so 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:12.180 I couldn't stop it. Exactly. But in 1992, at 00:08:12.180 --> 00:08:14.459 that first trial, the jury just wasn't buying 00:08:14.459 --> 00:08:17.079 it. The physical evidence, you know, the child's 00:08:17.079 --> 00:08:19.740 weight, the bed sores. It made it really hard 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:21.759 to believe the mother was just some passive observer. 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:25.339 Judge David L. Tobin called it the most heinous, 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:28.699 atrocious and cruel abuse he had ever seen. Cardona 00:08:28.699 --> 00:08:31.060 was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced 00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:33.600 to death. The first woman on death row in Florida. 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:35.919 That feels like a definitive end. The gavel drops. 00:08:36.179 --> 00:08:38.700 Justice is served. But then we fast forward 10 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:41.559 years to 2002. Why does the Florida Supreme Court 00:08:41.559 --> 00:08:43.559 step in? This is where we get into something 00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:46.360 called a Brady violation. We hear that term in 00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:49.440 legal dramas. But what does it actually mean 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.340 in this specific context? So imagine you're playing 00:08:52.340 --> 00:08:55.100 a card game, right? But the other player is hiding 00:08:55.100 --> 00:08:57.659 half the deck in their lap. That's a Brady violation. 00:08:58.179 --> 00:09:01.080 The prosecution is legally required to turn over 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:03.860 any evidence that might help the defense. In 00:09:03.860 --> 00:09:06.059 this case, the prosecution sat on interviews 00:09:06.059 --> 00:09:08.919 with Olivia Gonzalez, their star witness. What 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:10.799 was in those interviews that mattered so much? 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:13.840 Inconsistency. The defense argued that in those 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:16.299 suppressed interviews, Gonzalez's story changed 00:09:16.299 --> 00:09:19.159 or had details that contradicted her trial testimony. 00:09:19.659 --> 00:09:21.500 If the jury had known that their star witness, 00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:24.440 the only person who said, I saw Cardona swing 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:27.120 the bat, was unreliable, they might have voted 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:29.000 differently. So the court said the trial wasn't 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.399 fair. Conviction overturned. That is just wild. 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:33.820 You have a dead child, clear evidence of torture. 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:36.279 But because the prosecutors hid some paperwork, 00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:38.279 you have to do it all over again. That's the 00:09:38.279 --> 00:09:41.679 system. Process matters. So in 2010, 18 years 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:43.679 after the crime, we go to Tron number two. And 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:45.659 this is where the story takes a turn that honestly 00:09:45.659 --> 00:09:48.620 sounds like fiction. The defense comes up with 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:51.340 a new theory involving a teenager named Gloria 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:55.059 Pai. Who is she? This is maybe the most bizarre 00:09:55.059 --> 00:09:58.659 chapter of the whole saga. Gloria Pai was a mentally 00:09:58.659 --> 00:10:01.740 disabled 14 -year -old girl. And the defense 00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:03.919 suddenly claimed that she was the one who killed 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:06.509 Lazaro. How do you even make that stick? Did 00:10:06.509 --> 00:10:08.870 she even know the family? The connection was 00:10:08.870 --> 00:10:11.929 tenuous at best, but here's the kicker. Gloria 00:10:11.929 --> 00:10:14.549 Pai actually confessed. She signed a statement 00:10:14.549 --> 00:10:17.230 saying she threw Lazaro against a wall. Why would 00:10:17.230 --> 00:10:20.049 a teenager confess to a murder she didn't commit? 00:10:20.210 --> 00:10:22.769 That is the million dollar question. It's likely 00:10:22.769 --> 00:10:25.750 she was confused, maybe coerced, or just simply 00:10:25.750 --> 00:10:28.009 didn't understand what she was agreeing to. She 00:10:28.009 --> 00:10:30.269 later retracted it completely, saying she never 00:10:30.269 --> 00:10:33.549 even met the boy. But for the defense, that confession 00:10:33.549 --> 00:10:36.090 was gold. They didn't need to prove Gloria did 00:10:36.090 --> 00:10:38.029 it. They just needed to create reasonable doubt 00:10:38.029 --> 00:10:40.370 that Cardona did. The old, if this girl says 00:10:40.370 --> 00:10:43.210 she did it, you can't be 100 % sure my client 00:10:43.210 --> 00:10:46.029 did. Exactly. And it almost worked. The jury 00:10:46.029 --> 00:10:48.950 was genuinely confused by it. During deliberations, 00:10:49.049 --> 00:10:51.269 they asked the judge to have Gloria Pai's confession 00:10:51.269 --> 00:10:53.649 re -read to them. They were seriously considering 00:10:53.649 --> 00:10:57.090 it. That is terrifyingly close. It is. But ultimately, 00:10:57.230 --> 00:10:59.750 the total lack of physical evidence linking Lazaro 00:10:59.750 --> 00:11:03.259 to Gloria Pai's house? swayed them back the prosecutor 00:11:03.259 --> 00:11:05.759 called it a diversionary tactic and the jury 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:08.980 agreed guilty verdict number two death penalty 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:12.220 number two so 2011 she's back on death row but 00:11:12.220 --> 00:11:14.059 while all this legal maneuvering is happening 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:16.179 i want to pause and talk about the passage of 00:11:16.179 --> 00:11:18.500 time i mean it's been 20 years since the murder 00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:20.659 what is happening to the rest of the family cardona 00:11:20.659 --> 00:11:23.019 had other kids right she did she had an older 00:11:23.019 --> 00:11:27.139 son juan puente and his story is just the tragic 00:11:27.139 --> 00:11:30.340 shadow to this whole legal circus. While his 00:11:30.340 --> 00:11:32.480 mother is fighting for her life in court, Juan 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:35.320 is spiraling. He had what was described as a 00:11:35.320 --> 00:11:37.860 revolving door of arrests. He was deeply addicted 00:11:37.860 --> 00:11:40.419 to drugs. It's the ripple effect. The trauma 00:11:40.419 --> 00:11:42.620 of that household didn't just kill Lazaro, it 00:11:42.620 --> 00:11:46.269 destroyed Juan too. Tragically, yes. He actually 00:11:46.269 --> 00:11:49.070 testified for his mother in 2010 pleading for 00:11:49.070 --> 00:11:51.470 her life. But he couldn't save himself. He died 00:11:51.470 --> 00:11:53.990 in prison in 2018, serving time for burglary. 00:11:54.110 --> 00:11:56.490 He just never really escaped the legacy of his 00:11:56.490 --> 00:11:58.090 childhood. That is absolutely heartbreaking. 00:11:58.950 --> 00:12:01.629 So back to Cardona. She's on death row again 00:12:01.629 --> 00:12:04.429 in 2011. And again, the verdict gets thrown out. 00:12:04.570 --> 00:12:07.149 This time, it wasn't a hidden tape. It was about 00:12:07.149 --> 00:12:10.470 inflamed passions. What does that even mean? 00:12:10.649 --> 00:12:13.009 The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor 00:12:13.009 --> 00:12:15.470 in the second trial went too far. emotionally. 00:12:15.730 --> 00:12:18.169 They argued that the prosecution spent too much 00:12:18.169 --> 00:12:20.570 time trying to make the jury hate Cardona, you 00:12:20.570 --> 00:12:23.389 know, calling for justice for Lazaro in a way 00:12:23.389 --> 00:12:25.409 that blurred the lines between facts and pure 00:12:25.409 --> 00:12:28.539 emotion. The court said the arguments improperly 00:12:28.539 --> 00:12:30.840 inflamed the minds and passions of the jurors. 00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:33.000 So basically, you made the jury too angry to 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.759 think clearly. Exactly. And in a capital case 00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:37.720 where you're trying to execute someone, the process 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:41.360 has to be clinical. So in 2017, 27 years after 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:43.440 the body was found, we go to trial number three. 00:12:43.519 --> 00:12:45.480 And this time, the strategy changed completely. 00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:47.799 The prosecution took the death penalty right 00:12:47.799 --> 00:12:49.799 off the table. They just wanted a conviction 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:51.940 that would stick. They were tired of the appeals. 00:12:52.379 --> 00:12:55.559 But the defense? The defense tried something 00:12:55.559 --> 00:12:57.940 really, I think, intellectually fascinating this 00:12:57.940 --> 00:13:00.559 time. This is the bad mother defense, right? 00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:04.299 Yes. Cardona's lawyer, Stephen Yarmish, stood 00:13:04.299 --> 00:13:07.320 up and essentially said, OK, you're right. She's 00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:09.559 a terrible mother. That's a bold opener. It is. 00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:12.740 He argued that Cardona was guilty of aggravated 00:13:12.740 --> 00:13:15.899 child abuse. He admitted she neglected Lazaro. 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:18.779 She let him starve. She failed to protect him. 00:13:19.019 --> 00:13:22.240 But. and this is the crucial distinction, he 00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:24.480 argued she was not a murderer. I see where he's 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:26.460 going. He's trying to thread the needle. I let 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:28.279 him get hurt, but I didn't swing the bat that 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:30.779 killed him. Precisely. He was trying to separate 00:13:30.779 --> 00:13:33.419 the neglect from the fatal blow. Since the only 00:13:33.419 --> 00:13:35.519 witness to the bat strike was Livia Gonzalez, 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:38.159 who we know had credibility issues, the defense 00:13:38.159 --> 00:13:40.700 argued you can't prove Cardona struck the killing 00:13:40.700 --> 00:13:43.200 blow. And if she didn't strike the blow, she's 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:45.440 not guilty of first -degree murder. Technically, 00:13:45.500 --> 00:13:47.600 legally, that's a valid argument. But emotionally? 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:50.340 When you're looking at a child who weighs 18 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:53.340 pounds... That's just it. The jury couldn't separate 00:13:53.340 --> 00:13:55.679 them. In the eyes of the law, and certainly in 00:13:55.679 --> 00:13:57.980 the eyes of that jury, the starvation and the 00:13:57.980 --> 00:14:00.820 torture were part of the murder weapon. You can't 00:14:00.820 --> 00:14:03.059 starve a child for 18 months and then say, oops, 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:05.220 I didn't mean for him to die. So third time's 00:14:05.220 --> 00:14:08.289 the charm. Guilty of first -degree murder. But 00:14:08.289 --> 00:14:10.129 because the death penalty was off the table, 00:14:10.230 --> 00:14:12.870 she was sentenced to life in prison. And I think 00:14:12.870 --> 00:14:15.710 the judge, Miguel de la O, he really captured 00:14:15.710 --> 00:14:18.330 the sentiment of the entire ordeal during sentencing. 00:14:18.409 --> 00:14:20.950 He didn't hold back, did he? Not at all. He told 00:14:20.950 --> 00:14:23.850 her, there are wild beasts that show more empathy 00:14:23.850 --> 00:14:26.389 for their offspring than you showed Lazaro. It 00:14:26.389 --> 00:14:29.009 was a final condemnation of her humanity. Wild 00:14:29.009 --> 00:14:32.259 beasts. That really sticks with you. So let's 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:34.100 zoom out. We have a case that started in 1990 00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:37.940 and ended in 2017. Lazar would have been 30 years 00:14:37.940 --> 00:14:39.919 old by the time his mother was finally put away 00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:43.019 for good. It's staggering and it really highlights 00:14:43.019 --> 00:14:46.340 the friction between legal justice and, I guess, 00:14:46.399 --> 00:14:49.559 moral justice. The legal system is designed to 00:14:49.559 --> 00:14:52.500 be slow, to be careful, to protect the rights 00:14:52.500 --> 00:14:55.279 of the accused, hence the overturned verdicts 00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:58.159 for procedural errors. But the cost of that process 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:00.559 was nearly three decades of reopening these wounds 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:02.480 for everyone. And it leaves us with a really 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.519 uncomfortable question about culpability. Cardona 00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:08.220 spent 27 years saying, I was just a bystander. 00:15:08.220 --> 00:15:10.440 I was a victim too. Right. And the system eventually 00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:13.559 said no. The system decided that a mother has 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:15.759 a non -negotiable duty to protect her child. 00:15:16.669 --> 00:15:19.830 Even if Olivia Gonzalez did swing the bat, Cardona's 00:15:19.830 --> 00:15:22.409 failure to act, her failure to feed him, her 00:15:22.409 --> 00:15:25.830 failure to call 911, that is the murder. But 00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:27.269 I guess the provocative thought here is about 00:15:27.269 --> 00:15:30.070 the bystanders in the system itself. If the prosecution 00:15:30.070 --> 00:15:33.389 hadn't hidden those tapes back in 2002, or if 00:15:33.389 --> 00:15:35.850 they hadn't been too emotional in 2010, could 00:15:35.850 --> 00:15:37.669 this whole thing have been resolved 15 years 00:15:37.669 --> 00:15:40.929 earlier? That's the lingering tragedy. Does the 00:15:40.929 --> 00:15:43.210 length of time it took to get to this result 00:15:43.210 --> 00:15:47.179 serve justice? Or does the process itself become 00:15:47.179 --> 00:15:49.779 a form of injustice for the victim who's just 00:15:49.779 --> 00:15:52.600 waiting for his story to be closed? It's a really 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:55.200 hard thing to reconcile. It really is. A case 00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:57.200 study in how the system works, for better and 00:15:57.200 --> 00:15:59.799 for worse. If you want to dive deeper into the 00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:02.100 legal specifics, we've linked the source material 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:05.039 in the show notes. It's a heavy read, but it's 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:06.960 an important one. Definitely. There's always 00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:08.919 more to learn when you look at the details. Thanks 00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:10.820 for listening to this deep dive. We'll catch 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:11.519 you on the next one.