So picture this. It's November 2nd, 1990. We're
in Miami Beach. And, you know, it's a pretty
typical morning for a crew of workers from the
Florida Power and Light Company. Right. They're
just doing their rounds, cutting back some vegetation,
checking meters at a quiet residential property.
And then beneath the hedge, sort of hidden in
the bushes, they see something that just stops
them cold. It's the kind of discovery that, I
mean, it just... ends the innocence for an entire
neighborhood. They found the body of a young
boy. And the immediate tragedy wasn't just that
he was dead. It was that nobody knew who he was.
There was no missing persons report, no frantic
parents searching the streets, just a John Doe.
And because the police had nothing to go on,
the media latched on to the one distinctive thing
they could see in the photos, which was his T
-shirt. Yeah. It had this bright, colorful design
of lollipops on it. And just like that, he became
known across the entire nation as Baby Lollipops.
That name, it really stuck. It sounds so innocent,
almost sweet, but the reality behind it is one
of the absolute darkest cases in South Florida
history. For sure. We're talking about the murder
of three -year -old Lazaro Figueroa. But today,
we aren't just recounting the crime itself. If
you look at the source material, and we're mainly
drawing from the Wikipedia article on the murder
of Lazaro Figueroa, what really stands out is
the timeline. This was not an open and shut case.
No, it definitely wasn't. This thing spanned
27 years. We're talking three separate trials,
two overturned death sentences. It's a legal
labyrinth. Exactly. Our mission here is to sort
of unpack how a case with such, I mean, overwhelming
physical evidence of abuse could drag on for
nearly three decades. We're going to look at
the forensics, the frankly bizarre defense strategies,
including a confession from a random teenager.
and the systemic failures that kept this story
in the headlines all the way until 2017. And
before we get into the, you know, the really
grim details of the discovery, I think we need
to set the stage a bit. We're looking back at
1990 from where we sit today, but the atmosphere
in Miami back then was, well, it was very specific.
That is such a crucial point. When the police
eventually did identify the boy as Lazaro Figueroa,
the focus shifted to his mother, Ana Maria Cardona,
and her partner, Olivia Gonzalez. So what you
have is two women, both immigrants, in a relationship
involved in the drug scene. I noticed the source
material references a memoir by Hakira Diaz called
Ordinary Girls. And she makes a really, really
interesting point about the media coverage at
the time. She does. Diaz points out that the
media frenzy wasn't just about the crime itself.
It was fueled by the otherness of the perpetrators.
Right. The coverage was heavily laced with anti
-LGBTQ plus and anti -Latin American sentiment.
The narrative wasn't just a mother killed her
son. It was painted as this sort of deviant lifestyle
that led to depravity. And that bias is important
to keep in mind because it very likely played
a role in the public pressure and potentially
the courtroom atmosphere during that first trial.
That makes so much sense. It just amps up the
temperature in the room before the jury is even
seated. Let's go back to the physical evidence,
because regardless of the media spin, what the
medical examiner found was, well, it was objective
and it was horrific. You mentioned the workers
found him in the bushes. What was the actual
condition of the body? Catastrophic is, I think,
the only word for it. When the police arrived,
they found Lazaro wearing blue gym shorts over
a soiled diaper. But the diaper wasn't just,
you know, put on. It was held in place with brown
packaging tape. Tape. Wrapped around his body
multiple times. That detail alone. The tape.
It's like he was being treated like a package,
not a person. And it gets worse when you look
at the biometrics. Lazaro was three years old.
A healthy three -year -old usually weighs, what,
around 30 to 35 pounds? Something like that,
yeah. Lazaro weighed 18 pounds. 18, that's the
weight of an infant, like a large six -month
-old. Exactly. He was 8 .16 kilograms. He was
literally half the person he should have been.
The medical examiner, Dr. Bruce Heimer, he determined
he was severely malnourished, anemic, and dehydrated.
But the starvation. That was just the baseline.
The autopsy revealed a roadmap of torture that
had been going on for at least 18 months. So
this wasn't a sudden snap or a one -time thing.
This was a lifestyle. Precisely. And the forensics
tell that story so clearly. Dr. Heimer found
a cigarette burn on his left cheek. His upper
front teeth had been knocked out. But the bone
injuries. That's what really indicates the duration
of the abuse. He had fractures in his arms, but
one arm was permanently fixed at a 90 degree
angle. Stuck at 90 degrees? How does that even
happen? It happens when a bone breaks, and you
don't go to a doctor. The body tries to heal
itself, but without a cast, without setting the
bone, it just calcifies in whatever position
it's held in. It suggests he was left in pain
for weeks while that bone fused completely incorrectly.
That is just agonizing to even think about. And
then there were the bed sores. We usually associate
bed sores with elderly patients in hospitals
who can't move. For a toddler to have bed sores,
it means he was bound to a mattress for extended
periods. unable to shift his own weight. The
diaper was caped with excrement and taped to
his skin, causing chemical burns. Okay, so we
have this picture of long -term systematic neglect
and torture, but what actually killed him? Was
it the starvation? No. The immediate cause of
death was a blow to the head with a baseball
bat. It fractured his skull. And the autopsy
found a really specific injury, a tear to the
corpus callosum. I've heard that term, but break
that down for us. What does a tear there signify?
The corpus callosum is the bundle of nerve fibers
connecting the two hemispheres of the brain.
To tear that, you need massive force. We're talking
something like a high -speed car crash or a violent
shaking combined with impact. It causes a shearing
effect in the brain. And Dr. Haima dated this
injury to just hours, maybe days before death.
So despite months of starvation, he was ultimately
beaten to death. And while this is happening,
or immediately after, we have to look at the
behavior of the mother, Ana Maria Cardona, and
her girlfriend, Olivia Gonzalez. They dump the
body in Miami Beach, and then they go on a trip.
This is one of those details that really blurs
the line between denial and just psychopathy.
Shortly after leaving Lazaro's body in the bushes,
Cardona and Gonzalez fled to central Florida.
And they went to Disney World. Disney World,
the quote, happiest place on earth. While her
son was decomposing in a hedge. I'm trying to
wrap my head around the psychology there. Is
that just fleeing? Or is it a complete dissociation
from reality? I think it's likely a mix of both.
It suggests a profound compartmentalization.
They were escaping the crime scene, yes, but
choosing an amusement park. It suggests they
were trying to overwrite the horror with some
artificial good time. Or maybe they just lacked
the emotional capacity to process what they had
done. It speaks to a profound lack of empathy.
So the police eventually connect the body to
Cardona. They arrest both women. And immediately
the finger pointing starts. This brings us to
the core dynamic that drove this legal saga for
the next three decades. Who turned on whom? Well,
it's the classic prisoner's dilemma playing out.
Olivia Gonzalez cracked first. She took a plea
deal. She agreed to testify against Cardona in
exchange for a 40 -year sentence for second -degree
murder. 40 years is still a hefty sentence. She
must have been absolutely terrified of the electric
chair. Oh, absolutely. And in exchange, she gave
the prosecution the narrative they needed. Gonzalez
claimed that on the last day of October, Cardona
got angry because Lazar was moving too slowly
while taking off his diaper. She testified that
Cardona hit him with the bat until, and this
is a quote, a hole was opened up in his head.
In Cardona's defense, what was her story? Cardona
played the battered woman card, but with a twist.
She claimed she came from this wealthy lifestyle
that fell apart when her husband, who was a drug
dealer, died. She claimed she fell under the
spell of Gonzales. She painted Gonzales as the
monster. the one who beat the boy, the one who
controlled the house. Cardona claimed she was
so traumatized by seeing the abuse that she did
copious amounts of coping and just to numb herself.
So the defense was, I was high and scared, so
I couldn't stop it. Exactly. But in 1992, at
that first trial, the jury just wasn't buying
it. The physical evidence, you know, the child's
weight, the bed sores. It made it really hard
to believe the mother was just some passive observer.
Judge David L. Tobin called it the most heinous,
atrocious and cruel abuse he had ever seen. Cardona
was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced
to death. The first woman on death row in Florida.
That feels like a definitive end. The gavel drops.
Justice is served. But then we fast forward 10
years to 2002. Why does the Florida Supreme Court
step in? This is where we get into something
called a Brady violation. We hear that term in
legal dramas. But what does it actually mean
in this specific context? So imagine you're playing
a card game, right? But the other player is hiding
half the deck in their lap. That's a Brady violation.
The prosecution is legally required to turn over
any evidence that might help the defense. In
this case, the prosecution sat on interviews
with Olivia Gonzalez, their star witness. What
was in those interviews that mattered so much?
Inconsistency. The defense argued that in those
suppressed interviews, Gonzalez's story changed
or had details that contradicted her trial testimony.
If the jury had known that their star witness,
the only person who said, I saw Cardona swing
the bat, was unreliable, they might have voted
differently. So the court said the trial wasn't
fair. Conviction overturned. That is just wild.
You have a dead child, clear evidence of torture.
But because the prosecutors hid some paperwork,
you have to do it all over again. That's the
system. Process matters. So in 2010, 18 years
after the crime, we go to Tron number two. And
this is where the story takes a turn that honestly
sounds like fiction. The defense comes up with
a new theory involving a teenager named Gloria
Pai. Who is she? This is maybe the most bizarre
chapter of the whole saga. Gloria Pai was a mentally
disabled 14 -year -old girl. And the defense
suddenly claimed that she was the one who killed
Lazaro. How do you even make that stick? Did
she even know the family? The connection was
tenuous at best, but here's the kicker. Gloria
Pai actually confessed. She signed a statement
saying she threw Lazaro against a wall. Why would
a teenager confess to a murder she didn't commit?
That is the million dollar question. It's likely
she was confused, maybe coerced, or just simply
didn't understand what she was agreeing to. She
later retracted it completely, saying she never
even met the boy. But for the defense, that confession
was gold. They didn't need to prove Gloria did
it. They just needed to create reasonable doubt
that Cardona did. The old, if this girl says
she did it, you can't be 100 % sure my client
did. Exactly. And it almost worked. The jury
was genuinely confused by it. During deliberations,
they asked the judge to have Gloria Pai's confession
re -read to them. They were seriously considering
it. That is terrifyingly close. It is. But ultimately,
the total lack of physical evidence linking Lazaro
to Gloria Pai's house? swayed them back the prosecutor
called it a diversionary tactic and the jury
agreed guilty verdict number two death penalty
number two so 2011 she's back on death row but
while all this legal maneuvering is happening
i want to pause and talk about the passage of
time i mean it's been 20 years since the murder
what is happening to the rest of the family cardona
had other kids right she did she had an older
son juan puente and his story is just the tragic
shadow to this whole legal circus. While his
mother is fighting for her life in court, Juan
is spiraling. He had what was described as a
revolving door of arrests. He was deeply addicted
to drugs. It's the ripple effect. The trauma
of that household didn't just kill Lazaro, it
destroyed Juan too. Tragically, yes. He actually
testified for his mother in 2010 pleading for
her life. But he couldn't save himself. He died
in prison in 2018, serving time for burglary.
He just never really escaped the legacy of his
childhood. That is absolutely heartbreaking.
So back to Cardona. She's on death row again
in 2011. And again, the verdict gets thrown out.
This time, it wasn't a hidden tape. It was about
inflamed passions. What does that even mean?
The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutor
in the second trial went too far. emotionally.
They argued that the prosecution spent too much
time trying to make the jury hate Cardona, you
know, calling for justice for Lazaro in a way
that blurred the lines between facts and pure
emotion. The court said the arguments improperly
inflamed the minds and passions of the jurors.
So basically, you made the jury too angry to
think clearly. Exactly. And in a capital case
where you're trying to execute someone, the process
has to be clinical. So in 2017, 27 years after
the body was found, we go to trial number three.
And this time, the strategy changed completely.
The prosecution took the death penalty right
off the table. They just wanted a conviction
that would stick. They were tired of the appeals.
But the defense? The defense tried something
really, I think, intellectually fascinating this
time. This is the bad mother defense, right?
Yes. Cardona's lawyer, Stephen Yarmish, stood
up and essentially said, OK, you're right. She's
a terrible mother. That's a bold opener. It is.
He argued that Cardona was guilty of aggravated
child abuse. He admitted she neglected Lazaro.
She let him starve. She failed to protect him.
But. and this is the crucial distinction, he
argued she was not a murderer. I see where he's
going. He's trying to thread the needle. I let
him get hurt, but I didn't swing the bat that
killed him. Precisely. He was trying to separate
the neglect from the fatal blow. Since the only
witness to the bat strike was Livia Gonzalez,
who we know had credibility issues, the defense
argued you can't prove Cardona struck the killing
blow. And if she didn't strike the blow, she's
not guilty of first -degree murder. Technically,
legally, that's a valid argument. But emotionally?
When you're looking at a child who weighs 18
pounds... That's just it. The jury couldn't separate
them. In the eyes of the law, and certainly in
the eyes of that jury, the starvation and the
torture were part of the murder weapon. You can't
starve a child for 18 months and then say, oops,
I didn't mean for him to die. So third time's
the charm. Guilty of first -degree murder. But
because the death penalty was off the table,
she was sentenced to life in prison. And I think
the judge, Miguel de la O, he really captured
the sentiment of the entire ordeal during sentencing.
He didn't hold back, did he? Not at all. He told
her, there are wild beasts that show more empathy
for their offspring than you showed Lazaro. It
was a final condemnation of her humanity. Wild
beasts. That really sticks with you. So let's
zoom out. We have a case that started in 1990
and ended in 2017. Lazar would have been 30 years
old by the time his mother was finally put away
for good. It's staggering and it really highlights
the friction between legal justice and, I guess,
moral justice. The legal system is designed to
be slow, to be careful, to protect the rights
of the accused, hence the overturned verdicts
for procedural errors. But the cost of that process
was nearly three decades of reopening these wounds
for everyone. And it leaves us with a really
uncomfortable question about culpability. Cardona
spent 27 years saying, I was just a bystander.
I was a victim too. Right. And the system eventually
said no. The system decided that a mother has
a non -negotiable duty to protect her child.
Even if Olivia Gonzalez did swing the bat, Cardona's
failure to act, her failure to feed him, her
failure to call 911, that is the murder. But
I guess the provocative thought here is about
the bystanders in the system itself. If the prosecution
hadn't hidden those tapes back in 2002, or if
they hadn't been too emotional in 2010, could
this whole thing have been resolved 15 years
earlier? That's the lingering tragedy. Does the
length of time it took to get to this result
serve justice? Or does the process itself become
a form of injustice for the victim who's just
waiting for his story to be closed? It's a really
hard thing to reconcile. It really is. A case
study in how the system works, for better and
for worse. If you want to dive deeper into the
legal specifics, we've linked the source material
in the show notes. It's a heavy read, but it's
an important one. Definitely. There's always
more to learn when you look at the details. Thanks
for listening to this deep dive. We'll catch
you on the next one.