Date: 12-14-2017

Case Style:

Case Number: 13-1990-CF-048092-B000-XX

Judge: Miguel M. DeLa O

Court: Circuit Court, Miami-Dade County, Florida

Plaintiff's Attorney: Reid Rubin

Defendant's Attorney: Stephen Yermish - Office of the Public Defender

Description: Miami, FL - Jury Convicts Woman of Killing Her Son For Third Time

The State of Florida charged Maria Cardona with first-degree murder for killing her 3-year-old son, Lazaro Figueroa, in November 1990. The State claimed that the child, who only weighed 18 pounds, was abused and neglected by his mother. He was knows as Baby Lollipops by the press from the T-shirt that he was wearing when found that has thee lollipop images printed on it.

Defendant's counsel claimed that his client was a bad mother, not a killer.

"Cardona was originally tried in 1992, found guilty of aggravated child abuse and first-degree murder, and sentenced to death. Cardona v. State, 641 So.2d 361, 363 (Fla.1994). This Court affirmed her convictions and death sentence in 1994. Id. at 366. However, in 2002, through a subsequent postconviction appeal, this Court reversed the convictions and sentences because the State committed a Brady1 violation by failing to disclose material criminal investigation reports of the State's interviews with Cardona's companion and codefendant, Olivia Gonzalez. Cardona v. State, 826 So.2d 968, 970 (Fla.2002). These reports contained significantly contradictory versions of the story pertaining to whether Gonzalez, rather than Cardona, was the primary perpetrator of the escalating child abuse that culminated in Lazaro's death. Id.

During the 2010 retrial, the State did not introduce the testimony of Gonzalez but instead relied primarily on circumstantial evidence to establish Cardona's guilt. The State presented extensive evidence about the condition of the young victim when he was found dead and also produced detailed testimony of the likely cause of the child's severe injuries.

The evidence established that employees of Florida Power & Light Company found the body of a three-year-old boy in the bushes in front of a Miami Beach home on the morning of November 2, 1990. The child was extremely thin, his bones were visible, and he had a large bruise near his right eye. He was dressed in blue gym shorts that covered a dirty diaper wrapped many times with brown packaging tape. His t-shirt bearing a lollipop design would inspire the Miami Beach Police Department to dub the investigation to uncover the identity of the boy and the person responsible for the boy's death as the “Baby Lollipops” case.

The Miami Beach Police Department conducted door-to-door interviews, distributed flyers bearing this moniker in English and Spanish, held a news conference, and had detectives working on the case around the clock. Ultimately, after receiving numerous leads, the police identified the child as three-year-old Lazaro Figueroa, the son of Ana Maria Cardona and Fidel Figueroa, who was murdered a month before Lazaro was born.

The autopsy revealed details about Lazaro's physical condition and the cause of death. The medical examiner opined that Lazaro ultimately died on November 1, 1990, as a result of a significant blunt injury to the head that had occurred hours to days before his death. This was reflected in a fresh fatal tear to the corpus callosum, the band of nerve tissue between the left and right sides of the brain.

The medical examiner found numerous other injuries to the body, ranging from hours-and days-old, to even months-old, injuries. Lazaro was also malnourished, anemic, and dehydrated, weighing only 18 pounds. His body was covered in scars and bruises, with bedsores from his head to his buttocks. In the opinion of the medical examiner, the cause of death was “child abuse syndrome,” resulting from the cumulative effect of all of Lazaro's injuries, even though the injuries to the corpus callosum hastened his death.

The police pursued a lead that Cardona was the child's mother, and, in early December 1990, discovered that Cardona; her companion, Olivia Gonzalez; and Cardona's two other children had moved to Osceola County and were living together in a motel. When law enforcement located and confronted Cardona, she told detectives that Lazaro had been jumping on the bed, fell and hit his head on the tile floor, and that she tried to revive him with perfume and waited for Gonzalez to return home from work. She stated that she and Gonzalez decided to leave Lazaro in front of a “very beautiful home” because she thought “those people have money” and could take care of him."

See: Cardona v. State, 185 So.3d 514 (Fla. 2016)

Outcome: Guilty

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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