UNITED STATES
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Sentenced without proof in 2008 for the murder of her daughter after a hasty and incriminating trial, the Texan is to be executed on April 27. But the huge wave of support in his favor, which goes beyond American borders, could move the lines.
For years, Melissa Lucio spoke to no one, locked up in a prison in North Texas, in total isolation and an eight-hour drive from where her relatives live, awaiting an execution whose date has now been fixed: Wednesday, April 27. Fifteen years after the brutal death of her daughter Mariah, for which she was condemned although she never ceased to proclaim her innocence. But the 53-year-old Texan is no longer alone: her case has become a symbol of the fight against the death penalty, and she has received thousands of letters of support. So much so that prison authorities in Gatesville, near Austin, had to temporarily stop mail delivery last year. “Melissa is fine. She is amazed by everything that is done for her,” tells the story of his son John, who is busy getting a cancellation of the execution date.
It took a viral and poignant documentary to extricate Melissa Lucio from the darkness of her cell. That of the Franco-American director Sabrina Van Tassel, the State of Texas against Melissa, released across the Atlantic in April 2021 and which has accumulated several million views in the United States, Canada, South America and Australia, in particular thanks to its distribution on the Hulu platform, a juggernaut of video-on-demand services . The story of a woman from a poor family, mother of fourteen children including twins born in detention, raped from an early age…