1,000 pound aunt indicted for killing toddler

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.