MIAMI (AP) – A Florida mother on Wednesday was convicted for a third time of brutally abusing her toddler before fatally beating the boy who became known as “Baby Lollipops” in a case that riveted Miami decades ago.
Jurors found 56-year-old Ana Maria Cardona guilty of murder and aggravated child abuse in the killing of 3-year-old Lazaro Figueroa, whose emaciated body was found hidden in bushes in Miami Beach in November 1990.
The boy was beaten throughout his short life and was starving to death, weighing just 18 pounds. His body was covered in bumps and bruises and cigarette burns. His skull had been fractured, and his left arm was permanently bent at a 90-degree angle. The medical examiner called it child torture, according to trial testimony.
“After suffering years, months, days of continuous abuse by her, under her watch, Lazaro inevitably withered and died. And lay in the dirt until his little heart stopped beating,” prosecutor Reid Rubin said in a closing argument. “It was only a matter of time before he wound up dead because of her.”
Cardona was twice sentenced to death in previous trials. After her first trial in 1992, Cardona became the first woman in Florida history to be sentenced to capital punishment for killing her own child. But both convictions were overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, leading to this third trial.