'Half-Ton Killer' Mayra Rosales Reveals Why She Falsely Confessed to Murder, Dramatic Weight-Loss
Mayra Rosales once weighed more
than 1,000 pounds and was facing the possibility of a death sentence, not just
from obesity but for the murder of her 2-year-old nephew.
But that was five years ago.
"I have lost over 800
pounds," Rosales said. "I don't even know how I survived that. It's a
miracle of God. I really was dying." In 2008, Rosales was charged with
murdering her sister Jamie's son. She was accused of falling on the toddler and
crushing him under her bed. The case earned her the nickname "half-ton
killer."
"I used to take up a whole
king-size bed," she said. "I couldn't even stand up on my feet. My
legs couldn't hold my weight."
Her capital murder trial was
nothing short of a freak show, with the defendant being so big that she had to
be cut out of her house and transported to court in a moving van. Her attorney
even measured the courtroom and went shopping for a king-size mattress so she
could live in the courtroom while a jury decided if she lived or died.
Rosales admitted to killing the
child but claimed it was an accident. Her attorney never believed her claims
and suspected she was covering for someone. That person turned out to be her
sister, Jamie.
"I tried to protect my
sister, and I was already dying so I didn't see ... like I was doing
[something] wrong," Mayra said. "I was already giving up in life, and
the way I saw it, when they began saying I was going to get capital murder
charges, I really saw it like they were doing me a favor."
Rosales lied for months, but even
prosecutors started to doubt her claims when the little boy's autopsy revealed
head trauma consistent with repeated abuse. Faced with that evidence, Rosales
finally told the truth -- that she had seen her sister abusing the child -- and
she worked with her attorney to record Jamie confessing to the murder. The
charges against Rosales were dropped, and her sister was arrested on child
abuse charges. She is now serving 15 years in prison.
"I knew I was not doing
right, but I was willing to give up my life for her," Rosales said. She
added that her sister regrets what she did.
"It's hard for someone to
admit what they did, especially to their kid, and turn themselves in and
confess, and she ended up doing it," Rosales said. "I think she did
it because she couldn't live with herself no more, with what happened, and
because she knew I was covering for her."
Before she started to lose the
weight, Rosales said her organs were shutting down and now, after the weight
loss, they are "perfect."