Baby Lollipops Murder Retrial Begins

Murder charges for mom already convicted in 1990 slaying of son

Nearly 20 years after the gruesome murder of a 3-year-old boy shocked South Florida, the mother who was convicted in the slaying will once again go before a jury.

Opening statements in the retrial of the infamous Baby Lollipops murder will begin Monday in Miami-Dade as Ana Maria Cardona faces the death penalty for a second time.

The case against Cardona began in 1990, when a child's lifeless body was found in the bushes in front of a Miami Beach mansion. The unidentified boy had been starved, beaten, bitten, his bones broken.

Police called him "Baby Lollipops" for the design on his shirt. He was later identified as 3-year-old Lazaro Figueroa, son of Cardona.

Cardona was charged with his murder, accused of beating him to death with a baseball bat.

What followed was an emotional murder trial. Cardona's lover, Olivia Gonzalez, was the prosecution's star witness. Her tearful tales of Cardona's torturing the boy were key to Cardona's conviction and death sentence in 1992.

But Gonzalez eventually admitted to beating the toddler herself, insisting she was a lesser participant. Cardona argued, however, that Gonzalez had delivered the final, fatal blow with the baseball bat.

Gonzalez eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. After 15 years, she was released from prison in 2008 for good behavior.

But in a twist, the Florida Supreme Court overturned Cardona's conviction in 2002, granting her a new trial.

The retrial centers around conflicting testimony the defense team was unaware of. It turns out that in earlier statements, Gonzalez had admitted to detectives that she had hit Lazaro with a bat and cracked his head open.

Defense attorneys say those details were kept from them by the prosecution. The state Supreme Court determined that prosecutors may have coached Gonzalez into giving compelling testimony.

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