Half-Ton Woman Indicted in 2-Year-Old's Death 'Too Fat for Jail'

[Woodmonkey]

Lawyers in the U.S. are wondering how to deal with a weighty problem.

A woman is accused of killing her two-year-old nephew but prosecutors in Texas do not yet know how to get her to jail and court — because she weighs nearly half a ton.

Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, from La Jola, Texas, is bedridden and weighs nearly 1,000 lbs.

But she cannot get through her front door to be taken to jail and, later, court.

A grand jury has already agreed she should face charges of murder and injury in connection with the death of Eliseo Gonzalez Jr.

He died while in her care in March and the 27-year-old is accused of killing her nephew with two blows to the head.

She explained away the injuries by saying she had slipped, landing with her right hand on Eliseo's head while trying to pick him off the floor, and that he fell off a chair.

But a post-mortem found that Eliseo's injuries were "consistent with blunt force trauma" and that Mayra Rosales' explanations were inconsistent with the injuries.The morbidly obese woman has since been photographed and finger-printed at home but released on a "personal recognizance bond" because of the logistics problem.

The local sheriff at Hidalgo County, Lupe Trevino, says it would be impossible to keep her in jail pending her trial because she needs extensive medical care.

The Source

[SherryGrace]

How was a bedridden person taking care of a 2 year old?

[Woodmonkey]

I was wondering the same thing myself.

[Sally Brown]

A half-ton of weight on one hand to a child's head - that sounds pretty consistent with blunt trauma to me. What were the parents thinking when they left their 2-year-old with a relative who in case of emergency could not move herself much less care for an active toddler? And worrying about jailing a woman who has literally eaten herself into a barless prison seems rather mute a point. It's not like she has the opportunity to "flee the scene." It's very tragic for everyone concerned.

[Woodmonkey]

I have a feeling that we're going to see more morbidly obese people on the prison rolls. In this case, it sounds like she can never go to prison since she needs so much care. It takes a lot of people just to take these people to the bathroom.

[Sally Brown]

It is not all that uncommon to have to bring in crews to literally cut holes in the walls so that someone of this girth can be quite literally fork-lifted out of their homes for a hospitalization. Of course, once under the state's "care" a sensible reducing diet can be put in place and whether the morbidly obese person likes it or not, they will lose weight.