Ana Maria Cardona Back on Death Row for Murder of "Baby Lollipops"

via Miami-Dade Corrections

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Judge Reemberto Diaz's sentencing puts 50-year-old Ana Maria Cardona back on death row, where he had been placed after being convicted and sentenced to die in 1992, becoming the first Florida woman to be sentenced to death for killing her own child.

After the conviction was later overturned, a jury last year found Cardona guilty of the gruesome murder for the second time and recommended the death sentence again. On Friday, Judge Diaz agreed.

"Ana Maria Cardona, you have forfeited your right to live," Judge Diaz said as he handed down the sentence, according to a report on NBC Miami. "The weight of the aggravating factors is overwhelming. She knew what she was doing. Lazaro was tortured to death, he was mistreated his entire short life."

After Diaz handed down the sentence, Cardona wept.

The murder drew headlines after Lazaro's body was found in front of a Miami Beach mansion in 1990. His bones had been broken, and he had been starved, beaten and bitten.

Police called him "Baby Lollipops" after the design on the shirt he was wearing.

According to the Sentencing Order, Lazaro was subjected to "severe torture, pain and abuse." The autopsy found that:

Lazaro had two front teeth missing, knocked out two months apart, which would have caused a "substantial amount of pain, bleeding and tears..

The boy's frenulum "was torn torn to the point where the lips detached."

Lazaro's "belly was sunken and the bones of his pelvis and individual ribs stuck out."

The bone of his left arm "was fixed at a ninety degree angle" and his "right leg was smaller than the left."

The diaper Lazaro was wearing when he was found "was soiled to the extent that it almost formed a cast of excrement around the victim's pelvis."

There were many other injuries. For more details, read the full sentencing order and weep.

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