Melissa Lucio was two days away from being put to death in Texas for the murder of her 2-year-old daughter when an appeals court intervened in 2022. Now, a judge says Lucio never committed the crime at all.

Melissa Lucio had been set to be executed on April 27. 2022, before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals intervened two days earlier to look at new evidence that her daughter's fatal injuries were caused by a fall down a steep staircase.

A death row inmate convicted of killing her toddler daughter is “actually innocent” of murder and should be freed from custody, the prisoner's trial judge said in documents unearthed on Thursday.