Woman implicates boyfriend in child's death

Adrianna Lucero, a woman charged with killing her 2-year-old son by breaking his back, took the witness stand Thursday and denied she had murdered the toddler.

However, Lucero described a physically and verbally abusive relationship with her older, married boyfriend, Sergio Martinez-Gonzalez. She said she had lied to police about what happened the day her son died, in order to protect her boyfriend from being deported to Mexico because he was in the United States illegally.

"Did you love Sergio at that time?" defense attorney Stephen McCaughey asked.

"Yes, I did," Lucero said, weeping. "I just wanted us to be a family. I had plans to graduate, go to college, be this wealthy person and give my kids everything."

Lucero is on trial for murder, a first-degree felony, and child abuse, a second-degree felony. Martinez-Gonzalez, who still lives in Utah, has not been charged in the case.

Lucero testified that she was born in Santa Fe, N.M., where her father lives, and she had moved back and forth from there to Salt Lake City, where her mother lives, attending school in both cities. She became pregnant with her son, Alejandro, at age 15 by a man who ultimately was deported.

Later, she met Martinez-Gonzales, began dating him, had twin sons with him and was 17 when she was in a relationship with him on Aug. 24, 2008, the day Alejandro was killed.

The boy's back was broken, and an autopsy revealed evidence of a similar, older back injury, along with a fractured rib.

Lucero described various events in which Martinez-Gonzales was irrationally jealous, called her crude names, kicked her and tried to push her out of a moving car. She also said that Martinez-Gonzales, contrary to his testimony, had been alone with Alejandro for brief intervals, and afterward, the child always was frightened or hurt, including one time when the boy had so much trouble walking after they had gone on a fishing trip together that she took the child to a doctor.

Under questioning from McCaughey, she described the day the boy died: It began with a visit to Martinez-Gonzales' Kearns home with Alejandro and one of the infant twins. Martinez-Gonzales took the boy out of the room to get a Jell-O snack and returned with Alejandro, who was twitching, pale and not breathing.