Megan Lange is a killer from Texas who was convicted of the murder of her eight year old son Arturo Coca
According to court documents 911 was called and eight year old Arturo Coca was rushed to the hospital however the little boy would die soon after. An autopsy would reveal the eight year old child had weighed only twenty eight pounds at the time of his death and he had bruises, scars and other injuries on his body. The doctor who performed the autopsy also would determine the little boy was strangled to death
Megan Lange would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life without parole for the murder plus two additional life sentences for Injury to a Child and Injury to a Child by Omission
Megan Lange Case
The murder trial of Megan Lange, an Odessa mother convicted of killing her eight-year-old son, Arturo Coca, in 2022, concluded Friday after an Ector County jury sentenced her to two additional life sentences on charges of Injury to a Child and Injury to a Child by Omission. Those sentences are in addition to the mandatory sentence of life without parole that was handed down when Lange was convicted of Capital Murder.
Closing arguments in the sentencing portion of the trial began as defense attorney Johanna Curry said that Lange grew up in a “violent” household and asked jurors not to hold the violent lessons she learned from her parents against her.
“Punish her less on counts two and three, you’ve already sentenced her to live in prison without parole,” she said.
Next, prosecutor Kortney Williams addressed members of the jury and asked them to consider every scar, every bruise, and all the suffering that Coca endured at the hands of his mother.
“Each injury mattered to him even though he didn’t matter to her,” Williams said.
She then asked jurors to sentence Lange to life on each count; the punishment for each crime could have ranged from five to 99 years or life in prison, according to sentencing guidelines.
Within 20 minutes, jurors did just that, and sentenced Lange to life in prison on each count, plus a combined $20,000 fine and court costs.
Here’s a recap of the trial, which began Monday:
On November 5, 2022, Coca was taken to the hospital by ambulance after becoming unresponsive at home. Medical Examiner Dr. Luisa Florez said Coca did not die from complications of type 1 diabetes, but determined that the child, who weighed only 29 pounds at death, died after he was strangled. She also noted that he was injured from head to toe with bruises, cuts, bedsores, and untreated infections and was severely malnourished and dehydrated.
“Someone withheld food. Proper hydration was withheld. This level of malnutrition happened over years, it would have taken a long time,” Dr. Florez testified.
The jury heard similar testimony from other investigators and witnesses, who said they were shocked at that level of abuse.
“He was extremely malnourished,” Ector County Sheriff’s Office Investigator, Juan Lujan testified. “I could see his bones; he had no muscle. There were injuries from his legs up to his head. My boy was younger that Arturo at that time…I’ve never seen anything like that except in the history books in WWII, during the holocaust.”
During closing arguments, Prosecutor William Prasher said that Lange, “watched (Arturo) waste away, saw every bruise…and did nothing.”
“She tortured that child. She hated that poor, innocent child to the point where she tortured him to death,” Prasher said.
Prasher said that even though Lange’s oldest child testified that he had been fed, been given proper medical care, and had been cared for well by his mother, it was clear that Coca had not.
“The other kids were going to school, going to the doctor, eating breakfast. Arturo wasn’t,” he said. “I don’t know why…this was years of abuse. She took him out of school…stopped taking him to the doctor and left him at home to die. Maybe she wanted nature to take its course, but then he had an accident (wet and defecated in his bed) and she snapped. She strangled what little life he had. The person who is supposed to love him the most, didn’t care about him, and took his life.”
He then asked jurors to “do what’s right for that little boy”.
Next, jurors heard from Defense Attorney, Johanna Curry, who said that Lange would not have called 911 or performed CPR on her son, had she wanted to kill him. She then blamed paramedics for the countless injuries on Coca’s body and said he simply died because he was a “sick little kid”.
Curry then asked the jury to allow Coca to rest in peace and find Lange innocent of all charges.
Next, Prosecutor Kortney Williams said that evidence presented at trial proved that Coca was not just a “sick little kid”.
“We heard that people with type 1 diabetes can live a normal life with proper treatment. He was sick because his mother refused to take him to the doctor,” Williams said.
In fact, medical records presented at the trial showed that the last time Coca had been seen by a doctor was in April of 2020. That was also the last time that his insulin was refilled, more than two years before his death.
Williams also said that paramedics did not cause the injuries to the boy’s body and pointed to evidence that showed years of abuse.
“Old scars…bed sores…bruises, unhealed infections…wounds scabbed over. Doctors who have performed more than 17,000 autopsies said it was one of the worst cases of child abuse they’d ever seen,” Williams said. “He didn’t just get like this. She made him like this. You saw the photos of the injuries…there are too many to count. There are more places on him that are injured than are not injured. You heard testimony that there is no possible way diabetes caused this.”
How do we know it was intentional, Williams then asked.
“By what she said, ‘that effing kid’…by the text messages…when her live in boyfriend, one of her many boyfriends, said ‘you can’t stand Arturo’…by that text…when he said it ‘would be easier if Arturo was gone’ and she responded, ‘yes, I know, so much stress off my back’…what kind of mother says that,” Williams said.
She reminded jurors that even though there was plenty of food in the house, Coca had been denied food.
“He would have been starving…ravenous…hungry all the time. His little body, his 29-pound body…his bruised, beaten…abused little body, fit into (an infant swing). Mothers are supposed to be our first protectors…the one we turn to…(Coca) didn’t have that…he has you.. Speak for the one who had no armor,” Williams told the jury, before asking them to convict Lange.
Within 25 minutes, jurors did just that, and found Lange guilty on all three counts. The first count, Capital Murder, carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
https://www.yourbasin.com/news/odessa-murder-trial-concludes-jury-hands-down-3-life-sentences/
