Babysitter exonerated in '03 death of a baby who choked on paper towels

AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A woman convicted in 2005 of murdering a toddler was exonerated Monday after a Texas prosecutor moved to dismiss her indictment.

Rosa Olvera Jimenez, 41, spent 18 years behind bars after a Travis County jury found her guilty of murder and injury to a child and sentenced her to 99 years in prison. She was released on bond in 2021 after new testimony by doctors pointed to her wrongful conviction.

Jimenez, then 20 years old, was babysitting 21-month-old Bryan Gutierrez in her Austin apartment on Jan. 30, 2003, when he swallowed a wad of paper towels.

After she found him choking Jimenez tried to remove the blockage. Unable to do so, she carried him to a neighbor’s apartment and asked them to call 911.

Paramedics pulled the paper from the boy’s throat with forceps and rushed him to the hospital. But he had suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen, so doctors could do nothing to save him. The child remained unresponsive and died three months later when his mother took him off life support.

Child Protective Services removed Jimenez’s 1-year-old daughter from her custody after she was arrested for the toddler’s death.

Jimenez was also pregnant at the time; she gave birth to a son while incarcerated. She has now reunited with her daughter and son and recently got married.

Travis County District Attorney José Garza, a Democrat and former public defender, formally cleared Jimenez of wrongdoing Monday. At the hearing in Austin, District Judge Karen Sage granted Garza’s motion to dismiss the charges.

Jimenez and her defense attorney, Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, held a press conference after the hearing, which was livestreamed from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, also the home of the Innocence Project.

Jimenez revealed she has a new member of her family: In addition to her long-awaited exoneration, Jimenez became a grandmother on Monday. Her daughter gave birth to her first child.

“My grandbaby just arrived like five minutes ago,” Jimenez said.

“I’m excited for this new life,” she added. “I believe everything is possible. I’m here, so everything is possible.”

Despite prevailing in her criminal case, Jimenez is dealing with a life-threatening challenge: She has end-stage kidney disease for which she receives dialysis three times a week.

With help from the Innocence Project, Jimenez found a place to stay in New York City and is receiving treatment at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in preparation for a transplant. But first she must find a kidney donor. The hospital has set up a website for Jimenez to screen potential kidney donors.

Jimenez also has the backing of San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. According to Jimenez’s attorneys, Popovich said he would pay for her transplant before Jimenez learned her wife’s insurer will cover the procedure.

During her trial, the state called two doctors to the stand who treated Gutierrez before he died. They testified it was impossible for the toddler to have accidentally choked on the paper towels because his gag reflex would have prevented them from lodging in his throat.

But Jimenez’s lawyers hired four doctors who specialize in children’s airways to review the evidence, and they determined Gutierrez’s death was likely an accident.

The doctors found it “would be exceedingly difficult even with additional adults restraining the child” to insert a wad of paper towels, and that Gutierrez “could have readily inserted the paper towels in his mouth, either as a string or wad,” in a consensus statement they issued in 2020.

Based on the four doctors’ opinions, Sage granted Jimenez’s habeas petition and ordered her released on bond in January 2021.

Sage, whose bond decision was supported by the Travis County DA’s Office, determined Jimenez’s due process rights were violated because prosecutors had presented false and misleading testimony during her trial, and she was likely innocent of the crimes for which she was convicted.

District Attorney Garza said in a statement Monday the criminal justice system had failed both Jimenez and the Gutierrez family, and he hopes exposing the truth can bring them some sense of closure and peace.

“As prosecutors, we have an obligation to ensure the integrity of convictions and to seek justice. In the case against Rosa Jimenez, it is clear that false medical testimony was used to obtain her conviction, and without that testimony under the law, she would not have been convicted,” Garza said.

Potkin, one of Jimenez’s attorneys, noted Jimenez is one of many women in the U.S. who have been falsely accused of hurting people they were looking after.

“Rosa’s situation is not uncommon particularly among women who are wrongfully convicted,” Potkin said at the press conference.

She continued: “According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 40% of female exonerees were wrongly convicted of harming children or other loved ones who are in their care. And like Rosa, nearly three-fourths of women who are exonerated were convicted of crimes that never even happened, often times involving children.”

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