http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/28040274.html

Lynn Brezosky - Express-News

EDINBURG — Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, the nearly 1,000-pound woman under house arrest and accused of killing her 2-year-old nephew, waived her arraignment and court appearance Monday on capital murder and other charges.

State District Judge Ricardo Rodriguez readily accepted the waiver and not-guilty pleas because of the logistical problems of transporting Rosales to court, saying guidelines allowed waivers to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

But Rodriguez made clear a trial would require Rosales' physical presence. He said he understood a number of issues would have to be worked out.

“This is a human being that we're dealing with, but there is a victim as well,” he said. “But I'm not going to make it a circus.”

Defense Attorney Sergio Valdez appeared in court alongside Dr. Jetta Brown, a physician who has been attending to Rosales at her Sullivan City apartment. Valdez asked that Brown be brought in as an expert witness and medical consultant should the case go to trial.

Rosales was arrested and charged at her home in March with allegedly striking deadly blows to the head and upper body of 2-year-old Eliseo Gonzalez Jr.

A grand jury last month indicted her on one count each of capital murder, murder, and injury to a child.

The child's mother, Jamie Lee Rosales, was indicted on a count of injury to a child for leaving him in Mayra Rosales' care despite a Child Protective Services order not to.

Valdez has said Mayra Rosales, 27, suffers from myxedema, a thyroid disease that caused her to swell from about 220 pounds to her current bedridden state in only a few years. He said the disease also has affected her reflexes such that she could not have struck the child as alleged.

“We're saying she didn't do it,” he told reporters Monday. “She's just not physically capable.”