Hefty Challenge: How to Prosecute an Ailing 1,000-Pound Woman?

Authorities in Hidalgo County, in the southern tip of Texas, reportedly have yet to arrest a woman indicted by a grand jury yesterday for first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old nephew, as well as injury to a child. She had earlier been charged with capital murder in the case.

"Prosecutors have to work out how Mayra Rosales will be detained and prosecuted because she weighs nearly 1,000 pounds. She is unable to fit through a door to leave her home. As of Thursday evening, she was not in custody," reports the Associated Press.

Rosales, now 27, was taking care of her nephew, Eliseo Gonzalez Jr., when he died in March. Initially, the bedridden woman was thought to have accidentally crushed him to death, but an autopsy showed he had been struck, according to a March article published in the Monitor, a McAllen newspaper, when she was charged with capital murder. She was allowed to remain in bed, on a personal recognizance bond, because she couldn't be put in jail.

"Whatever the county and court system has to do in reference to the death of this child, we'll do it," Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra said at that time. "We can't let someone's physical disability stand in the way of justice."

While he and Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño promised yesterday that Rosales would be prosecuted, "they remained mute about the details of that process," reports the Monitor in another article.

Rosales can't be put in jail, even if she could fit through the doorway of her home, because she needs medical care, according to Treviño.

The toddler's mother, Jaime Rosales, was charged earlier with injury to a child in the case, because she allegedly left him alone with his aunt, in violation of an agreement she had previously signed with Child Protective Services. Rosales apparently was not considered an appropriate babysitter for the boy because she was physically unable to take care of him.