"Baby Lollipops" murder

Cardona's elder son, a 37-year-old named Juan Puente, died while also in prison. Puente, was serving a 10-year sentence for burglary, died at Gulf Correctional Institution's Annex in February 2018. While in jail in 2010, he was brought to a Miami courtroom to testify on his mother's behalf in an effort to convince a jury to spare her life. "The case followed him around, every time he got arrested. It was like a revolving door," said Cardona's former lawyer, Edith Georgi. "The kid had a really sweet way about him. He was very easy to get to know and friendly. But he had an addiction he couldn't cure."

In her third trial in 2017, a neighbor testified, "She closed the door...it didn't appear that any lights were on but the shower was going and he was screaming." She stated that Lazaro was "very small, very thin, very frail." However, Cardona insisted under oath that she did not inflict significant abuse on her son or break any of his bones. She also continued to recant her 1990 statement that Lazaro fell off the bed and hit his head, causing the tear in his corpus callosum. Instead, she placed the blame on her ex-girlfriend Olivia Gonzalez, insisting that she struck Lazaro with a baseball bat. The defense said they would introduce evidence Gonzalez had confessed to hitting the boy with the baseball bat and killing him.

Miami-Dade jurors again found Cardona guilty of the two counts, and in 2011, she was sentenced to death a second time. In contrast to her outrage at the verdict in the 1992 trial, Cardona appeared collected when her sentence was handed down. State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle stated, "Almost 20 years later, a second jury heard the evidence and has come to the same conclusion...The truth still remains the truth." While reading her sentence, the judge, Reemberto Diaz stated, "Ana Maria Cardona, you have forfeited your right to live... Lazaro was tortured to death."

In 2002, Cardona's initial sentence was overturned due to a Brady violation by the prosecution team, who had failed to allow defense attorneys access to interviews with Gonzalez, and the Florida Supreme Court granted her a second trial. At the second trial in 2010, prosecutors focused their attention on Lazaro's physical condition and the abuse he had suffered at the hands of his mother.

Cardona argued at her first trial in 1992 that her girlfriend at the time, Olivia Gonzalez, was the one who tortured Lazaro, finally causing his death. Acquaintances of Ana Maria Cardona testified against her by recounting how she had consistently treated Lazaro poorly. Gonzalez, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 40 years and served 14 years.

The "Baby Lollipops" murder was the murder in 1990 of three-year-old Lazaro Figueroa by his mother Ana Maria Cardona, in Florida. The body of Lazaro was found abandoned, and identified through house-to-house inquiries. The case was widely covered in US media, who called the initially unidentified boy "Baby Lollipops", after the design on the T-shirt he was wearing when found.

In November 1990, Lazaro Figueroa's body was discovered in front of a beach property in Miami Beach. He had been severely battered, which made it initially very difficult for authorities to identify him. Because Lazaro's remains were unidentified for weeks after his discovery, local news outlets nicknamed him "Baby Lollipops" in reference to the shirt he was found wearing. The cause of death was later determined to be a blow to the head from a baseball bat. Trial evidence showed that shortly after leaving Lazaro's body in the bushes, Cardona and her lover, Olivia Gonzalez, fled to Central Florida, even making a stop at Disney World.

Employees for the Florida Power & Light Company discovered Lazaro Figueroa's dead body on the morning of November 2, 1990, at Miami Beach, hidden beneath some bushes. The boy was so emaciated that he appeared skeletal, with a bruised right eye. He wore blue gym shorts over a soiled diaper wrapped multiple times with brown packaging tape. At the time of his murder, Lazaro's weight was 18 pounds (8.16 kg), half the weight of a healthy child his age. The t-shirt he was wearing caused the Miami Beach Police Department to name him "Baby Lollipops," and he remained unidentified for weeks after his discovery.

The jury found Cardona guilty of the death of Lazaro Figueroa in 1990, and the court convicted her of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for a third time. However, this time she was sentenced to life in prison instead of a death sentence. Presiding Judge Miguel de la O remarked, "there are wild beasts that show more empathy for their offspring than you showed Lazaro."

Lazaro Figueroa was born on September 18, 1987, to Ana Maria Cardona and Fidel Figueroa. Cardona also had two older children. Fidel Figueroa was a well-known drug dealer and died under mysterious circumstances on September 20, 1987. This crime remains unsolved.