The world's heaviest woman who was also accused of murder has reportedly lost 600 pounds (about 272kg) in five years.
32-year-old Mayra Rosales was nicknamed the Half-Ton Killer after she
made headlines in 2008 of murdering her nephew with her own 1,000-pound
body. She has now decided to save her own life by losing the wight.
According to a press release, she has indeed managed to shed 'an
astounding amount of weight' thanks to surgeries, physical therapy,
rehabilitation and huge changes to her diet.
But with her new 400-pound body, she must learn to carry out normal
activities she has never been exposed to, like grocery shopping and job
hunting.
Even though she confessed in 2008, Mayra was acquitted of her nephew's
murder in 2011 after evidence concluded that the boy had multiple
injuries to his skull that were not indicative of being smothered.
At the time, her lawyer Sergio Valdez told the court: 'It
would have required her to have to swing her arm to strike the child on
the head but she could never move her arm in that manner.'
Mayra then testified that she witnessed her sister Jaime using a brush
to hit her son Eliseo repeatedly on his arms, legs and head.
'We were all trying to cover for my sister,’ she testified from her bed, to which she was confined because of her weight.
'There
was abuse from her towards her son. She yelled at him. She kicked him.
On that night Junior didn't want to eat and she got frustrated and she
hit him on the head with a hairbrush.
'I thought I was dying anyway so I decided to admit that I'd done it to protect my sister because I love her,' she concluded.
Jaime was found guilty of causing injury to a child, and is currently serving a 15-year sentence.
Today, Mayra has been given a second chance at life, and one of her
goals is to become physically fit enough to be able to adopt and take
care of her nieces and nephew.
In a recent interview, she admits she had undergone two surgeries, one
on each side of her legs, and she is awaiting a gastric bypass surgery
in the coming months.
She has also been following a high-protein, low-carb diet, with plenty of steamed vegetables, sugar-free desserts and soups.
In the interview, Mayra says optimistically: 'I'm turning, sitting up, if I feel like going out I transfer to the wheelchair. I'm still in movement'.
'I was alive before, but I didn't have a life,' she says. 'And now, I do.'
