Woman Who Killed Child Remains Free : Judge Says He Hopes Treatment Will Improve Her Mental Health

Josephine Mesa, who escaped a prison sentence in 1987 after admitting she beat her 23-month-old son to death with the wooden handle of a toilet plunger, was allowed Tuesday to remain free on probation despite repeatedly missing appointments with her probation officer.

Superior Court Judge Don Martinson in Vista said he was frustrated by Mesa’s failed appearances. But he said he hoped that when anti-depressant medicine that she began taking eight days ago begins to take effect, the 21-year-old will have a better track record in meeting with her probation officer.

Mesa had missed three of four appointments over the past four weeks.

Martinson initially indicated he would put Mesa in jail for 30 days, but he then allowed her to go free and ordered her back to his courtroom June 27 for an update by her probation officer.

The district attorney’s office asked that Mesa be ordered to state prison for violation of her probation--the second time in eight months she has been ordered to court for possible probation revocation--and her own probation officer recommended that she be sentenced to 30 days in the county jail as punishment.

Failed Appearances

Martinson, while saying he was disappointed with Mesa’s failed appearances, agreed with the woman’s therapist that jail time might do more harm than good for her, especially given the need for her to be on the medicine and receive regular therapy.

“We have bent over backwards. We’ve been sympathetic to the tragic proportions of her life,” Martinson said. “ . . . Yet every time we turn around, there’s another little problem facing us.”

Mesa pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter after scavengers in May, 1986, found a battered toddler’s body in a trash bin behind her Oceanside apartment.

Mesa, 18 at the time, initially denied the baby was hers, then admitted she beat him. Through a dramatic videotaped interview while she was under the influence of sodium amytal, a truth serum, Mesa told the court at the time that she had lived a life filled with rape and abuse at the hands of strangers and relatives.

Martinson rejected prosecutors’ demands for an 11-year prison term and released Mesa on five years’ probation with her promise to divorce her husband at the time, attend counseling, get a job and return to school.

Mesa further received the scorn of the court last year when authorities learned that she had gotten pregnant--and hid the fact from her probation officer and other authorities. That baby now is in custody of his father.