The Misery Machine - The Case of Alexee Trevizo

Starting point is 00:00:00 Alexei Joy Treviso was born on November 25th, 2004 at Seminole Memorial Hospital in Texas to parents Guadalupe and Rosa Treviso. Now, according to reports, Alexi's father beat her mother while she was pregnant, and the couple later separated. Rosa, too, had troubles of her own. Between 2004 and 2009, she had several arrests for theft by check and assault. Eventually, Alexi's family relocated to Artesian New Mexico. At the time of our story, Alexi was a 19-year-old high school senior five months away from graduation. Now, when you think about high school life portrayed in movies and the media, you can't help but think of some of the stereotypes that go along with it. The nerds, the jocks, the stoners, the cheerleader who was dating a football player. Alexi Treviso was that girl.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Alexi had been on the cheering squad for at least three years. Her boyfriend, Devin Fierro, was a member of both the baseball team and the football team. And like many couples portrayed in the movies, they plan to go off to college together. Their pair were both enrolled at the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces for the 2023 fall semester. During the first half of Alexi's senior year, she began to put on weight. She claimed this was because she had started taking birth control. least that's what she had told her friends. Due to this weight gain, she also began taking phenamine. This is an appetite suppressant known by many brand names, including Apodex and ProFast.

Starting point is 00:01:35 According to the Mayo Clinic, this is a prescription weight loss drug used for obese patients. Though there are no public records confirming or denying if Alexi had a prescription for this drug, seems unlikely due to her age and physical condition, as well as the fact she wasn't simply gaining weight due to her birth control. She was pregnant. In fact, fenermine has warnings all over it about the risks for women who are pregnant. If a doctor had prescribed this to Alexi, it would be reasonable to think they would have done a pregnancy test first.

Starting point is 00:02:07 According to Alexi, she had no idea that she was pregnant. Alexi claimed she was on birth control. She was having regular menstrual cycles. She said she had never slept with anyone. However, at least one of these claims would prove to be false. On January 26, 2023, Alexi went to her mother and told her that she was having extreme back pain. According to Rosa, Alexi had a long history of back and hip problems and saw a chiropractor regularly. However, this time the pain was so extreme that she took her daughter to the emergency room.

Starting point is 00:02:43 Rosa and Alexi arrived at Artesia General Hospital around 1147 p.m. And Alexi was formally admitted and given a bed just 15 minutes later. Now, when any woman of childbearing age is admitted to the hospital with lower back pain or abdominal pain, some of the first screener questions she will be asked is, is there any chance you are pregnant? And when was your last menstrual cycle? They asked me these same questions when I went in with a broken anger. Alexi, whose mother was in the room at the time, told hospital staff that she was regular and that she had not been intimate with her boyfriend Devin.

Starting point is 00:03:23 Initially taking her at her word, the hospital staff started an IV to administer pain meds at around 12, 18 a.m. They also took blood to run labs at the same time. 10 minutes later, while still waiting for lab results, Alexi was given another stronger dose of meds, presumably because she was still in extreme pain. At 12.51 a.m., Alexi's lab results came back. Maye showed she absolutely was pregnant. And remember that Alexi told the hospital staff, as well as her mother, there was no possible chance she could be pregnant.

Starting point is 00:03:57 Regardless, by 1 a.m., Alexi and Rosa both knew the truth. Pregnancy in extreme pain can mean a few different things. The medical staff needed to figure out whether or not Alexi was having a medical emergency such as an ectopic pregnancy, which can be fatal to both mother and baby. They needed to determine if she was possibly in labor or having a miscarriage or some other complication unrelated to her pregnancy. For example, due to changes in hormones, women are at a higher risk of forming gallstones during their pregnancies.

Starting point is 00:04:26 At 1.39 a.m., Alexi got out of bed and quickly made her way to a bathroom down the hall with her hand reaching between her legs. Just one minute later, her mother knocked on the bathroom door to check on her. her. After waiting another nine minutes, her mother knocked on the door again to see if she was okay. Alexi told her she was fine and was just having a difficult time going to the bathroom. Hospital staff also knocked in the door to see if she was okay at 153 a.m. and again three minutes later. Alexi was telling them that she was fine, but they could hear the toilet flushing over and over, as well as the water running and paper towels being dispensed repeatedly.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Finally, a member of the staff told her that if she didn't open the door, they were going to unlock it. That person called for a key from the clerk, but as they were about to unlock it, Alexi opened the door on her own and exited the bathroom, walking calmly past the hospital staff to return to her room. As soon as she left the bathroom, staff members looked in and saw what was later described as, and I quote, blood everywhere, like a horror film. There was blood on the floor and on the toilet. It was splattered all over the walls and had been smeared around and in a clear attempt to clean it up. However, she did a terrible job because the blood was still visibly everywhere. Alexi tried to explain that she was just on her period, as if what she did to the bathroom was some normal thing for her.

Starting point is 00:05:55 However, the reactions from hospital staff centered around two major concerns. some of them were concerned that she had intentionally done something to herself and her baby. Others thought she may have experienced a horrific miscarriage. In fact, the nurse even claimed a doctor told Alexi directly that she must have suffered a miscarriage. The 19-year-old was still bleeding significantly. Some hospital staff claimed she left a trail of blood from the bathroom to her exam room. At 208 a.m., Lila, who worked as a housekeeper at the hospital, arrived to clean up the mess. She described the bathroom as, and I quote, a gory massacre.

Starting point is 00:06:35 There was so much blood that she had to clean the entire bathroom twice. After about 20 minutes, Leela finally got around to emptying the bathroom trash. However, upon lifting the trash can, Leila immediately noticed there was something wrong. It was far too heavy. After all, it normally held things like use paper products and sanitary items. Initially, she thought perhaps a roll of trash can liners had been left in the bottom of the can. When she lifted out the trash bag, that is not what she found.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Under the clean liner was another trash bag, wrapped tightly around a newborn baby boy. The bag was twisted shut and tucked under the baby's body before being placed back into the trash can. What did the bag look like? The bag was the original trash bag that was in there. It had trash in it. She, when I pulled it out, it was spun where it was like tied and then it was folded underneath the baby in there. So it was like a little capsule the baby was in. So when I, you know, I had to tear that bag open to see the baby in the bottom. If you would look in the, and I looked in there, when she told me, she was something, I looked, I said, what are you talking about?

Starting point is 00:07:52 because there was a clean line from the trash bag. So basically he was in the bottom, trash on top of him. And then another clean liner had been put on top. Yeah. Yeah. At this point, 30 minutes had passed since Alexi had left the bathroom. Upon seeing the baby in the bottom of the trash can, the charge nurse, H.D. Halliday, was called for immediately.

Starting point is 00:08:11 He took the entire can to the trauma room across the hall and ripped the bag open to find Alexi's baby with absolutely no signs of life. Meanwhile, the ER doctor, Heather Marshall Vasker, was preparing to do a pelvic exam on Alexi to try and determine the cause of all the blood. She insisted that the doctor accompanied him to the trauma room immediately. Leaving Alexi, the two of them with an additional nurse who was not named went back to the trauma room. The baby boy was not breathing or moving at all, and his umbilical cord appeared to be shredded, like it had been torn apart.

Starting point is 00:08:45 So there was unfortunately nothing that could be done and the decision was made to not attempt to revive him. was born after a full 38 weeks of pregnancy, weighing less than six pounds, and was pronounced dead at 228 a.m. Once hospital staff realized the gravity of what was happening, they called the police. Luckily, the police were close by and arrived to talk with the hospital staff just 10 minutes later, according to their body cam footage. Upon arrival, the police were given a brief overview of what happened, and then accompanied the doctor and the charge nurse to inform Alexi what they had found. I'm sorry, there's...

Starting point is 00:09:25 We discovered a dead baby in the bathroom. Oh, my God. Lexi, I told you about this. I just asked you, baby, to tell me the truth. It was not crying her baby. What did you do to it? Okay, stop right here. Stop, stop.

Starting point is 00:09:49 At this point, the doctor cut rose off and said that their first priority was making sure that Alexi was stable. Should be noted that Artesia General Hospital does not have a labor and delivery unit and is not equipped to appropriately assess whether or not Alexi needed further assistance delivering her placenta. They had already called for an emergency transport to Loveless Hospital in Albuquerque, a roughly three hour and 40 minute drive over 240 miles away.

Starting point is 00:10:14 However, while waiting for transport, it became clear that Alexi was not in critical condition or experiencing any sort of emergency situation. The hospital staff continued to monitor her blood pressure every few minutes, which is standard practice after childbirth. They also felt her stomach to check that her uterus was shrinking as it should to slow her bleeding, and they performed an ultrasound on her. According to a friend of ours that works in the labor and delivery field, if there was a genuine concern about a retained placenta, the nature of which she was being cared for would not have been so casual. Alexi waited in her room for nearly two hours to be airlifted to the other hospital. In a case of a retained placenta, hemorrhaging can happen very easily, usually within the first hour.

Starting point is 00:10:59 Alexi was later found to have already delivered the placenta, and it was presumed that she flushed it down the toilet while she was still in the bathroom. Alexi's mother, Rosa, appeared to be shocked and shaken by what was happening, and who could blame her really? In video footage, you can see that she was most shocked when the nurse confirmed that the baby was full term. Do you guys have, I'm the charged nurse, sir. Do you guys have any questions for me? Like how big is the baby? It's full term. What?

Starting point is 00:11:27 Nine months? Let me was crying. Let's see. Have you watched the news of the girls that, what they do to their babies and what they go to jail? Let them was crying. Other questions? So as it right now, like, I'm going to say this. We're going to have the detectives come over here and they're going to talk to you.

Starting point is 00:11:52 We have to gather some more information about what's going on. You don't get your statement. They're going to get the doctor. their statements they're going to get everybody's statements okay so I don't know everything yet okay so I'm not gonna tell you I can't tell you nothing I'm okay all I'm gonna go to jail right right now no well right now she's being detained so she's not gonna leave from here at all period okay so one of us will be in your custody right yeah she's detained yeah she's not under arrest but she is detained okay

Starting point is 00:12:24 she's not free to leave so while this whole thing is coming up is you're not free to leave Okay, one of us would be in here the whole time with you because you're not going to try to leave or nothing like that. It would later come into contention that Alexi was never read her Miranda rights. However, she was not being questioned by police at any point before her transfer to Lovelace Hospital. At one point, as Rosa was trying to ask Alexi questions, an officer even cuts her off. This appeared to be an attempt at stopping Alexi from saying anything incriminating. One common thread that kept coming up in the police interviews with hospital staff was the lack of concern that Alexi, Rosa, and even Devin had for what happened to the baby. I was really surprised not one person asked me about the baby. If it was alive, if it was dead, if there's a boy, it was a girl, no one asked me anything.

Starting point is 00:13:14 No, she didn't ask. The only thing she started doing was crying and started talking about. She didn't know what to do. There was no concern for the baby. No one asked. any questions about the baby. Not even the family members when I went out there and talked to them. Did they say, you know, normally people I would think would say, was it a boy, a girl, you know, no one asked me one question about the baby at all, not one. At 4.30 a.m., Alexi was allowed to leave the hospital. She was informed that she was no longer being detained and that detectives would be contacting her in the future. Initially, Alexi returned to her regular life. She went back to school, and friends later stated that both Alexi and Devin were acting like nothing had happened. They even

Starting point is 00:14:03 attended prom just 12 weeks after the death of their baby. An autopsy was performed on the baby boy, who was later referred to as Alex Fierro by the media. But the findings didn't align with what Alexi claimed to have happened in the hospital bathroom in the early morning hours of January 27. The autopsy showed that the baby's lungs and stomach contained air, which is a sign that he had, in fact, tried to take a breath. He was found to be positive for the C-19 virus that YouTube doesn't like us to mention, as well as influenza A&B, as well as severe acute respiratory syndrome. You may know it as SARS. The baby was found to have 19 nanograms of morphine in the system, as well as the appetite suppressant fentamine that Alexei had been taking. There was also signs of suffocation and the cause of death was a torture.

Starting point is 00:14:48 determined to be entrapment and ruled a homicide. According to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, entrapment, also known as wedging, is defined as when a baby's body or head gets stuck between two objects, such as between a bed frame and a wall. In this case, it could be deduced that little Alex died from being placed inside of the trash can. On May 10, 2023, three officers went to Alexi's home to arrest her for charges of first-degree homicide, and tampering with evidence. Rosa was very resistant and argumentative with the officers, insisting that she had the right to Alexi's information

Starting point is 00:15:27 despite her daughter being a legal adult. Alexi was eventually taken into custody without incident and her bail was set at $100,000. She was later released and allowed to attend school as normal and graduate with her class. She was not required to wear an ankle monitor or be placed under house arrest. The only stipulation was,

Starting point is 00:15:48 was that she was to attend counseling sessions and to adhere to a.m. to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. curfew. Alexi's lawyer, Gary C. Mitchell, is currently trying very hard to work the system in Alexi's favor. His first course of action was to try to get all of the body cam footage thrown out as evidence, saying that it violated doctor-patient confidentiality privileges. He's also attempting to get a change of venue for her trial due to her case being widely known in the area. However, due this case having some nationwide coverage, it would be unlikely that a change of venue would help this issue. Her lawyer is also trying to claim that the air in the baby's stomach and lungs were the result of her performing life-saving efforts, not the result of him breathing. They've also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital for administering pain medication to her while she was in labor,

Starting point is 00:16:38 claiming these drugs resulted in the baby's inability to breathe when born. These counterclaims highlight many moral and legal dilemmas in this case. It seems highly unlikely based on the information available that Alexi did not know she was pregnant. There are numerous photos of her in her cheering uniform which showed that her weight gain couldn't have just been the result of her birth control or eating McDonald's with her boyfriend every day as she later claimed. Her coach even asked her directly if she was pregnant and she denied it. She simply said that she was just putting on weight. Now as with all of these cases, we will hear.

Starting point is 00:17:12 hear people on both sides arguing that there is no way a person could be 38 weeks pregnant without feeling the baby kicking and rolling or noticing a change in their stomach. Others will claim that it is in fact possible. Well, statistically, one in 2,500 pregnancies goes undetected until birth, meaning it is possible. However, the vast majority of these undetected pregnancies involve people who are already overweight to begin with, thus making the changes in their body less noticeable. However, there are always exceptions. Another claim that was made by Alexi's lawyer was that she never had the birds and the bees talk at school. He stated that in this day and age, you have to grow up on a farm to get that type of education.

Starting point is 00:17:53 Now, we will admit that New Mexico has some pretty abysmal state laws regarding this topic. New Mexico's state curriculum is required to stress abstinence, and parents can request to remove their child from class. Now, this is a huge problem because it instills a sense of fear and shame around the topic, and panic when teenagers find themselves unexpectedly pregnant. However, Alexei was 18 at the time she got pregnant with her baby. She claimed she was taking birth control. Clearly, she understood the consequences of being intimate with her boyfriend.

Starting point is 00:18:29 She was attending public school. She was not sheltered in a homeschool situation or some other religious school. It seems highly unlikely that she just wouldn't know how babies are made. In addition, the nurses all agreed it seemed like Alexi had been lying to them from the start. Some even had suspicious conversations with her about the medication she was taking. The ultrasound was tech was in the room with her. Ask if there was anything. She pretty much said would there be any, like, bad outcomes if she had started taking, stop taking one medication and stopped taking another? And I said, well, what medication?

Starting point is 00:19:10 what would happen if I stopped taking birth control started taking late-lust medications? I don't know. But for the sake of argument, let's just say that she genuinely did not know she was pregnant, or maybe didn't realize she was full term on January 27th when she was admitted. If you went to the bathroom, a very normal sensation as the baby's head enters the birth canal, why wouldn't you call out for help when the baby came out? Multiple people checked on her when she was she was in the bathroom. She lied every time saying that she was okay and that she was just having trouble going to the bathroom. She had every opportunity to get help for that baby. I just, I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen women that are only married,

Starting point is 00:19:56 or not married, but pregnant for six weeks and they lose that baby and they're a mess. You know what I mean? That girl went into that bathroom made no sounds at all and the baby came out of her and had, I don't even know how she functioned that way. The only thing that upsets me the most is I understand she was scared and I think her mother had a big dynamic on her and I understand that. I mean, I think her mother was probably pretty controlling. I don't know that.

Starting point is 00:20:28 I'm just speculation. But she gave me no chance to save that baby. I had no chance and that's not what I do. My job is to save lives and I had no chance on that baby. She gave me no chance. And we are a facility that you can drop the baby off, no questions ask. You can just leave the baby and go.

Starting point is 00:20:50 I don't care, you know, as long as you bring the baby to a safe, we are one of those type of hospitals. So it's hard to fathom what was going on in our mind. Now, with the slew of things the baby boy would have tested positive for, it is very likely that he would have needed some assistance to breathe after being delivered. Unfortunately, Alexi never gave him that chance. Instead, she tore his umbilical cord to shreds, wrapped him tightly in a trash bag, and hid him underneath another trash bag. She tried to hide the evidence of what she had done and then pretended like nothing had ever happened.

Starting point is 00:21:25 To our thousands of listeners who have struggled to get pregnant, lost a child or suffered a miscarriage, this story is very hard to hear. Artesia General Hospital, along with other fire stations and hospitals are safe places to leave an unwanted baby. It is estimated that there are over one million families in the United States waiting to adopt a baby. There is no shortage of homes waiting for a healthy baby like Alexis. She certainly had the option to surrender her baby and was in a location where she could have done so. Now we wait and see what this trial will bring. Just this year, another teen mom in New Mexico was sentenced in a similar case. Alexis Avila, a 19-year-old woman, was sentenced to a 16-year prison term after being convicted of attempted homicide after throwing her newborn baby out into an outdoor trash receptacle in January of 2020.

Starting point is 00:22:19 In that case, the baby thankfully survived. So what will Alexi Treviso be facing after her baby did not survive? You'd think that the cases of Alexis Avila and Alexi Treviso are simply isolated incidents, but that couldn't be further from the truth. After all of this, tragedy struck yet again in New Mexico. On September 13, 23, officers with the Hobbs Police Department responded to a call from Covenant Health Hobbs Hospital in reference to a dead baby. That same day, a 16-year-old who has not been named, accompanied by her mother, was treated at the hospital. In an almost identical series of events, hospital staff later discovered, a dead baby in the restroom area of the teenager's exam room. You've heard that correctly.

Starting point is 00:23:12 In the last 20 months, three babies have been found either dead or alive in a dumpster or hospital bathroom in New Mexico. So what the hell is going on? Now, it should be noted that according to the New Mexico Department of Health, a woman's right to choose is completely legal. Anyone 13 years of age or older can legally end their pregnancies without, permission from their parents. As Alexi was 18 years old when she got pregnant, she wouldn't have had any issue obtaining services if that's what she chose to do. The same goes for Alexis Avela and

Starting point is 00:23:50 this unnamed 16-year-olds. Now, a lot of things need to change so that we don't continue to see babies discarded like trash. A lot of things need to change so that we don't continue to see babies discarded like trash, and I'm sorry, I'm not going to cut this out. Outside of the laws that vary state to state regarding a woman's right to choose, we need better education in classrooms and medically accurate curriculums that are taught in all health classes nationwide. We need better access to birth control and emergency contraception in all states. And finally, parents need to be more open to talking to their kids about intimacy and pregnancy. This is a normal part of life. It is not something shameful.

Starting point is 00:24:35 If your teenager find themselves in this situation, they shouldn't feel like they need to hide it from you. Life happens, and they shouldn't be scared of you. To be clear, we think it's pretty unlikely that Alexi planned for this to happen. If her plan was to deliver her baby that night and kill him, seems unlikely she would even request to go to the hospital. It just doesn't make logical sense, but sometimes people do extreme things when they panic.

Starting point is 00:25:01 However, all she had to do was deliver her baby, turn him over to staff, and walk away, at no cost to herself or any danger of legal trouble. She chose not to do that. Rest in peace, baby, Alex. You deserved far better than this. You deserved to have a chance.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Alexee Trevizo

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