Linda Carty: Texas Death Row’s British Grandmother — Baby Stolen, Mother Killed, Awaiting Execution.

 A young woman who had just four days before given birth to precious baby boy ended up dead.  Mhm.  In the boot of your car. Mhm. And her newborn baby boy was discovered in your daughter’s car. Mhm. If you weren’t the one responsible, how did that happen? Patrick O’Daniel unit, Gatesville, Texas, present day.

 A 66-year-old British grandmother sits in a cell on death row. She’s been there for over two decades. Her name is Linda Cardi, and she’s waiting to be strapped to a gurnie and injected with lethal chemicals. But here’s what makes her case different from every other person on Texas death row. Linda Cardi was a government informant.

 She helped the DEA put drug dealers behind bars. She wore a wire. She risked her life gathering evidence against dangerous criminals. And she says those same criminals framed her for murder. The British government believes her. They filed legal briefs in American courts demanding her release. Human rights organizations have plastered her face across London’s Trafalgar Square.

Former prosecutors have called her trial a disgrace. Yet, Texas says she masterminded the kidnapping of a young mother and her newborn baby. They say she wanted to steal that baby and pass it off as her own. They say the mother suffocated to death in the trunk of Linda’s rental car. So, who is Linda Cardi? A cold-blooded killer [music] who manipulated the system or a woman who helped law enforcement and paid the ultimate price when her enemies came for revenge? The answer depends on who you believe. And after you [music] hear this

story, you might not be sure yourself. Before we begin, please like this video, share it, and subscribe [music] to this channel. Your support means everything to us. Remember, this is True Crime Matter. Stay with us. Linda Anita Cardi was born on October 5th, 1,958 on the Caribbean island of Street Kits. Back then it wasn’t an independent nation.

 It was a British colony called St. Christopher Nevice Anguila. That detail matters because it made Linda a British citizen from birth. A fact that would later bring international attention to her case. Her parents were from Angila, a tiny island where everyone knows everyone. Linda grew up in the Caribbean warmth surrounded by tight-knit communities where neighbors looked out for each other.

 It was a simple life, far removed from the violence that would later define her story. Linda was intelligent and ambitious. While other young women on the island followed traditional paths, Linda wanted more. She became a primary school teacher in street kits, spending her days educating children, and building a respectable life. By Caribbean standards, she had made it.

 A teacher was someone the community respected, but Linda wanted even more. She looked north to America where opportunities seemed limitless. In 1982 at age 24, Linda Cardi immigrated to the United States. She landed in Houston, Texas, a sprawling city of oil, money, and opportunity. As different from street kits as anywhere on Earth, Linda didn’t waste time.

 She enrolled at the University of Houston to study pharmarmacology. She was going to be a scientist, a professional. The island girl was reinventing herself in the land of opportunity. She met a man named Joseé Corona, a Mexican American, and they fell in love. They got married and had a daughter together. For a while, Linda Cardi was living the American dream, an educated immigrant with a family, a future, and endless possibilities.

 But somewhere along the way, something went wrong. By 1992, Linda Card’s American dream had crumbled. She was arrested and convicted of autotheft. But that wasn’t the worst charge. Linda had impersonated an FBI agent, a serious federal offense that suggested something darker about her character. The conviction should have sent her to prison.

 Instead, prosecutors offered her a deal. They would give her 10 years probation. But there was a catch. Linda would have to work as a drug informant. Think about what that means. Linda would wear wires, infiltrate drug operations, and gather evidence against dealers who would kill her without hesitation if they discovered her true identity.

 It was dangerous work, the kind that destroys relationships and makes enemies for life. Linda agreed. For the next several years, Linda Cardi lived a double life. to drug dealers. She was just another person in their world. But secretly, she was feeding information to law enforcement. According to Linda, her work led to at least two major arrests and significant drug seizures.

 She claims she helped send scores of dealers to prison. The details of her informant work remain murky. Law enforcement doesn’t publicize the identities of their informants for obvious reasons, but what’s clear is that Linda made enemies. dangerous enemies who now knew exactly who had betrayed them. Her cooperation with authorities eventually ended when she was arrested on drug charges herself.

 The exact circumstances are unclear, but what followed suggests her informant career had consequences she never anticipated. Linda would later claim that everything that happened to her, every accusation, every conviction was retaliation from the drug world she had helped destroy. They framed her. She said they set her up because she had put their friends in prison.

 Was she telling the truth or was this the convenient excuse of a guilty woman? In early May 2001, Linda’s marriage to Joseé Corona fell apart. They separated. Shortly after, Linda told her aranged husband something that would become crucial to the prosecution’s case against her. She said she was pregnant with his child. Linda Cardi lived in an apartment complex in Houston, Texas.

One of her neighbors was a young woman named Joanna Rodriguez, barely in her early 20s. Joanna had just experienced the greatest joy of her life. She had given birth to a baby boy. The baby was only 4 to 6 days old, brand new to the world, completely helpless. Joanna lived with her partner, Rayundo Cabrera.

They were a young couple just starting their lives together, exhausted from sleepless nights with a newborn, but deliriously happy. They had no idea that someone in their apartment complex had been watching them. According to prosecutors, Linda Cardi had a problem. She had told her aranged husband she was pregnant and would deliver any day now.

But Linda wasn’t pregnant. She wasn’t even showing. And her husband was getting suspicious. Prosecutors alleged that Linda decided to solve her problem in the most horrific way imaginable. She would steal a baby. Not just any baby. her neighbor’s newborn. In the days leading up to May 15th, 2001, Linda allegedly began making preparations.

Witnesses later testified that Linda had acquired baby supplies, a car seat, infant paraphernalia. She told a neighbor and a storage facility employee that she would have her baby by the next day, but Linda didn’t look pregnant at all. On May 15th, Linda allegedly told someone her baby had already been born and was at home with his father.

 The problem was there was no baby. Not yet. That night, everything changed. The night of May 15th into May 16th, 2001, after midnight, armed intruders forced their way into Joanna Rodriguez’s apartment. They weren’t there to rob the place. They were there for something else entirely. Rayundo Cabrera, Joanna’s partner, was home.

 The intruders attacked him viciously. They bound him, pistol whipped him, and demanded to know where the drugs and money were, but there were no drugs. There was no money. This was a young couple with a newborn baby, not drug dealers. The intruders took what they really came for. They grabbed Joanna Rodriguez and her newborn son at gunpoint.

 Mother and baby were kidnapped from their own home while Rayundo lay beaten and bound, unable to stop them. Two days later, on May 17th, 2001, police made a discovery that would shock Houston. They found a baby in a Chevrolet Cavalier. The engine was running. The baby was alive. Alone in the vehicle in northeast Houston nearby, police found another car.

 It was a Pontiac Sunfire, a rental vehicle. When they opened the trunk, they found Joanna Rodriguez. She was bound with duct tape. A plastic bag covered her head. She had suffocated to death in that trunk while her baby sat alone in another car just yards away. A young mother, barely into her 20s, killed days after giving birth.

Her baby orphaned before he could even recognize his mother’s face. The investigation moved fast. Police identified the rental car’s paperwork. It had been rented by Linda Cardi. When police contacted Linda Cardi, something strange happened. Before they even asked about her rental car, Linda volunteered information.

 She told them her rental car and her daughter’s car might have been used in the crime. She directed police to exactly where the vehicles were parked. Why would she do that? If Linda was guilty, why point police toward evidence? If she was innocent, how did she know her cars were involved? Prosecutors said it was consciousness of guilt that Linda was trying to get ahead of the investigation by appearing cooperative while knowing police would find the cars anyway.

 Linda’s defenders say she was trying to help, that she suspected her cars had been used by the people who were framing her. The physical evidence was damning. Linda Card’s fingerprints were found in both vehicles. Her prints were in the Cavalere where the living baby was discovered. Her prints were in the trunk of the Sunfire where Joanna’s body was found.

 How do your fingerprints end up in the trunk of a car containing a murder victim? That’s a question Linda would struggle to answer. Then there were the witnesses. Police had identified four men connected to the kidnapping. Christopher Robinson, Gerald Anderson, Carlos Williams, and Marvin Casten. These men faced serious charges.

 Three of them made deals with prosecutors. In exchange for prison terms instead of the death penalty, they agreed to testify against Linda Cardi. They told police that Linda was the mastermind. She had planned the kidnapping. She had recruited them. She had promised them cash and marijuana for their help. Their testimony painted a picture of a desperate woman who wanted a baby so badly she was willing to kill for one.

But there was a problem with this testimony. Every single one of these men had a powerful incentive to lie. The more guilty they made Linda look, the better their deals became. If Linda was the mastermind, they were just her pawns. Were they telling the truth? Or were they saving themselves by sacrificing her? February 2002.

 Linda Cardi stood trial for capital murder in Houston, Texas. The charge was murder committed during a kidnapping. One of the offenses that qualifies for the death penalty under Texas law. The prosecution’s case was straightforward. Linda Cardi wanted a baby to save her failing marriage. She told people she was pregnant when she wasn’t.

 She made baby preparations. Then she recruited men to kidnap her neighbor and steal the newborn. When something went wrong, Joanna Rodriguez ended up dead in the trunk of Linda’s rental car. The evidence seemed overwhelming. fingerprints, witness testimony. Linda’s own suspicious behavior with the baby preparations, but the defense had almost nothing to work with.

 Linda’s courtappointed attorney was Jerry Gorino. He had a reputation that should concern anyone facing the death penalty. Multiple clients represented by Gino had ended up on death row or executed. According to later investigations, Gerinat met with Linda only briefly before trial. One claim suggests he spoke with her for only 15 minutes total.

 He had court approved funds to travel to street kits and gather evidence about Linda’s background. Evidence that could have humanized her to the jury. He failed to call witnesses who might have helped Linda’s case. He didn’t adequately investigate the backgrounds of the men testifying against her. He didn’t explore Linda’s history as an informant and the enemies that work had created.

 The codefendants testified against Linda, telling the jury she was the one who planned everything. But Ginot didn’t effectively challenge their credibility or highlight their obvious incentive to lie. While Linda sat in jail awaiting trial, something happened that prosecutors would use against her. A fellow inmate named Sarah Hernandez came forward.

 She claimed Linda had asked her to write a letter framing other people as setting Linda up. Prosecutors argued this proved consciousness of guilt. Linda knew she was guilty and was trying to create false evidence to escape justice. On February 19th, 2002, the jury found Linda Cardi guilty of capital murder. Two days later on February 21st, 2002, the same jury sentenced her to death.

Linda Cardi was going to die by lethal injection for a crime she insisted she didn’t commit. After her conviction, Linda was sent to Texas death row for women, initially at Mountain View Unit. Later transferred to the Patrick O’Daniel unit in Gatesville. She was now one of the few women in America waiting to be executed.

 But something unusual happened in Linda’s case. The world started paying attention. Remember that Linda was born in street kits when it was a British colony. That made her a British citizen. And under international law, specifically the 1,951 UK US consular convention. British authorities should have been notified immediately when Linda was arrested.

They weren’t. British officials only learned about Linda Card’s case after she had already been convicted and sentenced to death. By then, it was too late to provide the consular support that might have made a difference. They couldn’t help her find better legal representation. They couldn’t gather evidence from her homeland.

 They couldn’t provide the resources that might have balanced the scales. The British government was furious. This was a violation of international agreements. and a British citizen’s life was at stake. The UK government began filing legal briefs in American courts, arguing that Linda’s rights had been violated and her trial was fundamentally unfair.

They raised concerns about the quality of her legal representation, the reliance on incentivized witness testimony, and the failure to notify consular officials. Human rights organization Reprieve took up Linda’s cause. They launched high-profile campaigns, placing her image on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square as a symbol against the death penalty.

 British media covered her story extensively. She became known as the British grandmother on death row, but none of this changed her legal situation in Texas. Linda Card’s appeals began immediately after her conviction. In death penalty cases, appeals are automatic. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed her case and affirmed her conviction and death sentence on April 7th, 2004.

Her lawyers then filed for federal habius corpus relief, arguing that her constitutional rights had been violated. The fifth circuit court of appeals denied relief in 2009. In 2010, Linda’s attorneys petitioned the United States Supreme Court. The British government filed an amicus brief supporting her case, a remarkable intervention by a foreign government in an American criminal proceeding.

 The Supreme Court denied her petition on May 3rd, 2010. But then something changed. In September 2016, a Texas district court made a stunning finding. The court determined that prosecutors had failed to disclose key exculpatory witness statements to Linda’s defense team. This was a Brady violation named after the landmark Supreme Court case Brady v.

 Maryland, which requires prosecutors to turn over evidence that might help the defendant. The prosecution had hidden evidence that could have helped Linda Cardi. This wasn’t speculation. A judge had found it as fact, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, while acknowledging the Brady violation, ultimately ruled that it wasn’t prejuditial enough to overturn her conviction or death sentence.

 The evidence that was hidden, the court decided, wouldn’t have changed the outcome. In 2018, Linda’s attorneys went back to the Supreme Court. They argued that Texas courts had refused to consider the cumulative impact of multiple constitutional errors. the Brady violation plus the ineffective assistance of counsel.

 The Supreme Court denied her petition on November 13th, 2018. In 2020, the Fifth Circuit rejected yet another attempt to reopen her case. Linda Cardi had been fighting for her life through the courts for nearly two decades. Every door had closed. Today, Linda Cardi remains on death row in Texas.

 She has been there for over 23 years. No execution date has been set, but her legal options are nearly exhausted. Her supporters continue to raise troubling questions about her case. First, the accomplice testimony. The entire case against Linda rested heavily on the word of men who received reduced sentences for testifying against her.

 Christopher Robinson, Gerald Anderson, and Carlos Williams all had powerful incentives to make Linda the mastermind and minimize their own roles. Defense attorneys were unable to effectively challenge their credibility. Second, Linda’s work as an informant. She had spent years helping law enforcement put drug dealers in prison. That work made enemies, dangerous enemies who might have had both motive and means to frame her.

 Her defense never adequately explored this angle. Third, the Brady violation. A judge found that prosecutors hid evidence. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s a judicial finding. What else might have been hidden that we don’t know about? Fourth, the consular violation. Linda was never given access to British consular officials, a violation of international agreements.

 Would their involvement have led to better legal representation? Would they have found evidence that court-appointed attorneys didn’t look for? Fifth, the lack of direct forensic evidence. Linda’s fingerprints were in the cars, but there’s no scientific evidence proving she was physically inside Joanna’s apartment when the kidnapping occurred.

 She could have touched those cars at any time for any number of innocent reasons. But here’s what the prosecution asks you to consider. Why did Linda have baby supplies when she wasn’t pregnant? Why did she tell people she would have a baby any day now? Why were her fingerprints in the trunk of a car containing a murder victim? Why did she volunteer information about her cars to police? Why would three men independently name her as the mastermind if she wasn’t involved? These are difficult questions.

 They don’t prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but they suggest involvement that can’t be easily explained away. Before we close Linda Card’s story, we need to remember someone. Joanna Rodriguez was a real person. She was a young woman, barely in her 20s, who had just experienced the miracle of childbirth.

 She held her baby in her arms, fed him, loved him, dreamed about his future. Then she was kidnapped from her home, bound with tape, and suffocated in the trunk of a car. She died terrified, probably wondering what would happen to her baby, her partner, her family. She never got to watch her son grow up.

 Her child survived, but he grew up without his mother because someone took her life. Someone is responsible for Joanna Rodriguez’s murder. The question is whether that someone is Linda Cardi. If Linda is guilty, then justice requires accountability. A young mother is dead, a family is destroyed, someone must answer for that crime.

 But if Linda is innocent, or even if she’s guilty, but didn’t receive a fair trial, then Texas is preparing to kill a woman based on tainted evidence and inadequate representation. That’s not justice. That’s just killing. The British government believes Linda deserves a new trial. Human rights organizations have made her a symbol of everything wrong with capital punishment.

 Former prosecutors have examined her case and found serious problems. Yet, Linda remains on death row, waiting for an execution that could come at any time. Her case forces us to ask uncomfortable questions. How much do we trust testimony from people who benefit from testifying? How much should informant work factor into evaluating accusations against a former informant? When prosecutors hide evidence, should that automatically trigger a new trial? And perhaps the most difficult question of all, when we execute someone, how certain do we need to be that we’re

killing the right person? Linda Cardi has maintained her innocence for over two decades. She says she was framed by drug dealers seeking revenge for her work as an informant. She says her trial was a setup from the beginning. Texas says she’s a murderer who used others to steal a baby and killed a mother in the process.

 Only one of these versions can be true and the stakes couldn’t be higher. If this story impacted you, please like this video and share it with others. Subscribe to True Crime Matter for more true crime stories that need to be told. And ask yourself this, if you were on that jury, knowing what you know now, would you vote for death? This is true crime matter.