Bridget Mendez threw her arms around her defense attorney Friday afternoon after a Pima County jury acquitted her in the slaying of a Tucson woman.
She then asked Judge Paul Tang if she could ask her family a question.
"Who's picking me up?" Mendez, who has spent the last 18 months at the Pima County jail, asked the small crowd behind her.
The corrections officer nearest her laughed and said he suspected they'd all be there.
Mendez, 46, and Jesus Figueroa, 31, were charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the stabbing death of Maria Kyles, 39.
On Feb. 23, 2009, South Tucson police found Kyles' decomposing body wrapped up in a carpet in Mauro Sosa's kitchen in the 200 block of East 33rd Street.
Sosa, 46, who was initially arrested for concealment of a human body, told police Mendez, Figueroa and Yleana Price tortured and killed Kyles.
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The trio were arrested in September 2009. Mendez and Figueroa's trial began Tuesday.
On Friday morning, Tang dismissed the case against Figueroa, saying there was no basis to send the case against him to the jury. He also dropped Mendez's first-degree murder and kidnapping charges, but said there was enough evidence to let a jury decide if she was guilty of second-degree murder.
The jury found Mendez not guilty of second-degree murder, manslaughter or negligent homicide.
Defense attorneys Rick Lougee and Harold Higgins told jurors the case was based on the lies by Sosa, whom they described as a crack dealer and pimp, and by South Tucson police Lt. Jeff Inorio.
Lougee alleged Inorio "made up" the confession he says Mendez gave him.
Mendez's niece, Rosemary Terrazas, also testified Mendez confessed to her.
Terrazas prompted a brief interruption in the trial Thursday when it was discovered she made a 29-minute call from a phone that was tucked into her bra while testifying. An Arizona Daily Star reporter and several others were called to the stand Thursday to testify about the incident before Tang denied Lougee's motion for a mistrial. Tang determined the call was accidentally made.
Following the verdicts, the jury foreman told the attorneys the jurors didn't believe anything any of the witnesses had to say and couldn't understand why the case went to trial.
Lougee said he was "absolutely delighted" with the verdict.
David Berkman, Pima County's chief criminal deputy attorney, said "sometimes you just have to go" to trial because of the circumstances of the case. "This was a pretty horrific crime," he said.
Price is scheduled to go to trial April 26.
Contact reporter Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com
