Capital Murder Case Dismissed

The Nueces County District Attorney's office dismissed capital murder charges against Hannah Overton late Wednesday afternoon.

The motion states 'prosecutorial discretion' as the reason for the dismissal.

DA Mark Skurka said his decision to drop the case was the result of a myriad of factors that came about after a careful review of the first trial; that included re-interviewing some of the key witnesses, consulting with some of the medical experts involved in the case, reviewing new evidence at recent hearings.

Overton was convicted in for the death of her 4-year-old foster son, Andrew Burd, who she was in the process of adopting. The jury in that trial determined she was failed to get immediate medical help for the boy after she fed him a fatal dose of salt.

But in 2014, the highest criminal court in Texas granted Hannah Overton a new trial. A few weeks later she was released on bond from the Nueces County Jail while awaiting that new trial.

She had already served 7 years of her life sentence.

Among the reasons her defense presented for the new trial was the testimony from a salt poisoning expert that wasn't allowed to be presented in the first trial which contributed to the finding of "ineffective counsel" by the appeals court and the new trial being granted.