Obscura: A True Crime Podcast · Justin Drown

KILLER: Ana Maria Cardona (Part 1 of 2) | Miami, FL 1990

December 30, 2025·25 min·1 clip

A Florida Power and Light worker found a child’s body on November 2, 1990, with severe abuse and an eighteen-pound frame.

1. Obscura: A True Crime Podcast follows Ana Maria Cardona, her son Lazaro Figueroa, and the violence that shaped their Miami story. 2. The narrator frames Cardona as a woman shaped by trauma, and names Lazaro Figueroa as her son and the center of the case. 3. The episode asks how Cardona’s childhood in Havana and her life in Miami led to Lazaro’s abuse. 4. Cardona was born on November 26, 1961, in Havana, Cuba, after her father left the home the day she was born. 5. Her mother drank at night, called her “stained,” “born dirty,” and “damned from the first breath,” and refused to believe her rape disclosure. 6. At school, Cardona repeated grades, was placed in a residential school, and never advanced past the fourth grade. 7. The episode says a teenage cousin of her tutor raped her, threatened to kill her if she told anyone, and that her mother punished her instead of protecting her. 8. Cardona later lived with her aunt, where her uncle and cousin sexually harassed her after drinking, and the aunt beat the men with a shoe. 9. Between ages 14 and 16, Cardona attempted suicide three times, then left home and lived with five older girls on the streets. 10. The narrator says those years brought marijuana, pills, alcohol, and sex with men and women, and that doctors later diagnosed her with PTSD. 11. Cardona reached America in 1980 through the Mariel boatlift, pregnant and alone, with no family waiting for her in Miami. 12. The episode describes Miami in the 1980s as a city of cocaine money, overcrowded apartments, and violence that became routine. 13. Cardona became involved with Fidel Figueroa, a man tied to the drug trade, and gave birth to children including Juan Puente, Tahimi, and Lazaro Figueroa. 14. Fidel Figueroa was shot on September 20, 1987, outside a riverfront bar, and bodyguards later placed his body in a Cadillac and drove it to a restaurant. 15. Lazaro Figueroa was born on September 18, 1987, after his father’s death had already reshaped the family’s finances and housing. 16. Cardona later received a $100,000 estate, but the narrator says she spent it on cocaine and extravagance and blamed Lazaro for her fall from grace. 17. The episode names Martha Fleitas, Carlos Lima, Susie Hernandez, and Olivia Gonzalez-Mendoza as the adults who repeatedly cared for Lazaro and his siblings. 18. The final forensic account says a Florida Power and Light worker found Lazaro’s body on November 2, 1990, and Dr. Bruce Hima found skull fractures, an unhealed arm fracture, and calcified feces in a taped diaper. 19. The tone is solemn, highly descriptive, and built around long narration rather than interviews or scene breaks. 20. People interested in Miami true crime and child-abuse cases would likely stay with it, while listeners wanting light conversation or a fast-moving format might skip it.

As heard by us

A grave opening chapter that places Lazaro Figueroa's murder within Miami's sharp social divide.

The opening installment follows Ana Maria Cardona's path from early deprivation to the murder of Lazaro Figueroa, treating violence less as a sudden break than as something formed over time.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You are entering 1980s Miami, where childhood neglect meets cocaine-era excess and a city lets vulnerability disappear in plain sight.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Obscura: A True Crime Podcast