Everything in Mayra Rosales’ life has changed since the then-1,040 pound woman was found not guilty of killing her two-year-old nephew by falling on him. How is Mayra Rosales now? The 39-year-old who was once the heaviest woman in the world is now completely unrecognizable — and has been living like a person with a new lease on life in the wake of the media frenzy that followed her trial and weight loss journey.

What happened to Mayra Rosales?

On March 18, 2008, two-and-a-half-year old Eliseo Rosales Jr. died of injuries consistent with blunt force trauma to the head. Eliseo and Jamie Lee Rosales’ two other children had been left the care of their aunt, Mayra Rosales. Mayra told authorities that she had “slipped, landing with her right hand on Eliseo’s head while trying to pick him up off the floor” after he’d fallen off of a chair. At the time, Mayra weighed 800 pounds; in April of the previous year, Jamie had been advised by Texas CPS that Mayra’s extreme obesity made her an unsafe care provider.

Initially, Mayra faced a capital murder charge for Eliseo’s death. However, the investigation leading up to Mayra’s trial revealed that, based on her story, Mayra couldn’t have caused Eliseo’s injuries. And during the trial itself, Mayra made a shocking confession: She had fabricated the entire story, taking the blame for Eliseo’s murder in order to protect her sister, who had struck her son with a hairbrush when he wouldn’t eat breakfast. The charge against Mayra was dismissed — and Jaime fled to Mexico, where she was discovered in late 2010. After returning to the United States, Jamie was found guilty of causing injury to a child. She’s currently scheduled to be released from prison in 2025.

Years after the trial, Mayra said that she and several other members of her family regularly “covered” for Jaime’s abuse:

We were all trying to cover for my sister. There was abuse from her towards her son. She yelled at him. She kicked him. On that night Junior didn’t want to eat and she got frustrated and she hit him on the head with a hairbrush. I thought I was dying anyway so I decided to admit that I’d done it to protect my sister because I love her.

Her sister fleeing the country didn’t shock Mayra, either: “Jaime is into a lot of bad things,” Mayra told Reveal Magazine, “and I understood why she did it.”

How is Mayra Rosales now? How does she look today?

The stress of the trial and constant media attention caused Mayra’s weight to balloon even further. By the time My 600 Lb Life production company Megalomedia began filming Half-Ton Killer, their documentary on Mayra’s case and weight loss struggles, she weighed 1,040 pounds. (Half-Ton Killer aired in the UK under the title 74 Stone Baby Sitter.) At the time, that made Mayra the heaviest woman ever recorded. And, though Mayra’s documentary is not technically a part of the My 600 Lb Life series, her peak weight would also have made her the heaviest person to ever appear on the show.

Thanks to Dr. Nowzaradan’s surgical skills and some serious work on Mayra’s part, the 39-year-old has shed a stunning amount of weight. By the time Half-Ton Killer: Transformed aired in 2011, Mayra had already lost a staggering 700 pounds, dropping all the way down to 350. Her second documentary even featured a surprise visit from Fabio, who brought some dietary supplements and inspirational words to Dr. Now’s Houston office for Mayra:

Mayra’s social media updates over the years have indeed revealed a woman completely transformed by both circumstance and hard work. We’ve organized our gallery of Mayra Rosales before and after photos chronologically, to better emphasize the change. For starters, here’s a pic of Mayra alongside hardcore corridores Los Amos de Nuevo Leon, before their appearance on Sabado Gigante in 2015:

Next up is Mayra cooking Christmas dinner back in 2017:

That same year, Mayra celebrated a happy milestone, marrying Carlos de la Rosa and taking his name. Though they look just as happy now as they did back then, here’s a photo of Mayra and Carlos together from a couple of years back:

Next, we have a pair of car selfies. The first is from exactly one year ago, in September of 2018…

…followed by a similar shot that Mayra shared this past spring:

Finally, here’s the most recent (non-filtered) Mayra Rosales photo she’s made public. Mayra shared it a few months ago, in conjunction with a cut-and-paste caption meant to empower and embrace the faults of the woman doing the sharing. The words may seem trite when left unapplied to a specific person; when you consider them in light of Mayra’s story, they take on a new, poignant air:

I’ve hated this woman. I’ve not loved her at full capacity. I’ve fed her lies & told her she wasn’t good enough and have allowed others to tell her she wasn’t good enough. I’ve allowed her to be broken. I’ve allowed others to treat her disrespectfully.
I’ve allowed her to run through brick walls & battle for others who won’t even stand for her. I couldn’t stop individuals from abandoning her, yet I’ve seen her get up and stand to be a light to the world & love others despite all that. I have stood paralyzed by fear while she fought battles in her mind, heart and soul.

This woman has screwed up many times, as a wife, a daughter, mom, or as a friend, because she doesn’t always say or do the “right things”. She has a smart mouth, and she has secrets. She has scars… because she has a history.
Some people love this woman, some like her, and some people don’t care for her at all.
She has done good in her life. She has done bad in her life. She goes days without makeup, or shaving her legs. She doesn’t get dressed up very often. She is random and sometimes silly. She will not pretend to be someone she is not. She is who she is.
Every mistake, failure, trial, disappointment, success, joy, and achievement has made her the woman she is today.
You can love her or not. But if she loves you, she will do it with her whole heart, and she will make no apologies for the way she is…

Though she doesn’t update it often, you can follow Mayra Rosales’ Facebook page here.

(Photo credits: Mayra Rosales now via Facebook, TLC)

John Sharp is Starcasm’s chief editorial correspondent-at-large. Tips: E-mail john@starcasm.net or Twitter @john_starcasm.