The spiritual advisor for convicted hitman Kenneth Eugene Smith accompanied him into the chamber, where he witnessed what he called ‘the most horrific thing’ he’d ever seen done to another human
Smith – who survived a botched lethal injection attempt in 2022 – was accompanied to the gas chamber by his spiritual advisor, Reverend Dr Jeff Hood. Rev Hood described how he watched the 58-year-old killer writhe around like a “fish out of water” while his eyes bulged.
Here, in the reverend’s own words, he tells of his haunting, traumatising experience as he watched Smith die after anointing his head with holy oil.
I go into the execution chamber, and one of the first things that I realize was what the oxygen meters were saying. The oxygen meters, when I went in for orientation the other day, were at 22%, which makes sense because air is like 78% nitrogen. When I was going into the chamber, it was 25.4%, which means that they were pumping extra oxygen into the chamber — so that was kind of how they managed that.
“I immediately notice that Kenny has on a mask that extended from the top of his forehead to underneath his chin. It looked like a firefighter’s mask, and it was super tight. There were sorts of straps everywhere. It felt like I was looking at Bane from Batman. That’s what it felt like — it was a super gnarly, intense mask. There were strings going from the mask to the gurney.
“There were two corrections officers and a woman by the name of Cynthia Stewart Reilly, who is in charge of male prisons in Alabama. They were all sort of nonchalant-looking when all of this was happening.
Hood stands with Smith as the two pose for a final picture together before his execution
(Image: Courtesy o Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood)
“Kenny, of course, gave his last words. I was, the whole time, going back and forth with Kenny. I put my hand over my heart to let him know that I loved him. He was talking to me, letting me know that he loved me. It was really powerful. “At this point, the curtains were still shut, so the witnesses can’t see anything. As the curtains were opened, I was allowed to go up and make the sign of the cross on his leg. I did that, and he, again, repeatedly telling me how much he loved me and how thankful he was that I was there. Obviously, that was incredibly touching to me. “Then, he looked at the room where his family was. He kept telling them how much he loved them. He gave his last words, and then the execution started. “When the execution started, based on what the state said, I was expecting him to go unconscious in seconds. Well, as soon as the nitrogen hit, he began to convulse, and he didn’t stop convulsing for minutes. I know that by some accounts, it was two or three minutes.
He said the entire procedure lasted 22 minutes. That’s Lee Hedgepeth, who spoke at the press conference last night.
“It looked like a fish out of water. He kept heaving back and forth, back and forth. And the mask was tied to the gurney, and so every time he heaved forward, his face was hitting the front of the mask and pressing into the mask.
“His eyes started to bulge. He began to turn colors. He was spitting, and mucus was coming out of his mouth and his face. He kept almost hitting his face on the front of the mask.
“The mucus and saliva was hitting the front of the mask, and it was drizzling down the front of the mask. His whole body was seizing. It was absolutely, positively a horror show.
“It was so intense that the expressions of the corrections officers and Ms. Stewart Reilly dramatically changed from the nonchalant facial expressions that they had to real looks of concern.
Hood described the mask as being a tight fit, uncomfortably tight, and then said mucus and saliva from Smith coated the insides as he died
(Image: Getty Images)
“One of the reasons why I feel very comfortable calling Mr. Hamm [Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm] a liar, calling the attorney general [Steve Marshall] a liar, is because they know, based on the reactions in that room, that this was not a success, this was not what they thought it would be, this is not something that happened in seconds. This was something that was torture, cruel and unusual punishment, for minutes and minutes.
“Cynthia Stewart Reilly, she had on women’s dress shoes, and she kept on tapping her feet out of nervousness. It was almost as if she was tap dancing in the execution chamber. It was one of the noises that I kept hearing was her tapping her feet.
“It was just an unbelievably intense situation. I was crying my eyeballs out. I had my hand on the space behind me. The longer it went, I kept thinking in my head, ‘How long is this going to last? How long are we going to have to watch this s**t?’
“On a personal level, I felt an unbelievable sense of guilt that there was nothing I could do to stop it. I felt like I needed to tell Kenny that I was sorry that I couldn’t stop it. I think that comes from a couple of spaces, but … as an activist, I felt guilty that I couldn’t stop it beforehand. In the chamber, I felt just completely powerless.
“Witnessing a murder, a horror show like that, it’s horrible. The tears were running down my face.
“When it finally became apparent that he at least appeared to be deceased, they were waiting on a flatline from the EKG. My face went from just complete sadness and horror to absolute rage that the state of Alabama thought that it was morally appropriate to suffocate someone to death, to torture someone to death, in that manner.
“The tube that was coming out of the control center was a very thin tube. It actually looks like something that would have come out of plastic plumbing that kind of extends, except it was clear. The more he heaved, and the more he looked like a fish out of water, swinging back and forth, the more I was concerned that that tube was going to bust, or at least break, so there was that concern for my safety.
“I kept on wringing my hands. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. You know when you rub your hands so hard you feel like you’re going to rub your hands off when something horrible is happening like you’re going to lose a finger at any moment? All of this happens, and I am eventually escorted out of the chamber.
“The state of Alabama does not send a doctor into the chamber to declare a time of death in front of the witnesses because they’re scared that the doctor will be revealed. In this circumstance, I was taken out of the chamber, and the reason that’s so important is nobody knows the exact time of death. We just have to trust the commissioner to come out and say the time of death.
“This is a state that says, ‘Trust us,’ but they are consistently not being honest and not telling the truth. I think it is very possible — I’m not saying this for certain — I think it is very possible that we could have left that room and Kenny [would] still be alive. We would have never known. We would have no idea.
“All we could tell was it didn’t look like he was breathing. It looked like he was unconscious. But there was no way for us to know that because there was no doctor in the space. There was no doctor who came out and declared a time of death.
Then, what happens is I am escorted down the hallway. On my right, as I was walking down the hallway, I saw the doctor, and he was very shocked and upset that I saw him because he was trying to hide. And the reason he was trying to hide is because he could lose his medical license for participating in that.
“It just shows that there are so many secrets and so many crimes and so many just horrific things that happened last night, and I hope that the state of Alabama is held accountable for the horror that they perpetuated.
“These state officials are obviously chicken hawks. They are all about executions. They’re hawks on executions, making those things happen. But they are too chicken to be present, to take any sort of responsibility, for what’s happening. They’re not in the execution chamber. They are not pushing the mechanisms.
“They’re cowards. They are all about talking about these executions and how they want them to continue and all this kind of fluster, but they are too chicken to participate in them themselves. They sit up in Montgomery, and they talk about how it was successful and this and that, but they’re never there.
They’re forcing the corrections officers to do this stuff, and there’s no doubt from what I saw last night that it has an unbelievable, detrimental effect on them.
“I was a trauma chaplain for a while, so I’ve seen people [who went through] car accidents and burn victims. I’ve seen, unfortunately, all sorts of horrific things — [including] four executions last year. This is the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen done to a human being, by far.
This was, again, a fish out of water. It was someone heaving over and over and over again, and in a viewing chamber where there were state officials, corrections officers, people who could have stopped it. And it just kept going. It wouldn’t stop.
“To say that this was successful… It’s just insane that they keep on saying that. Nobody that saw that would say that was a success, unless you consider a success to just be killing somebody.
“If a success is something that doesn’t violate the Eighth Amendment, if a success is something that’s moral — if this is a success, then they have a very different understanding of morality, any of these things.”
Smith, 58, was executed on Thursday and died from nitrogen hypoxia at 8.25pm CT, the state’s Republican Governor Kay Ivey confirmed.
Final words included, “Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards… Thank you for supporting me. Love you all.
“I’m leaving with love, peace and light.” As officials began to administer the gas, Smith turned to his family and signed “I love you.” The witnesses reported seeing Smith thrashing and writhing.
Kenneth Smith Last Moments : From Family and Spiritual Advisors to steak and hash browns
A spokesperson from Alabama Departement of Corrections provided information about the final 48 hours of Smith’s Life.
During Wednesday, Smith received visits from his spiritual advisor, a friend, his brother, two nieces, his son, grandson, wife and attorney. Despite refusing breakfast and only partially eating his dinner, he did consume a lunch tray, accompanied by a Montain Dew, coffee, and a Pepsi. Addionally, he had a conversation with his wife over the phone.
Thursday, he was again visited by his spiritual advisor, his mom, wife, two friends, son, two daughter-in-law, and attorney. Again he spoke on the phone with his wife.
He was seen drinking coffee, sprite, and water. He hate his breakfast, wich consisted of two biscuits, eggs, grape jelly, applesauce and orange juice.
10 A.M Smith ate his final meal of T-bone steak, hash browns, toast and eggs slathered in A1 steak sauce, the Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual adviser, said in a statement.
“He is terrified at the torture that could come. But he’s also at peace. One of the things he told me he is finally getting out,” he added
His witness are set to be his wife, two sons, attorney, and a friend.
Texas death row inmate Ivan Cantu is now facing his third scheduled execution date after the TexasCriminal Court of Appeals denied him a new trial following his filing of a petition to present new evidence in his case.
Cantu has been on death row for over two decades for murdering his cousin, James Mosqueda, a known drug dealer, and his cousin’s fiance, Amy Kitchen, in 2000.
Since Cantu’s conviction in 2001, new information and holes in the state’s case raise questions of reasonable doubt, according to Matt Duff, a private investigator who has researched the case since 2019. The new developments in Cantu’s case included a trial witness recanting his testimony and a pair of jurors in his trial coming forward to express concerns about the conviction.
Duff documented his private investigation and created a lengthy, in-depth podcast titled “Cousins by Blood.” His work dives into Cantu’s case with first-hand interviews, including Cantu’s early jail tapes in 2000 and an interview with the state’s star witness that helped put him on death row.
Ivan Cantu has been given two prior execution dates, but both have been halted.
In 2022, after the DNA hearing concluded, Cantu received an execution date for April 2023. But Collin County District Judge Benjamin Smith withdrew that death warrant after Bunn filed her appeal outlining the new evidence.
Then, on August 23, a judge dismissed the new evidence for procedural reasons without considering the merit of her arguments.
This month, Bunn filed a new request with the court to reexamine the ballistic evidence in the case since Duff and other investigators have conducted their own ballistics experiments that cast more doubt on some of the police’s original conclusions.
To this day, Bunn doesn’t know if she has received everything related to Cantu’s case from the Collin County District Attorney’s Office and from the Dallas Police Department. Part of the issue is that 20 years have passed since the original trial, and many people currently working in those departments weren’t around then. Another issue was jurisdiction—Dallas police, then and now, don’t usually work with Collin County prosecutors—but the murders happened in a portion of North Dallas that extends into Collin County.
Winning post-conviction relief is extremely difficult in Texas, though not impossible: 464 people have been exonerated of various crimes here since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. About a third of those cases were overturned due to perjury or false accusations, according to the registry. Nearly one in five was due to inadequate legal defense.
Almost 70 exonerations were from Dallas County. But Cantu’s case was tried in Collin County, even though it was investigated by the Dallas Police Department. Since 1989, only four people sent to prison from Collin County have been exonerated.
The judge who presided over Cantu’s trial, Charles Sandoval, has since been heralded “the worst judge in Collin County”. Known as “Hang Them All Sandoval,” he lost his seat in 2008 after developing a reputation for cruelty and for making decisions based not on law but on courtroom favorites. One of the four recent Collin County exonerations was of former Judge Suzanne Wooten, who was convicted of bribery after successfully challenging Sandoval in a judicial campaign. That accusation came directly from Sandoval, but the charges were later overturned and discredited as a baseless vendetta.
On Valentine’s Day, Cantu will submit his paperwork to tell the prison system who he wants there on his execution day and what he wants the state to do with his body afterward. He’ll explain where he wants his few belongings and any money left in his account to go.
Sister Helen Prejean, author of the book Dead Man Walking, is acting as Cantu’s spiritual adviser. She’ll be there with Cantu during his execution if his date holds. But in the meantime, she is a fierce advocate for the date to be withdrawn.
“There’s no way I’m simply going to acquiesce, hold his hand, and pray him into eternity without doing every single thing I can to get the truth out so that Texas does not execute this man who very possibly might be innocent,” Prejean told
Prejean, along with Cantu’s other supporters, are calling on Collin County to again withdraw his death warrant. It’s one of many ongoing efforts to spare Cantu’s life—and to give him another day in court. Officials from the county did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
“If you want to execute me, that’s fine,” Cantu said over the closed-circuit phone in the Polunsky Unit. “Just give me a fair trial.”
“The criminal court of appeals deemed the claims in Ivan’s application were procedural barred, meaning it should have been included in Ivan’s 2004 habeas filing,” Duff said. “If the claims raised were based on a 2009 law (ex. Parte Chabot) and 2022 recant of a state’s star witness, that information was clearly unavailable in 2004.”
“The court’s ruling is unjust and needs to be overturned,” Duff added.
Cantu responded to the court’s decision on death row through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice email system.
“I’m disappointed with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for not reviewing my case on the merits,” Cantu writes. “I’m entitled to a new trial according to state law precedent and the constitution of the United States.”
“Where is State Rep. Jeff Leach?” Cantu added. “Leach advocates for other death row inmates such as Melissa Lucio and Jeffery Wood, who are not even from Collin County. Why isn’t he advocating for the injustice occurring in his own backyard?”
Texas State Rep. Jeff Leach was contacted for comment by phone and via email on Friday, Sept. 1, and again on Monday, Sept. 5, and has yet to reply as of noon on Wednesday, Sept. 6.
Cantu’s execution date is scheduled for Feb. 28, 2024.
Alabama will be allowed to put an inmate to death with nitrogen gas later this month, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, clearing the way for what would be the nation’s first execution using a new method the inmate’s lawyers criticize as cruel and experimental.
U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker rejected inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop his scheduled Jan. 25 execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith’s attorneys have said Alabama is trying to make Smith the “test subject” for an untried execution method after he survived the state’s previous attempt to put him to death by lethal injection.
Why it matters: This untested hypoxia execution method, the first of its kind in the U.S., could prove to be “painful and humiliating,” human rights experts said.
“Hypoxia is a state in which oxygen is not available in sufficient amounts at the tissue level to maintain adequate homeostasis,” per research in the National Institutes of Health.
Smith’s attorney, Robert Grass, said he will appeal the decision but declined further comment. The question of whether the execution can ultimately proceed could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Smith, now 58, was one of two men convicted of the murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife that rocked Alabama in 1988. Prosecutors said Smith and the other man were each paid $1,000 to kill ElizabethSennett on behalf of her husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall praised Wednesday’s decision, saying it moves the state closer to “holding Kenneth Smith accountable for the heinous murder-for-hire slaying” he was convicted of committing.
“Smith has avoided his lawful death sentence for over 35 years, but the court’s rejection today of Smith’s speculative claims removes an obstacle to finally seeing justice done,” his statement added.
The state’s plans call for placing a respirator-type face mask over Smith’s nose and mouth to replace breathable air with nitrogen, causing him to die from lack of oxygen. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, but none has used it so far.
Smith’s attorneys argued the new protocol is riddled with unknowns and potential problems and violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Huffaker acknowledged that execution by nitrogen hypoxia is a new method but noted that lethal injection — now the most common execution method in the country — once was also new. He said while Smith had shown the theoretical risks of pain and suffering under Alabama’s protocol, those risks don’t rise to an unconstitutional violation.
“Smith is not guaranteed a painless death. On this record, Smith has not shown, and the court cannot conclude, the Protocol inflicts both cruel and unusual punishment rendering it constitutionally infirm under the prevailing legal framework,” Huffaker wrote in the 48-page ruling.
Huffaker also wrote that there wasn’t enough evidence to find the method “is substantially likely to cause Smith superadded pain short of death or a prolonged death.”
Smith survived a prior attempt to execute him. The Alabama Department of Corrections tried to give Smith a lethal injection in 2022 but called it off when authorities couldn’t connect two intravenous lines.
The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual adviser who plans to be with Smith during the execution, said he was troubled by the ruling. “Horror is an understatement. The State of Alabama now has the permission of a federal court to suffocate its citizens,” Hood said.
Experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month cautioned that, in their view, the execution method would violate the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
Wednesday’s ruling followed a December court hearing and legal filings in which attorneys for Smith and Alabama gave diverging descriptions of the risks and humaneness of death from nitrogen gas exposure.
The state attorney general’s office had argued that the deprivation of oxygen would “cause unconsciousness within seconds, and cause death within minutes.” Its court filings compared the new execution method to industrial accidents in which people passed out quickly and died after exposure to nitrogen gas.
But Smith’s attorneys noted in court filings that the American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia is an acceptable method of euthanasia for pigs but not for other mammals because it could create an “anoxic environment that is distressing for some species.”
Smith’s attorneys also argued that the gas mask, which sits over the nose and mouth, would interfere with Smith’s ability to pray aloud or make a final death chamber statement.
The attorney general’s office called those concerns speculative.
Alabama’s prison system agreed to minor changes to settle concerns that Smith’s spiritual adviser would be unable to minister to him before the execution. The state wrote in a court filing that the adviser could enter the execution chamber before the mask was placed on Smith’s face to pray with him and anoint him with oil.
The murder victim Sennett was found dead on March 18, 1988, in the home she shared with her husband Charles Sennett Sr. in Alabama’s northern Colbert County. The coroner testified the 45-year-old woman had been stabbed repeatedly. Her husband, then the pastor of the Westside Church of Christ, killed himself when the murder investigation focused on him as a suspect, according to court documents.
Smith’s initial 1989 conviction was overturned on appeal. He was retried and convicted again in 1996. The jury recommended a life sentence by a vote of 11-1, but a judge overrode the recommendation and sentenced Smith to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury’s decision on death penalty decisions.
John Forrest Parker, the other man convicted in the case, was executed in 2010.
Oklahoma executes man who claimed he killed two in self-defense
Phillip Dean Hancock killed by lethal injection after Republican governor declines to commute sentence despite recommendation
Oklahoma executed a man on Thursday who claimed he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed two men in Oklahoma City in 2001.
Phillip Dean Hancock, 59, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma state penitentiary and was declared dead at 11.29am.
He requested a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, dark meat only with no sides, as his final meal which he had with a root beer he bought on his own from commissary, according to a prison spokesman.
His execution went forward once the Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, declined to commute his sentence, despite a clemency recommendation from the state’s pardon and parole board.
“By unnecessarily stringing out his decision-making process for weeks, he has left the families of the victims in this case, all of Phil’s advocates and loved ones, the prison workers, and Phil himself, waiting for the news,” Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of the anti-death penalty group Death Penalty Action, said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Stitt did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the governor’s decision to deny clemency or why it was delayed until shortly after the execution was originally scheduled.
Hancock had long claimed he shot and killed Robert Jett Jr, 37, and James Lynch, 58, in self-defense after the two men attacked him inside Jett’s home in south Oklahoma City. Hancock’s attorneys claimed at a clemency hearing this month that Jett and Lynch were members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and that Jett lured Hancock, who was unarmed, to Jett’s home.
A female witness said Jett ordered Hancock to get inside a large cage before swinging a metal bar at him. After Jett and Lynch attacked him, his attorneys said, Hancock managed to take Jett’s pistol from him and shoot them both, claiming to the parole board that “they forced me to fight for my life.”
Hancock’s lawyers also have said his trial attorneys have acknowledged they were struggling with substance abuse during the case and failed to present important evidence.
But attorneys for the state argued that Hancock gave shifting accounts of what exactly happened and that his testimony did not align with physical evidence.
Hancock is the fourth incarcerated person in Oklahoma to be executed this year and the 11th since Oklahoma resumed executions in October 2021 following a nearly six-year hiatus resulting from problems with lethal injections in 2014 and 2015. Oklahoma has executed more people per capita than any other state since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas −David Santiago Renteria spoke his last words Thursday night, strapped to a gurney at the Huntsville Unit, minutes before being executed in the 2001 abduction and killing of 5-year-old Alexandra Flores.
Renteria, 53, was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital Thursday, Nov. 16, on a dark, cold and rainy evening at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s prison. His time of death was 7:11 p.m. CST, prison officials said.
With his family and Alexandra’s family present, Renteria gave his final statements.
Killer’s final words
Renteria prayed before singing a hymn in English and another in Spanish after witnesses, including relatives of his victim, entered the death chamber and watched through a window a few feet from him during his execution.
Looking at his victim’s relatives, Renteria also said: “There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about the fateful events of that day and what transpired.
“There are no words to describe what you’re going through, and I understand that.”
He told his sister and a friend, watching through another window, that he was “good… strong”.
“I love you all, I truly do. I’ll see you in the next life,” Renteria added.
He then began reciting The Lord’s Prayer as the drugs began flowing. “Our father, who art in heaven” is as far as he got.
“I taste it,” he said of the drug, before mumbling something and all movement stopped.
The Renteria family watched the execution from a different room from Alexandra’s family. Glass windows separated the witnesses from Renteria.
This photo released by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows death row inmate David Renteria. Renteria, a Texas inmate convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl taken from an El Paso store and then burning her body nearly 22 years ago is facing execution. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice)
Alexandra’s sister, Sandra Frausto, and brother, Ignacio Frausto, attended the execution.
Renteria’s sister Cecilia Esparza and a friend also were present.
Esparza collapsed when she walked into the viewing room, and prison officials brought her a chair and she cried. Renteria told his sister through the glass, “I love you.”
Last days on Texas death row for one of El Paso’s most notorious killers
Renteria spent his final days meeting with visitors, laying in bed, watching TV through a cell door and sleeping, a Death Watch report states. The times listed below are in Central time zone.
On his execution day, starting at 12:15 a.m., he sat on his bed and began writing. The report does not state what he wrote.
He began packing up his property about 2:30 a.m., before sitting on the floor and reading a book around 4 a.m., the report states. He then continued packing up his property and cleaning the floor between 5 to 7:30 a.m.
Renteria was allowed to talk to fellow inmates at 7:30 a.m., before meeting with visitors from 8 to 11:30a.m., the death watch states.
He was then transferred from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, to the Huntsville Unit to await his execution.
A victim of Renteria’s from a different criminal incident and her mother also attended the execution. Renteria was previously convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for indecency with a child in El Paso.
The execution was also attended by 14 state law enforcement and governmental officials.
Renteria grew up in the Lower Valley and was a tribal member of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
While in prison, he rededicated himself to his Roman Catholic faith, the coalition reported.
Renteria’s execution ends a nearly 22-year legal battle waged in what has been described as one of the most heinous crimes committed in El Paso.
“I’ve always been a supporter of the death penalty and from a law enforcement perspective, I just think some people are too dangerous to be in our society and that is certainly one individual who I think that that the death penalty is absolutely appropriate,” El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles said. “It’s a long time coming. I think it’s been what? Twenty-one years. I was actually the assistant (El Paso police) chief, (Carlos) Leon was the chief when that horrific crime occurred. It was really tough on everybody. I can’t even imagine what that family went through and what they’re still going through today.
“Hopefully, this will give them a little bit of relief to help them in their recovery that is going to take the rest of their lives, Wiles said. “I can’t even imagine losing my 5-year-old daughter to such a horrific crime.”
Justice served for Alexandra Flores in 2001 abduction nearly 22 years later
Renteria’s execution came two days before the 22nd anniversary of the day he kidnapped 5-year-old Alexandra Flores from an El Paso Walmart, strangled her to death and then burned her body. It also comes six days before his 54th birthday.
Renteria abducted Alexandra Nov. 18, 2001, as she was Christmas shopping with her parents at an El Paso Lower Valley Walmart.
Her parents realized she was missing and searched the store but could not find her. Alexandra was seen on store surveillance video exiting the store about 5:15 p.m. with Renteria.
Alexandra’s body was found about 7:10 a.m. the next day in an alley 16 miles (25km) away.. She was naked and partially burned in a carport near Downtown El Paso.
An autopsy revealed Alexandra was strangled to death and then set ablaze, court documents state. Investigators later revealed there were no signs of sexual assault.
A palm print on a plastic bag found over Alexandra’s head was determined to be from Renteria, court documents state.
El Paso Police Department investigators discovered that a vehicle registered to Renteria was at 9441 Alameda Ave. at the time and date of Alexandra’s disappearance. Renteria also told police he was at the location at the time and date of her disappearance, court documents state.
Renteria went to trial for the death of Alexandra in September 2003. He claimed in his trial that Barrio Azteca gang members forced him to kidnap the girl and someone else was the person who killed her, court records show.
A jury convicted him of capital murder and he was sentenced to death.
Appeals court justices heard the case in 2006 and upheld the conviction. However, the justices ordered a new sentencing phase of the trial.
The resentencing was ordered because of “exclusion of evidence showing the defendant’s remorse violated due process by preventing defendant from rebutting the State’s case when the State left jury with false impression and emphasized it,” the justices wrote in their opinion.
A May 15, 2008, El Paso Times article reporting David Santiago Renteria was given the death penalty during his resentencing hearing.
Casey McWhorter (ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS)
An Alabama man who shot and killed his friend’s father in a premeditated robbery in 1993 has been put to death, killed by lethal injection on Thursday — over 30 years after the initial crime. Before he died, however, he had a dire message for other youth who were going through a tough mental time like he was.
Casey McWhorter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death after slaughtering 34-year-old Edward Lee Williams, 34, at the age of 18. He and two other teens, Williams’ 15-year-old son, conspired to steal money from his home and kill him. He went to the home to commit the crime but didn’t have the intention of actually following through with the killing, he said in a recent interview.
But the situation escalated after the older Williams came home during the robbery and surprised the teens. He said they had been in the home grabbing various items when he came in and began fighting with his son over the gun he had. That’s when McWhorter came out of one of the back rooms. Williams immediately noticed him and started swinging at him, and so he did the only thing he could think to do — he shot the other gun that was in his hand at that point, and it hit Williams in the abdomen despite McWhorter saying he had aimed for the legs.
Casey A. McWhorter spent most of his adult life on Alabama’s death row. Thursday night he died there.
The state of Alabama executed McWhorter, 49, by lethal injection in the death chamber of the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He was convicted of capital murder in 1994 in connection with a 1993 Marshall County robbery and homicide. He went to death row when he was 19. He had been 18 three months earlier, when the murder was committed.
The drapes of the media witness room opened at 6:30 p.m. McWhorter was lying in a bed partially covered by a tightly drawn white sheet. His head and torso were slightly elevated. He was lying cruciform, with both arms facing palm up. Restraints for his body were on top of the sheet. Two IV lines came from a small window in the back wall of the death chamber. One appeared to enter his right arm near the inside of his elbow, and the other appeared to enter his left arm at the inside of his left elbow.
Warden Terry Raybon read the death warrant and governor’s order of execution. McWhorter was given the opportunity to say last words.
His final words were: “I would like to say I love my mother and family. I would like to say to the victim’s family I’m sorry. I hope you found peace.” He then also took a jab at his executioner, the prison warden, who faced many accusations of domestic violence accusations decades ago, calling him a “habitual abuser of women.””
At 6:33 p.m. McWhorter closed his eyes. A minute later he shifted his legs, clenched his fists and moved his fingers.
He was approached by his spiritual advisor.
At 6:35 p.m. he was moving his fingers. And at 6:37 p.m. he raised his head, made a yawning motion, appeared to gasp and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. At 6:39 p.m. he appeared to stop breathing.
His spiritual advisor made the sign of the cross.
A few minutes after a corrections officer inside the death chamber bent to McWhorter’s ear and loudly called his name, the officer then touched his face and pinched the inside of his right arm.
At 6:47 p.m. the drapes to the media witness room were drawn.
McWhorter’s official time of death was given as 6:56 p.m.
McWhorter’s final meal consisted of Turtles candy, and he had visits with his mother, stepdad and a spiritual advisor, a prison spokesperson said. He also spoke with his attorney and his friends by phone. His death was the second execution in Alabama this year.
After the execution, a news conference was held inside the media center.
It took two “sticks” to access McWhorter’s veins, one to his right arm and one to his left arm, said JohnHamm, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections. He read a lengthy letter from April Williams, the daughter of Edward Lee Williams, the victim of the homicide.
She was 16 when her father was murdered.
“My Dad was only 33 years old. He should still be here,” the letter read, in part. “He should be ready to retire.”
Gilbert “Bert” Williams, Edward Lee Williams’ brother, addressed the media.
“It took 30 years for this to occur. It’s a kind of unfortunate that we had to wait this long, but justice has been served,” he said.
Gilbert Williams compared McWhorter’s execution to “…the peaceful death to a murderous dog.”
There are three witness rooms in the death chamber, which is attached to the building that houses death row. One witness room is for the victim’s family, one is for the media and the inmate‘s witnesses, and one is for state officials. McWhorter had no witnesses.
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