By The opinion
Jun 26, 2024, 10:59 PM EDT
Ramiro Gonzales became the second inmate executed in Texas this year and the eighth in the nationafter being found guilty of kidnapping, raping and killing 18-year-old Bridget Townsend, dumping her body in a field in Bandera, about 40 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Prior to the execution, Gonzales filed a series of appeals and a clemency petition, asking Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him a lesser sentence or more time, but was rejected.
So, The 41-year-old inmate was declared dead at 6:50 p.m. local time after receiving a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
Before the lethal injection, Gonzales used his final words to apologize to the family of the victim, Bridget Townsend, whose remains were not found until more than a year after she was reported missing from her Bandera County home in January 2001.
“I cannot put into words the pain I have caused, the damage, what I took from them and cannot give back. I hope this apology is enough,” she said.
“I never stopped praying that you would forgive me and that one day I would have this opportunity to apologize. I owe you my life and I hope that one day you will forgive me,” he added in his statement, which he concluded by announcing that he was “ready” for the injection.
Gonzales, 41, was convicted of fatally shooting Townsend after stealing drugs and money and kidnapping her in January 2001 at a home in Bandera County, located northwest of San Antonio. He took her to her family’s ranch in neighboring Medina County, where he sexually assaulted and killed her.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a defense request to intervene about an hour and a half before the execution was scheduled to begin. The high court rejected arguments by Gonzales’ attorneys that he had taken responsibility for what he did and that a prosecution expert now says he was wrong to testify that Gonzales would be a future danger to society, a legal conclusion necessary to impose a death sentence.
“He has devoted himself fervently to self-improvement, contemplation and prayer, and has grown into a mature, peaceful, kind, loving and deeply religious adult. “He recognizes his responsibility for his crimes and has sought to atone for them and seek redemption through his actions,” Gonzales’ attorneys wrote Monday in his petition. A group of religious leaders also called on authorities to stop Gonzales’ execution.
Gonzales’ lawyers argued that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had violated his constitutional rights by refusing to review his claims that a prosecution expert, psychiatrist Edward Gripon, wrongly stated that Gonzales would be a future danger. After reevaluating Gonzales in 2022, Gripon said his prediction was wrong.
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– Hispanic inmate sentenced to death requested that his execution be delayed for one month so he could donate a kidney.
– Texas suspends death sentence against Latino inmate accused of killing his girlfriend’s daughter.