"I've got cats that kill animals. When they kill something, they eat it. You don't even eat it. You're not even an animal. You're the worst thing I've ever seen." -Randy Ertman - Jennifer's dad
"He will be treated to appropriate Texas justice." - Gov. Rick Perry
"I'm not sure that your future parole officer has even been BORN yet and I'm not sure that you deserve for him to have even been born yet." -Judge Pat Shelton when he ordered the transfer of Venancio Medellin from juvenile detention to adult prison.
Elizabeth Pena made it to 16.
Jennifer Ertman made it to 14.
Jose Medellin has lived longer in prison, fighting his death sentence, more years than Jennifer Ertman lived in her whole life.
Raped. Beaten. Kicked. Sodomized. Terrorized. Shared amongst six soon-to-be murderers. Again. Raped. Sodomized. Again. Ribs broken. Begging. Begging. Begging. Teeth knocked out. Still. Genitals torn and bloodied. Brutally strangled. First with a belt that was pulled so tightly around Jennifer's neck that the belt broke. Again. For more than an hour. Sodomized. Raped. Beaten. Dragged through the trees. Forced to kneel. Their shoe laces slicing into their throats. Dead. Kicked some more, just to make sure. Their throats stomped on. Left to rot in the woods of a park. Rotting for four days. Decaying. In the heat, with the bugs.
"The world court has no standing in Texas and Texas is not bound by a ruling or edict from a foreign court," -Gov. Rick Perry's spokesman Robert Black
"The world court don't mean diddly. This business belongs in the state of Texas. The people of the state of Texas support the execution. We thank them. The rest of them can go to hell." -Randy Ertman
"I believe we've been through all the red tape we can go through. It's time to rock and roll." -Adolfo Pena - Elizabeth's dad
I was 29 in 2003 when these girls were destroyed by six sub-human men. One of them is now dead. Another will die tomorrow night in a small room about 60 miles north of me. The wait has been too long. There is another one that will die, but we don't know when yet. There are others - they were juveniles when they violated and desecrated the bodies, hearts, minds and ultimately annihilate the lives of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena - who will only be in prison for decades.
I was 29 in 2003. I lived only a few miles from the park on T.C. Jester where the lives of these two girls were stolen. I remember the news coverage of the search for them after they disappeared. I will never, never forget the abject horror of Jennifer's father when her body, along with Elizabeth's, was found down in those woods by the bayou. I will always remember his face as he stumbled around on the grass, on the edge of sanity, as the police wrapped him in their arms, holding him back from running into the woods where he knew his daughter's body had been discarded.
He wants a friend.
Jose Ernesto Medellin
Sean Derrick O'Brien
"It is the worst mistake that I ever made in my whole life." - O'Brien's final statement from death row.
Raul Omar Villarreal
Efrain Perez
Peter Anthony Cantu
He's looking for a friend!!
He's working on a college degree, likes painting and country music, and has "denied" himself the chance to make friends.
Venancio Medellin
In my gut I believe that the death penalty is right. In my head I believe Texas should put a moratorium - an open ended moratorium - on executions because the justice system in Texas is so screwed up.
But sometimes.... sometimes.... the sentiment expressed on the radio today by a woman who was asked what she thought cuts to the heart of the matter:
"They should have been shot on sight."
Indeed. Let's rock and roll.Labels: headlines, law, texas |
Good writeup.