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Three killers were executed in April 2010. They had
murdered at least 3 people.
Three killers were given a stay in
April 2010. They have murdered at least 3 people.
|
Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
April 8, 2010 |
Oklahoma |
John David Cederlund, 28 |
Richard
Smith |
stayed |
|
On July
21, 1986, Pamela Rutledge, Rita Jo Cagle, and Richard Tandy Smith
were riding together in a two-door Ford Thunderbird in southwest
Oklahoma City. They stopped at two houses to acquire drugs. While
they were at the second house, John Cederlund arrived. He left along
with Smith, Rutledge, and Cagle sometime after midnight. The four
proceeded west on Southwest 29th Street until the road turned to
gravel and they had crossed a quarter of a mile into Canadian
County. Smith, who was driving, pulled into the driveway of an
abandoned farm house. The State presented evidence that Smith got
out of the car and opened the trunk. He called Rutledge, who went to
the back of the car. He informed her that he was going to rob
Cederlund. When Rutledge told Smith that Cederlund was known to be
rough sometimes, Smith responded, "I'll kill the f___ing punk."
Smith went back to the driver's door and picked up a sawed-off 12
gauge shotgun from the floorboard. He pointed the gun at Cederlund
and demanded drugs and money from him. Cederlund gave Smith some
drugs, but said he had no money. Smith then ordered Cederlund out of
the car. Cederlund got out through the passenger side and stood by
the door as Smith walked around the back of the vehicle. Smith again
demanded money. Cederlund said he had no money and Smith might as
well kill him. Cederlund pushed the gun away. Then Smith pushed
Cederlund and fired the gun. The blast hit Cederlund in the chest,
made a single entry wound less than an inch in diameter, and
destroyed Cederlund's heart. Cederlund died as a result of that
wound. Smith was arrested on July 22, 1986, while driving the
Thunderbird. A search of the car produced twelve live Federal 12
gauge number eight load shotgun shells. Another live shell was found
during a subsequent search of Smith's apartment. A firearms expert
testified that the pellets and shot cup recovered from Cederlund's
body had come from the same brand, gauge, and load. Blood consistent
with Cederlund's was discovered on the end of the passenger door. An
expert in blood spatter analysis testified that the car door had to
be open for the blood to have gotten there. He further concluded
that the person the blood came from had been shot and had been one
to two feet away from the car door, producing "high velocity" blood
spatters. Smith's pre-trial statement was introduced. Initially, he
denied having been with Rutledge and Cagle after going to the second
house. When detectives told him that witnesses had seen him, he
admitted that he had driven to the deserted farm house, but claimed
that he remained in the car. Rutledge, Cagle, and Cederlund got out
of the car and walked some fifty feet up the driveway. Smith claimed
that Rutledge returned to the car, retrieved the shotgun from the
trunk, went back to Cederlund and shot him. UPDATE: The
execution has been stayed until May 4. |
|
Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
April 12, 2010 |
Arkansas |
Jane Daniel |
Don Davis |
stayed |
| Jane
Daniel was found dead in her home from a shot to the back of her
head. Several items of jewelry and other property were missing from
the home. Investigators later discovered that Don William Davis had
pawned some of Daniel's property and had hidden the murder weapon in
his bedroom. Davis was charged in an information with capital
murder, burglary, and theft of property in November 1990. The state
alleged that he had killed Daniel during the commission of a robbery
or alternatively that he had killed her with premeditated and
deliberate purpose. UPDATE: A death penalty opponent is accused of
trying to smuggle contraband into a maximum-security prison. Betsey
Wright was visiting Don Davis, who is to be executed a month before
Wright's trial in May. For seven years Wright was chief of staff for
Bill Clinton when he was Arkansas governor. Prosecutors say Wright
was caught with a pocketknife, boxcutter and a potato chip bag
filled with tattoo needles while trying to visit Davis last May.
Wright pleaded not guilty. She said the bag of chips came from a
prison vending machine. |
|
Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
April 20, 2010 |
Ohio |
Angel Vincent, 16 |
Daryl Durr |
executed |
 On January
31, 1988, at approximately 10:50 p.m., Norma Jean O’Nan and her
husband returned to their home in Elyria and discovered the front
door unlocked, the lights and television on, and their
sixteen-year-old daughter, Angel Vincent, missing. Only twenty
minutes earlier, Mrs. O’Nan had spoken with her daughter by
telephone to learn that Angel’s girlfriend, Deborah Mullins, was at
her home and that Deborah’s boyfriend, Darryl Durr, was expected to
arrive later in the evening. That was the last chance Mrs. O’Nan
would have to speak to her daughter alive. Mrs. O’Nan testified that
Angel was wearing a hot pink sweater, a light pink and white
checkered blouse, hot pink pants, and white tennis shoes when she
and her husband left Angel home alone on the evening of January 31,
1988. After notifying the Elyria Police of Angel’s disappearance,
Mrs. O’Nan searched her home to determine if any of Angel’s
belongings were missing. Although Angel’s pink pants were found,
Mrs. O’Nan’s search revealed the following items missing: an old
lavender blanket with a hole in the center, a pair of black
acid-washed denim jeans, Angel’s pink and white checkered blouse,
light blue eyeglasses that Angel wore only in her home, a jean
jacket that Angel had borrowed from a friend, an Avon necklace with
an “A” charm attached, a small chain bracelet, an Avon slip-on
bracelet, an inexpensive rhinestone ring and a dog chain that hung
from her mirror. Mrs. O’Nan also discovered Angel’s handbag stuffed
under her bed. Three or four days later, Mrs. O’Nan confronted
Deborah Mullins and Durr regarding the disappearance of her
daughter, and was told by Durr that “you know how kids are, she
probably ran away.” On April 30, 1988, three boys noticed a foul
odor coming from two orange traffic barrels while playing in
Brookside Park. The barrels and been placed open end to open end,
and were underneath a railroad tie. Upon separating the barrels, the
boys discovered a severely decomposed female body that had been
wrapped in a dirty old blanket. A portion of a leg was visible
through a large hole in the blanket. A deputy coroner testified that
the only clothing found on the victim was a pink sweater and a pair
of white tennis shoes. The pink sweater had been pushed up well
above the victim’s breast area. An initial external examination
determined the body to be that of a young white female, who was in
an advanced state of decomposition. The body was heavily infested
with maggots and the body’s eyes and ears had been lost. There was
also prominent evidence of animal activity about the inguinal and
vulval regions of the body, and in and about the thighs. According
to the deputy coroner, the decomposition was consistent with three
months exposure. After examining the body, the deputy coroner
concluded that the cause of death was homicidal violence. Since the
body was so badly decomposed, the deputy coroner could not determine
whether ligature marks, scrapes or tears indicating strangulation
were present. There was no damage noted to the internal
cartilaginous structures of the neck. The deputy coroner declined,
however, to rule out strangulation as a cause of death since damage
to these structures is not always present in young strangulation
victims due to the flexibility of these structures. In No. 00-3353
Durr v. Mitchell Page 3 addition, because the body was so severely
infested with bacteria, testing for the presence of acid phosphates
and spermatozoa was inconclusive. In September, 1988, after Durr was
arrested for two unrelated rapes, Deborah Mullins revealed her
knowledge of Angel’s disappearance to the Cleveland Police
Department. As the result of her information, an ankle X-ray
obtained from Elyria Memorial Hospital, and dental records, the body
discovered in Brookside Park was determined to be that of Angel
Vincent. At trial, Deborah Mullins testified that on the evening
Angel disappeared Deborah had asked Durr to drive to the house of
one of Angel’s friends to retrieve a package of cigarettes for
Angel. Durr agreed and left. Shortly thereafter, Durr returned to
Deborah’s house and, instead of entering through the front door,
began throwing stones at her upstairs bedroom window and blew his
car horn for her to come out. Deborah and her baby, who had been
fathered by Durr, left the house and entered Durr’s car where Durr
brandished a knife toward both of them. As Durr was driving, Deborah
heard noises from the back seat and after turning around discovered
Angel bound on the rear floorboard. According to Deborah’s
testimony, Angel was wearing black acid-washed denim jeans, a jean
jacket, and tennis shoes when she was last seen in the back of
Durr’s car. When Deborah asked Durr why Angel was bound in his car,
Durr responded that he intended to “waste” her because “she would
tell.” He never revealed just what Angel was going to tell. After
threatening the life of both Deborah and his baby, Durr let Deborah
out of his car. He returned to her home three or four hours later.
Upon returning, Durr told Deborah that he had “wasted” Angel and
that she should pack her things because they were leaving. Durr
drove Deborah and their baby to his wife’s, Janice Durr’s, Cleveland
apartment. After dropping Deborah and the baby off, Durr left with a
duffle bag containing two shovels. When Durr returned, he was wet
and covered with snow. Upon entering the room, Durr placed a ring
and bracelet that belonged to Angel on a coffee table. As he was
falling asleep, Durr told Deborah that he had strangled Angel with a
dog chain until she “pissed, pooped and shit and made a few gurgling
sounds,” took her body to a park, wrapped it in a blanket, placed it
between two construction cones, and left her by some railroad
tracks. Later that day or the next day, Durr burned a bag of
clothing in the basement of Janice Durr’s apartment building and
asked Deborah to model the black acid-washed jeans that Angel had
worn on the evening of her abduction. Durr then drove Deborah,
Janice Durr and his children to the west side of Cleveland where he
burned another bag of items, and while driving from Cleveland toward
Elyria, Durr threw Angel’s jean jacket out the car window. No.
00-3353 Durr v. Mitchell Page 4 After arriving at Deborah’s home in
Elyria, Deborah’s mother informed her that Mrs. O’Nan had come over
and inquired about Deborah’s knowledge of Angels’s disappearance.
Deborah testified that Durr threatened her and their baby’s life and
instructed her to tell Mrs. O’Nan that Angel had been talking about
running away. Deborah also testified that Durr took her and their
baby to Edgewater Park where Durr threw Angel’s glasses over a cliff
into the lake. A month or so later, while driving past the Cleveland
Zoo, Durr pointed to a location and said, “Over there.” When Deborah
questioned his statement, Durr replied, “You know what I am talking
about.” Following a jury trial, Durr was convicted of aggravated
murder; kidnapping; aggravated robbery and rape. The trial court
followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Durr to death. |
|
Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
April 22, 2010 |
Pennsylvania |
James Sementelli,
83 |
Shonda Walter |
stayed |
| On Sunday, March 31,
2003, Lock Haven police discovered the dead body of James Sementelli
inside his home. Mr. Sementelli, an 83 year-old veteran, had
suffered a brutal attack. He sustained over 60 wounds, 18 fractures,
and 45 bruises to various parts of his body, many of them to his
head, face, and neck. Mr. Sementelli’s left ear was nearly severed
from his head. His nasal bone and skull were fractured and his right
eye punctured. He had numerous defensive wounds on his arms and
hands and multiple gaping chop wounds all over his body. The killer
used a hatchet. Based on a number of factors, including the last
time the victim was seen alive, as well as old newspapers found on
his porch and another paper found near his body, police determined
that Mr. Sementelli had been murdered on Tuesday, March 25, 2003.
The investigation soon focused on Shonda Dee Walter, a young woman
who lived with her mother in a house across the street from Mr.
Sementelli. A neighbor, Monica Rupert, told police that she saw
Walter pacing outside the Sementelli residence on the evening of the
25th, talking on a cordless telephone. Walter’s mother, Judith
Walter, told police that her daughter had been out of the house on
that evening, only to return later and leave again, taking the
telephone with her. Mrs. Walter never saw her daughter again that
night, but when she awoke the next morning she noticed that the
phone had been returned and Walter had left a note explaining that
she was staying at her friend Michelle’s house. Shanee Gaines became
the Commonwealth’s primary witness against Walter. Gaines, who lived
in Williamsport, knew Walter through Michelle Mathis, a young woman
who was allegedly a member of the Bloods street gang and lived on
the same street as Gaines. According to Gaines, she was at Mathis’s
home on the night of the murder, caring for Mathis’s child. Mathis
had been involved in an altercation on the street earlier that
evening and had been taken to the hospital for treatment. While
Mathis was at the hospital, Walter appeared at Mathis’s Williamsport
residence. Walter was driving Mr. Sementelli’s white Toyota. Gaines
granted Walter entrance to Mathis’s home and noticed that Walter had
blood on her forehead and was wearing rubber gloves that also had
blood on them. Walter promptly went upstairs to shower while Gaines
waited downstairs. At some point Mathis returned. Ultimately, the
three women left the house and traveled in Mr. Sementelli’s car to
his house in Lock Haven. While en route, Walter told Gaines and
Mathis that she had killed the victim and described how she struck
him repeatedly with the hatchet while she ignored his pleas that she
call for help. When the trio arrived at Mr. Sementelli’s house,
Walter used a key to enter and showed the other two women the
victim’s body. According to Gaines, the purpose of the visit was to
dispose of a cigarette that Walter had left at the scene and to
remove the body from the house. Gaines refused to assist Walter and
Mathis and quickly returned to the car. Walter and Mathis soon
joined her, with Walter carrying a large plastic tub of quarters.
Before leaving, Walter ran into her mother’s house to leave a note
and get a change of clothes. The women then drove to a grocery store
and redeemed the coins, receiving a receipt for $510.25 from a coin
machine. The supermarket video camera recorded the women’s visit.
The women were unable to receive cash because of the late hour.
Gaines and Mathis returned to the market the following morning and
redeemed the receipt. The three women split the money. During the
drive back to Williamsport, Walter flung the hatchet from the car
into a wooded area. Gaines’s involvement with Walter continued in
the hours and days after the murder. That same night, the three
women purchased some marijuana and then watched movies together at
Gaines’s house. Walter had taken a trash bag full of movies from Mr.
Sementelli’s house and brought them to Gaines’s residence. A few
days later, Gaines accompanied Walter and others, including her good
friend Aaron Jones, on a trip to Philadelphia where Walter attempted
to sell Mr. Sementelli’s car. Walter told Jones and others that the
car belonged to her father, who had died, and she wanted to sell it
because she had “bad memories” about it. When the sale was
unsuccessful, the group returned to Williamsport and Walter
permitted Jones to drive the vehicle. Police stopped Jones while he
was driving the car and Gaines feared that Jones, who knew nothing
about Mr. Sementelli’s death, would be implicated in the crime. As a
result, Gaines contacted police and told them everything she knew.
Police recovered the hatchet, which a Williamsport resident found on
his property days after the murder and turned over to state police.
Blood on the hatchet matched that of Mr. Sementelli. A friend of
Walter’s told police that a similar hatchet had been stolen from his
parents’ house years earlier during a party that Walter attended.
The friend’s father confirmed that the murder weapon was the one he
had owned. Another Williamsport resident told police that she had
seen Walter wearing a hatchet on her belt in the weeks before the
murder. Walter’s mother explained that when Walter moved into her
house with her young daughter in 2002, one of Walter’s possessions
was a hatchet, which she placed in a kitchen drawer. When Walter was
arrested, Mrs. Walter searched for the hatchet with police, but it
was no longer in the drawer. Walter was charged with the murder of
Mr. Sementelli and felony theft of his automobile. The Commonwealth
gave notice of its intent to seek the death penalty, based on a
single aggravating circumstance: murder committed while in the
perpetration of a felony. Walter was bound over for trial in May
2003. Following an unsuccessful attempt to dismiss the aggravating
circumstance, Walter was convicted of first-degree murder and felony
theft on April 18, 2005. A penalty hearing followed, at which Walter
asserted three mitigating circumstances. Walter identified the
following mitigating circumstances: the age of the defendant; the
fact that the defendant had no significant history of prior criminal
convictions and any other evidence of mitigation concerning the
character and record of the defendant and the circumstances of the
offense, (the “catchall mitigator”). The jury found the single
aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances. It
returned a sentence of death, which the trial court formally imposed
on April 19, 2005. *There are still appeals pending in this case and
the execution is not expected to take place on this date. |
|
Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
April 22, 2010 |
Texas |
Sophia Martinez, 18 |
William
Berkley |
executed |
 On the
evening of Friday, March 10, 2000, 18-year-old Sophia Martinez left
her house in her red 2000 Grand Am GTS around 10:15 p.m. on her way
to a nightclub in El Paso. The next morning, her sister Mary Ann
went to wake her for work but Sophia was not in her room. Mary Ann
thought that Sophia had gotten up early and already left the house.
When she received a call around 10:30 or 11 a.m. advising her that
Sophia had not shown up for work, Mary Ann began making calls and
trying to locate her sister. The New Mexico State Police then called
to report that her sister’s car had been found but Sophia was
missing. Her body was found the next day. Officer Leticia Olivas of
the El Paso Police Department was one of the crime scene technicians
assigned to the murder case. On March 12, she went to the desert
area off Junction 404 and O’Hara Road in New Mexico to recover
Sophia’s car. By the time she arrived, the car had been towed but
she documented and photographed the area. She observed tire
impressions leading into and out of the area and tennis shoe
impressions leading toward the highway. Authorities were unable to
link the footprints to Michael Jaques. Olivas then went to the New
Mexico State Troopers’ garage in Las Cruces where the vehicle was
stored. She took interior and exterior pictures of the car. There
were blood stains on the seats, the interior door panels, the
steering wheel, the driver’s seat belt, and the rearview mirror. The
passenger side window was shattered and broken out. From there,
Olivas headed to northeast El Paso where Sophia’s body had been
located. She had been shot five times in the head and face. One
wound was on the right side of the back of her head, one through the
center of her right eye, one through her right cheek next to her
nose, and one to her left cheek. Sophia also received a grazing
wound through her left eyebrow area. The medical examiner recovered
four bullets and concluded that Sophia died as a result of brain
injury from multiple gunshots. A fifth bullet was found in the
vicinity where the body was discovered. Sophia’s body also tested
positive for sperm which was later matched to William Berkley,
Jaques’s co-defendant. A toxicology report was negative for drugs
and alcohol. During their investigation, police found an ATM receipt
in Sophia’s car and obtained the video surveillance tapes from the
Government Employees Credit Union (GECU) on Viscount, where Sophia
banked. The video showed that at 10:22:35 p.m. on March 10, Sophia
approached the ATM and withdrew $20. At 10:24:05 p.m., an individual
later identified as Berkley approached the passenger side of
Sophia’s car with his arms extended. He pointed a pistol at Sophia
at 10:24:09 p.m. and the passenger side window shattered. Berkley
then moved around to the driver’s side and got into the backseat. A
bleeding Sophia withdrew $200 from her account at 10:25:15 p.m. The
video showed only one perpetrator; no other cars followed Sophia’s
car as it left the bank. Sophia’s murder generated a great deal of
public interest and was featured on Crime Stoppers and America’s
Most Wanted. A reward was offered for information in the case. On
September 30, 2000, Heather Jacques, Jaques’s wife, contacted the
FBI with information about Sophia’s death. By the time of trial,
Heather and Jaques had divorced and she had begun using the name
Heather Napiwocki. Heather received $51,000 in reward monies for
coming forward with information. Police then contacted Jaques, who
was in the El Paso County jail on an unrelated charge, and
questioned him concerning Sophia’s murder. Jaques ultimately gave
two written statements. According to these statements, Jaques was
visiting Heather at the hospital on March 10 when his friend William
Berkley arrived. Heather had been hospitalized for a kidney
infection, although the record is unclear as to the actual date of
her admission. Jaques thought Heather had been admitted on March 7
or 8; Heather testified that she entered the hospitalon March 10.
Heather needed some personal items and Jaques and Berkley went to
the couple’s apartment, which at that time was number 34 at the
Amberwood Apartments. The men returned to the hospital and Berkley
left, but he came back around 7 p.m. Jaques told Berkley that he
needed money to pay his court costs and Berkley said he would take
care of it. He asked whether Jaques wanted to break into a house.
They began discussing different ways of getting the money and
Berkley finally suggested a hold-up at an ATM. Before leaving the
hospital, Berkley stole some surgical gloves and KY jelly. The men
then drove back to the Amberwood Apartments to visit Berkley’s
friend, Amanda Cepolski, who lived in apartment no. 134. Berkley
talked to Amanda for ten to fifteen minutes before returning to the
car. He showed Jaques a black .22 caliber revolver, a black pullover
sweater, and a black beanie cap. They began driving around looking
for possible hold-up locations. They considered the GECU in
northeast El Paso, but Berkley thought the area was too well lit
with too much traffic. They went to a grocery store on Fairbanks
Street but didn’t like that scenario either. Finally, they targeted
the GECU on Viscount. Here, the lighting was poor and they parked by
a rock wall fence close to the street running behind the bank. From
this vantage point, Jaques could clearly see the ATMs. Berkley got
out to hide in the bushes and wait for a car, and Jaques moved over
to the driver’s seat. Berkley donned the black sweater, beanie cap,
and surgical gloves, and took the gun with him. Jaques also put on a
pair of gloves. Cars were coming and going at the ATM booths. When
Jaques saw a new model car pull up, he flashed the headlights.
Berkley emerged from the bushes and approached the car. Jaques
couldn’t see what Berkley did until he walked around to the driver’s
side. The car took off, and when Berkley didn’t return, Jaques
realized he had left in the red car. Jaques drove back to the
hospital around 10:45 or 11 p.m. and told his wife that Berkley had
just robbed someone at an ATM. Around 2 or 2:30 a.m., a nurse came
into the hospital room and told Jaques that a friend was waiting
downstairs. Jaques went downstairs and met Berkley. Sophia’s car was
in the parking lot and the right front passenger side window was
shattered. Berkley told Jaques that he had tried to open the
passenger door but it was locked. He tried to break the window with
the butt of the gun but it wouldn’t break. He fired a shot, but the
window only shattered. When he went around to the driver’s side, he
saw that the driver had been shot in the face. Berkley told her to
open the automatic locks, and he got in the backseat. As Sophia
tried to drive off, Berkley put the gun to her head and told her to
withdraw $200. He then instructed her to drive to a secluded desert
area that Jaques and Berkley called “the spot.” When they arrived,
Berkley told her to get out of the car. He shot her in the face
twice, and she fell to the ground. Berkley then emptied the gun into
her while she was lying on the ground. Berkley had come back to the
hospital because he needed Jaques’s help in getting rid of the car.
Jaques told his wife he had to leave again. Berkley drove Sophia’s
car while Jaques followed in Berkley’s car. They drove out to the
junction of Chaparral and O’Hara Road and turned westbound on
O’Hara. Berkley passed through a cattle fence and ended up on a dirt
mound. It was very dark and difficult to see, so much so that Jaques
passed by Berkley without seeing him. He turned around and kept
driving, finally coming upon Berkley walking along the road. Jaques
picked him up. A few days later, Jaques and his wife were having a
barbecue at their apartment. Berkley stopped by and had Sophia’s
driver’s license and car keys with him. Berkley put the license on
the grill to burn, and Jaques took the keys and threw them on the
roof of the apartment complex. Jaques also provided information
about the gun. The last time he had seen it was in May 2000. It was
located at Berkley’s father’s house in the night stand by the bed.
And as it turned out, Jaques’s court costs of approximately
$200--the underlying reason for the robbery--were paid in $20
denominations after the murder. Based on this information, the
police executed a search warrant at Berkley’s father’s home and
recovered a .22 caliber eight-shot revolver in the nightstand of the
master bedroom. They also recovered Sophia’s keys from the roof of
one of the buildings at the Amberwood complex and located metal
fragments in apartment no. 34, Jaques’s former apartment. At trial,
Sally Grew, a FBI firearms and tool marks examiner, testified that
she was not able to determine for sure whether the recovered bullets
were fired from the revolver, but it was possible. As for the metal
fragments, Grew was not able to determine much of anything. Visually
the bullets appeared similar because they had a brassy-colored
coating, and some of the bullet fragments also had brassy colored
coating on them. Diana Grant, FBI forensic examiner specializing in
bullet lead analysis, testified that she found four of the bullets
and the metal fragments to be analytically indistinguishable and
chemically similar. They were likely to have originated from the
same source of molten lead, although that didn’t necessarily mean
that the bullets came from the same box of ammunition. The fifth
bullet was analytically distinguishable, but possessed only a subtle
difference. Douglas Richard Bosanko, who owned a wrecker and
locksmith business, testified at trial that on March 10, he was
called out on a business call at Graham’s Nightclub on the westside
of El Paso. He left from Chaparral, New Mexico and traveled up Lisa
over War Road onto O’Hara Road, then to Interstate 10 and Artcraft.
As he was crossing over O’Hara Road, he saw a car twenty-five to
thirty feet off the road, and the dome light came on as he was
passing. Bosanko saw someone get out of the vehicle. On his way home
from the call, he saw the car was still there, but he did not see
anyone. At the end of the Gap and Highway 54, Bosanko saw a Hispanic
male pacing back and forth over the right-hand side of the road, so
he pulled over and asked if he needed help. The male answered “No,
bro, everything’s cool.” The male said that he was waiting on a
friend to pick him up. Bosanko saw him continue to walk along the
shoulder toward El Paso. Later, Bosanko identified an individual who
was not Berkley. He was also later shown two photo line-ups but he
was not able to identify anyone. He did, however, positively state
that Jaques was not the man he had seen. |
|
Date of scheduled execution |
State |
Victim name |
Inmate name |
Status |
|
April 27, 2010 |
Texas |
Rafael Alvarado |
Samuel Bustamante |
executed |
| On January 17, 1998,
Walter Escamilla, Arthur Escamilla, Dedrick Depriest, and Samuel
Bustamante planned a robbery. Walter suggested that the four of
them go to the town of Rosenberg to go “shopping.” According to
Bustamante, “shopping” entailed finding a “wetback” after the bars
closed, offering him a ride, taking him to a deserted location,
beating him, and stealing his money and jewelry. Bustamante told
Solomon Escamilla and Brandy Riha that he was going "shopping" in
Rosenberg with Walter, Arthur, and Dedrick. Riha was the
ex-girlfriend of Bustamante’s brother, Bill Bustamante. Solomon was
apparently aware of the criminal usage of the word “shopping” while
Riha was not. Solomon testified that one meaning of shopping was to
“roll wetbacks,” that is, to beat and rob them. Riha testified that
she thought it was strange that Bustamante and the other men would
go shopping so late at night. The four men, traveling in Arthur’s
pickup truck, arrived in Rosenberg at about 2:00 a.m., just after
the bars had closed. At first the group had trouble finding a
victim. But just as they were about to give up, they came upon
Rafael Alvarado, a Hispanic male. Bustamante noted that Alvarado’s
clothes were in good condition and his watch looked like it was made
of “real gold.” Alvarado offered to pay the driver of the truck to
give him a ride across town. The men agreed, and Alvarado climbed
into the bed of the pickup. Arthur and Depriest sat in the truck cab
while Bustamante, Walter, and the victim sat in the truck bed. After
about fifteen minutes, Bustamante asked Walter what he was going to
do. Walter told Bustamante to wait but Bustamante stood up and began
stabbing Alvarado with a knife. Bustamante stabbed him ten
times. When Alvarado tried to escape, Walter caught him by the shirt
and made an effort to pull him back in. Bustamante also tried to
pull Alvarado in, but the victim managed to break free and fall to
the ground. Walter yelled at the driver of the truck to stop, but by
the time he did, Bustamante and the others were unable to see
Alvarado because of the darkness. Bustamante told Depriest that he
wanted the victim’s boots. After the men walked around the area for
several minutes without finding the victim, Bustamante decided that
they should leave. Depriest admitted that, had they found the
victim, they probably would have robbed him. As the truck drove
away, the others in the group remarked that Bustamante was
crazy. The police followed a trail of blood from the west city
limits of Rosenberg to where Alvarado’s body was found, in a ditch
in Fort Bend county. He was wearing a watch, a gold necklace, and a
ring. He also had a hundred dollars in his pockets and his wallet
was undisturbed. His death was caused by stab wounds to the heart
and liver and the attendant loss of blood. After returning from
Rosenberg, Bustamante told Solomon and Richard Escamilla to wash the
truck before daylight. There was blood in the bed of the truck and a
hand-print on the tailgate. Bustamante told Solomon that things went
wrong and that someone had gotten in the way of what Bustamante
does. Bustamante explained that he had gotten hold of a man the
night before and the man had fallen out of the truck. When Solomon
showed Bustamante a story about the victim in the paper, Bustamante
responded, “That’s what I told you, nobody gets away,” saying that
when he kills somebody, he knows he kills them. Solomon and Richard
joked with Bustamante by telling him not to stab them and by trying
to give him their money. |
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Page last updated
09/07/10 |
