HOUSTON – A Texas inmate convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl taken from an El Paso retailer and then burning her frame just about 22 years in the past is scheduled for execution Thursday night.
David Renteria, 53, used to be condemned for the November 2001 loss of life of Alexandra Flores. Prosecutors mentioned that Alexandra used to be Christmas buying groceries together with her circle of relatives at a Walmart retailer when she used to be kidnapped by way of Renteria. Her frame used to be discovered the following day in an alley 16 miles (26 km) from the shop.
Renteria has lengthy claimed that contributors of the Barrio Azteca gang, together with one named “Flaco,” pressured him to take the girl by way of making threats to his circle of relatives — and that it used to be the crowd contributors who killed her.
Authorities say Renteria’s attorneys didn’t elevate this protection at his trial and proof within the case presentations that he dedicated the abduction and killing by myself. Prosecutors mentioned that blood present in Renteria’s van matched the slain girl’s DNA. His palm print used to be discovered on a plastic bag that used to be put over her head sooner than her frame used to be set on fireplace. Prosecutors mentioned Renteria used to be a convicted intercourse wrongdoer on probation on the time of the killing.
Renteria’s scheduled execution is one of two set to be performed within the U.S. on Thursday. In Alabama, Casey McWhorter is about to obtain a deadly injection for fatally capturing a person all over a 1993 theft.
Attorneys for Renteria have filed unsuccessful appeals asking state and federal courts to halt the execution, which is about happen on the state jail in Huntsville. A last attraction to the U.S. Supreme Court used to be anticipated after appeals to a decrease court docket concluded.
Renteria’s attorneys argue they’ve been denied get right of entry to to the prosecution’s document on Renteria, which they argued violates his constitutional rights. His felony group mentioned the prosecution hindered their talent to research Renteria’s claims that gang contributors have been accountable for the girl’s loss of life.
The claims by way of Renteria’s attorneys are in response to witness statements launched by way of El Paso police in 2018 and 2020 wherein a girl advised investigators that her ex-husband, a Barrio Azteca member, used to be concerned within the loss of life of a girl who had long past lacking from a Walmart.
Renteria “will be executed despite recently uncovered evidence of actual innocence, evidence that he is innocent of the death penalty,” Tivon Schardl, one of the protection attorneys, mentioned in court docket paperwork.
A federal pass judgement on in 2018 mentioned that the girl’s remark used to be “fraught with inaccuracies” and used to be “insufficient to show Renteria’s innocence.”
In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes’ orders.
On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Renteria’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a six-month reprieve.
Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl, the youngest of eight children in her family. The grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.
In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria’s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful. Renteria’s lawyers had argued that a statement he made to police after his arrest — in which he expressed sympathy for the girl’s family and that her death was “a tragedy that should never have happened” — was an expression of remorse. The appeals court said Renteria’s expression of remorse was “made in the context of minimizing his responsibility for the offense.”
During a new resentencing trial in 2008, Renteria used to be once more sentenced to loss of life.
Renteria would be the eighth inmate in Texas to be put to death this year. If Renteria and McWhorter both receive a lethal injection Thursday, there would be 23 executions this year in the U.S.
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