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| Miguel Paredes |
Huntsville, TX - A former San Antonio gang member was executed Tuesday evening in Huntsville, Texas for his part in a 2002 triple slaying.
Miguel Paredes, 32, was convicted along with 2 other men in the September 2000
slayings of three people with ties to the Mexican Mafia.
The victims' bodies
were rolled up in a carpet, driven about 50 miles southwest, dumped and set on
fire. A farmer investigating a grass fire found the remains.
Paredes was pronounced dead at 6:54 p.m. CDT, 22 minutes after being injected
with a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital. The execution was delayed
slightly to ensure the IV lines were functioning properly, said Department of
Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark. The procedure calls for 2 working
lines.
Normally needles are placed in the crease of an inmate's arms near the elbows,
but in Paredes' case, prison officials inserted IV lines into his hands.
As witnesses entered the death chamber in Huntsville, Paredes smiled and
mouthed several kisses to 4 friends watching through a window and repeatedly
told them he loved them. He told everyone gathered that he hoped his victims'
family members would "let go of all of the hate because of all my actions."
"I came in as a lion and I come as peaceful as a lamb," Paredes said. "I'm at
peace. I hope society sees who else they are hurting with this."
As the drugs began taking effect, he took several deep breaths while praying.
He started to snore and eventually stopped.
No friends or relatives of the victims attended Paredes' execution. Cain's
family said in a statement afterward that Cain was "no longer with us for no
other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Our family has waited 14 years for justice to finally be served," the
statement said.
The execution was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a last-day appeal from attorneys who contended Paredes was mentally impaired and his previous lawyers were deficient for not investigating his mental history.
Miguel Angel Paredes was convicted for the shooting deaths of Adrian Torres, 27; his 23-year-old girlfriend, Nelly Bravo; and Shawn Michael Cain, 23. Their burned bodies were found in nearby Frio County.
Two co-defendants, John Anthony Saenz and Greg Alvarado, were also convicted in the deaths. Bexar County prosecutors claimed the 3 were settling a drug debt with Torres when the murders occurred.
Paredes told the San Antonio Express-News he and his fellow Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos associates met up with Torres, a member of a rival gang, the Mexican Mafia, to confront him about threats he had made.
Paredes, who was 18 at the time of the murders, was the only 1 of the 3 defendants sentenced to death. Saenz was found guilty of capital murder but sentenced to life in prison. Alvarado pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.
On Monday, Paredes' lawyer, David Dow of Houston, asked the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to stay the execution while it considered an appeal Dow also filed on Monday.
In the appeal, Dow argued that another appellate attorney failed to investigate whether Paredes was taking psychiatric medication when he waived his right to challenge his sentence based on ineffective trial counsel.
Paredes becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas, and the 518th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982.
Paredes becomes the 279th condemned inmate to be put to death
in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001. With no other lethal
injections scheduled this year, the annual total will be the lowest since 3
were carried out in 1996. But at least 9 are scheduled for early 2015,
including 4 in January.
Paredes becomes the 31st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the
USA and the 1390th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17,
1977.
Sources: Texas Tribune, Twitter, AP, Rick Halperin, October 28, 2014
Inside the mind of a San Antonio man on death row: Condemned man finds art as release
Miguel Angel Paredes, who is set to be executed Tuesday for a gang-sanctioned triple slaying in San Antonio, said during a death row interview with the Express-News last week that he has turned to artwork over the past 13 years while waiting for his sentence to be carried out.
He has created sketches ranging from portraits of lions, puppies and dolphins to more haunting imagery, such as a man strapped to a death chamber gurney - arms outstretched, the IV line in place, with an angel in 1 witness box and the devil in the other.
Paredes, now 32, was convicted in 2001 of the capital murders a year earlier of Nelly Esmerelda Bravo, 23, her boyfriend and Texas Mexican Mafia member Adrian Torres, 27, and Shawn Michael Cain, 32. Paredes leveled a handgun to the head of Bravo as she begged for her life, ignoring her pleas, according to witness testimony at his trial.
When the shot to her head wasn't fatal, Paredes fired a shotgun at her chest. Co-defendants Greg Alvarado and John Anthony Saenz - who, like Paredes, were members of the Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos prison gang - are both serving life sentences.
Paredes said he is remorseful for the slayings.
"All that gang life folklore, the romanticism, it's crap," he said. "As long as one kid sees beyond all that crap because of my situation, that's fine."
READY TO DIE
Paredes was 18 at the time of the killings and was jailed as a minor for murder. His co-defendants received life sentences.
Paredes told the San Antonio Express-News he was ready to die for his crimes.
"For me, what matters is that people really get to see the reality of the death penalty, that it's affecting people that are invisible, like my son, my loved ones, my family. They're the ones really carrying that burden," he told the paper in an interview published over the weekend.
Sources: mysanantonio.com & Reuters, October 27, 2014
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