Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Anastacio Vargas was convicted of murdering Louisa Garcia.  Both Louisa and her husband, Gabrial Garcia, were beaten by a pair of robbers on Aug 21, 1925.  Louisa died from her injuries ten days later.  Gabrial identified Vargas as one of the assailants and testified that Louisa also identified Vargas prior to her death.  Vargas had been an employee of the Garcias for some time prior to their assaults.  He was sentenced to life imprisonment.  An appeals court subsequently overturned Vargas's conviction.  On retrial, Vargas was again convicted, but this time he was sentenced to death.

A few hours before Vargas's scheduled execution, a look-alike to Vargas confessed to the crime.  Vargas was pardoned and released in 1929.  Thirty-five years later, Vargas was awarded $20,000 by the state.  (RCN)  [4/08]

Ruben Cantu was convicted of murdering Pedro Gomez, a Mexican laborer.  Gomez was robbed and shot to death while he was sleeping in a house under construction on Briggs Street in South San Antonio.  The house was right across the street from where Cantu, then 17, lived with his father.  Cantu was executed by lethal injection on Aug. 24, 1993.  Following Cantu's execution, witnesses have come forward to exonerate him.

Juan Moreno, who was wounded during the attempted robbery and a key eyewitness in the case against Cantu, now says that it was not Cantu who shot him and that he only identified Cantu as the shooter because he felt pressured and was afraid of the authorities.  Moreno said that he twice told police that Cantu was not his assailant, but that the authorities continued to pressure him to identify Cantu as the shooter after Cantu was involved in an unrelated wounding of a police officer.  "The police were sure it was [Cantu] because he had hurt a police officer.  They told me they were certain it was him, and that's why I testified.”

David Garza, Cantu's co-defendant during his 1985 trial, signed a sworn affidavit saying that he allowed Cantu to be accused and executed even though he was not with him on the night of the killing.  Garza stated, "Part of me died when he died.  You've got a 17-year-old who went to his grave for something he did not do.  Texas murdered an innocent person."

Sam D. Millsap, Jr., the Bexar County District Attorney who charged Cantu with capital murder, said he never should have sought the death penalty in a case based on testimony from an eyewitness who identified a suspect only after police showed him Cantu's photo three separate times.  Miriam Ward, forewoman of the jury that convicted Cantu, noted, "With a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we'd have gotten the right information. The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that."  (Chronicle)  [1/07]

Kenneth Foster drove a car that stopped to allow an occupant, DeWayne Dillard, an opportunity to get out and talk to a female (later learned to be a stripper) in a stopped car.  Dillard shot her male friend, Michael T. LaHood, Jr., allegedly in self-defense, but the prosecutor argued robbery.  According to Dillard, Foster in the car 80 feet away “appeared surprised and panicked” and started to drive away, but Dillard told him to stop.  According to Texas “law of parties,” the jury had to agree that Foster had intended or conspired to participate in the alleged robbery in order to convict him of Capital Murder, but the trial judge blatantly disregarded this law in his instructions to the jury.  Foster was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997.  (www.freekenneth.com)  [3/05]

Leonel Torres Herrera was sentenced to death for murdering two police officers, David Rucker and Enrique Carrisalez.  The murders occurred at separate locations along a highway between Brownsville and Los Fresnos.  Enrique Hernandez, Carrisalez's patrol car partner, identified Herrera.  Hernandez also said Herrera was only person in the car that they stopped.  Carrisalez, who did not die until 9 days after he was shot, identified Herrera from a single photo.  A license plate check showed that the stopped car belonged to Herrera's live in girlfriend.

In 1984, after Herrera's brother Raul was murdered, Raul's attorney came forward and signed an affidavit stating that Raul told him he had killed Rucker and Carrisalez.  A former cellmate of Raul also came forward and signed a similar affidavit.  Raul's son, Raul Jr., who was nine at the time of the killings, signed a third affidavit.  It averred that he had witnessed the killings.  Jose Ybarra, Jr., a schoolmate of the Herrera brothers, signed a fourth affidavit.  Ybarra alleged that Raul Sr. told him in 1983 that he had shot the two police officers.  Herrera alleged that law enforcement officials were aware of Ybarra's statement and had withheld it in violation of Brady v. Maryland.  Armed with these affidavits, Herrera petitioned for a new trial, but was denied relief in state courts.  One court did dismiss Herrera's Brady claim due to lack of evidence.  Herrera's appeal eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was argued in Oct. 1992.

In Jan. 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that Herrera's actual innocence was not a bar to his execution.  He had to show that there were procedural errors in his trial in order to gain relief.  Justice Rehnquist wrote that the "presumption of innocence disappears" once a defendant has been convicted in a fair trial.  Dissenting Justice Blackmun wrote:  "The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder."  Herrera was executed four months after the ruling on May 12, 1993.  (Herrera v. Collins)  [1/07]

Susie Mowbray was convicted of murdering her husband, J. William "Bill" Mowbray, Jr.  After incessantly protesting her innocence, she was granted a retrial in 1996 by a Texas appeals court that ruled prosecutors concealed a crucial report on the blood splatter evidence that supported Mowbray's innocence.  When retried in 1998, forensic evidence supported the defense claim that Mowbray's husband committed suicide while she was asleep next to him in bed.  Dr. Herbert MacDonnell testified that it was likely Bill Mowbray committed suicide.  Mowbray was acquitted.  [10/05]

Paul Richard Colella was accused of murdering David Taylor and Michael Lavexphere.  It was alleged that he murdered them because he wrongly believed they had raped his wife.  At trial, the prosecution argued that deaths occurred at 2 a.m., because Colella was known to be 240 miles away at 6 a.m.  However, death certificates that were not turned over at the time of trial, place the time of death for both men at 6 a.m.  There were other case discrepancies.  Colella was sentenced to death, but later escaped death row by agreeing to plead to two non-capital counts of murder and accept a 20-year sentence.  Colella still maintains his innocence.  (Info)  [5/05]

Jack Warren Davis was convicted of the sexual assault, mutilation, and murder of Kathie Campolo Balonis, 24.  Balonis's body was found in her apartment at the Oaks complex on Landa Street in New Braunfels. Davis lived and worked at the apartment complex as a maintenance man.  The conviction was based on the forensic testimony of Fred Zain.  Zain testified that some blood found under Balonis's body came from Davis.  In a 1992 evidentiary hearing to examine prosecutorial misconduct in Davis's case, Zain changed his testimony and acknowledged that the blood came from the victim.  Davis's conviction was vacated and he was released in 1992.  Davis later received a $600,000 settlement from Bexar County.  [7/05]

For reasons unknown, James Harry Reyos confessed in New Mexico to police that he had killed a Catholic priest, Father Patrick Ryan, during a homosexual tryst in a West Texas motel.  However, every other piece of testimony controverted his guilt.  Reyos had an airtight alibi:  He was 200 miles away when the priest was bludgeoned to death.  Reyos could prove his alibi with time-stamped receipts, a speeding ticket, and even an eyewitness.  Father Ryan was a much beloved priest, and Reyos's allegations that the father had repeatedly solicited young men for sex shocked and offended the jurors.  Reyos was convicted and sentenced to 38 years of imprisonment.  The state's attorney responding to Reyos's appeal made himself a timeline of the crime and realized that Reyos could not have committed the crime.  The attorney put in a pardon request but it was turned down.  Reyos was paroled in 2003.  (AJ) (Chronicle)

Federico M. Macias was convicted of hacking to death Robert and Naomi Haney with a machete during a home invasion.  Most of the goods stolen from the murdered couple were retrieved from the yard of 19-year-old Pedro Luevanos.  Luevanos implicated Macias as his accomplice and as the actual killer.  In return Luevanos received a 25-year-sentence while Macias was sentenced to death.  Macias's lawyer failed to call alibi witnesses who would have placed him elsewhere at the time of the crime and to present evidence that the corroborating witnesses had not in fact been at Macias's home on the day of the murders.  Macias's conviction was reversed in 1992 for ineffective assistance of counsel.  A grand jury then refused to re-indict him because of a lack of evidence.  (CWC)  [7/05]

Brandon Moon was convicted of three counts of sexual assault in part because he was identified by the victim.  DNA tests later exonerated Moon and revealed that the forensic evidence presented at his trial was false.  Moon served 16 years of a 75-year sentence.  (IP)  [6/05]

Tony Ford was convicted of shooting four members of the Murillo family, killing one of them.  The shootings occurred during the course of a robbery.  The victims identified Ford at trial, but much evidence indicates their identification is mistaken.  Ford was scheduled for execution in Dec. 2005.  Eight days before his execution, a judge issued a stay so that DNA tests can be performed.  It is expected that these tests will find that the victims' blood is on the clothes of the person believed to be the real shooter.  (JD30 p4) (ODR)  [3/08]

Henry Watkins Skinner, also known as Hank, was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two sons, Randy Busby and Scooter Caler.  Hank was sentenced to death.  The murders occurred at 801 East Campbell Ave. in Pampa.  Hank, then 31, had been drinking earlier in the evening and passed out after taking codeine to which he was severely allergic.  A friend, Howard Mitchell, arrived to take Hank and Twila to a New Year's Eve Party at 9:30 p.m., but he could not rouse Hank.

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David Wayne Stoker was sentenced to death for the murder of David Mannrique (Manrique), a clerk at an Allsup's convenience store in Hale Center, Texas.  Mannrique was shot three times and robbed of $96.81.  No physical evidence placed Stoker at the store or established that he owned the gun that killed the victim. Five months after the crime, Carey Todd told police that Stoker had confessed to him and had given him the murder weapon, which Todd then gave them.  At trial, Todd denied under oath that the prosecution gave him any incentives to testify against Stoker.  However, Todd had felony drug and weapons charges against him dropped later that same day.  He possibly faced being charged with Mannrique's murder had he not been willing to finger someone else.  Ronnie and Debbie Thompson also testified that Stoker had confessed the murder to them.

Ronnie Thompson later recanted his testimony. Thompson said he had signed the statement written by his wife, Debbie Thompson, without reading it because she claimed Stoker had raped her, a claim he later found to be false. He claimed prosecutors threatened to try him for perjury if his trial testimony differed from his affidavit.  During Stoker's trial, his wife left him to move in with Todd.  Both she and Todd then each received half of a $1000 Crime Stoppers reward for naming Stoker. Police Chief Richard Cordell had testified there was no local Crime Stoppers, but later admitted he was one of the group's founders.

Prosecutors claimed that a shell casing found in Stoker's car linked him to the murder weapon.  However, Stoker did not own the car until months after the murder.  A federal appellate judge concluded that Todd was just as likely the murderer.  It would appear, however, that Todd is more likely the murderer, as the only reliable evidence in the case is that Todd possessed the murder weapon and knew that it was used in the murder.  Stoker was executed on June 16, 1997.  (CPIT) (Atlantic)  [8/08]

Garland Leon Martin, also known as Butch, was convicted of the arson murders of his common law wife, Marcia Pool, her son, Michael Brady Stevens, age 3, and their joint daughter, Kristen Rhea Martin, age 1.  The three died in a fire at the home they shared with Martin.  The conviction was based in large part on a hypothesis that accelerants were used to start the fire.  Some samples from fire remnants in the master bedroom reportedly tested positive for Norpar and deparaffinated kerosene.

Norpar can be used as lamp oil and deparaffinated kerosene can be found in lighter fluid, but they are also common chemicals found in numerous household products.  Experts dispute the supposition that these chemicals indicate the presence of accelerants and are petitioning to check the state's evidence that the alleged chemicals were even found.  A defense investigator thought the fire started on the back porch rather than in the master bedroom near the back door.  He criticized original investigators for discounting and then disposing of an electrical cord that was used to connect a refrigerator on the back porch to an outlet inside the house.  He thought the fire marshal was looking for arson from the outset.  (IP Arson)  [7/07]

Carlos De Luna was sentenced to death for the murder of a convenience store and gas station clerk named Wanda Jean Lopez.  Lopez, 24, was stabbed at a Sigmor gas station on South Padre Island Drive in Corpus Christi.  Her blood splattered on the store walls, the cash register, and the floor.  Forty minutes after the murder, police found De Luna hiding under a pick-up truck on a side street a few hundred yards from the station.  He had taken off his shirt and shoes.  But there was no blood on his face or pants. And when his shirt and shoes were found, no blood was on them either.

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Ernest Ray Willis was convicted of murdering Gail Joe Allison, 25, and Elizabeth "Betsy" Grace Belue, 24. The victims died in a house fire that was ruled an arson.  Willis was sentenced to death.  Police said Willis acted strangely at the scene of the blaze, and they believed that they found an accelerant in the carpet.  Prosecutors used Willis's dazed mental state at trial - the result of state administered medication - to characterize him as "coldhearted" and as a "satanic demon."  Years later, a federal court overturned Willis's conviction after finding that the state had administered medically inappropriate anti-psychotic drugs without Willis's consent; that it had suppressed evidence favorable to Willis; and that Willis received ineffective representation at both the guilt and sentencing phases of his trial.

A new district attorney, Ori T. White then reinvestigated the case.  The state's new arson specialist revealed that the "accelerant" initially suspected of causing the fire was in fact "flashover burning," consistent with electrical fault fires.  The state dropped charges against Willis in 2004 and White commented that Willis "simply did not do the crime. ...  I'm sorry this man was on death row for so long and that there were so many lost years."  Willis was awarded $430,000 for his time behind bars.  (San Antonio Express-News) (Texas Monthly)  [3/06]

Sonia Cacy was convicted of the arson murder of her 76-year-old uncle, with whom she shared a house.  Cacy's uncle, Bill Richardson, was a careless chain smoker who smoked several packs a day.  According to Cacy, his smoking had started about 50 fires, including one about three years earlier that burned his leased home to the ground.  Testimony described multiple cigarette burns on Richardson's furniture.  The fire marshal had been to the home three times in the month prior to the fatal fire to investigate smaller fires.

An autopsy of Richardson showed evidence he had a heart attack and that he was dead before he could inhale any of the heavy smoke from the fire.  Nevertheless, at trial, Joe Castorena, the chief toxicologist for the Bexar County Crime Lab testified that there was evidence of gasoline on Richardson's clothing remnants.  Based on this finding and no other evidence, the prosecutor convinced a jury that Cacy had doused her uncle with gasoline and set him on fire.  Cacy was sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment.

Cacy's court appointed lawyer, Tony Chavez, did little to challenge Castorena's testimony.  He did not hire an expert to rebut Castorena, and he was later convicted of being part of a multi-ton marijuana smuggling operation.  The chain of custody of Richardson's clothing remnants had been lost and the remnants presented at trial had no documentation on them to show where they originated.  Other clothing remnants of Richardson had been sent to a Houston crime lab, which found no evidence of gasoline.  After serving 6 years of imprisonment, Cacy was paroled in 1998.  However, she is fighting her conviction, in part, because she does not want to be on parole for another 93 years.  (TIJ)  [7/07]

Thirty-eight defendants were convicted of selling and/or distributing cocaine in and around Tulia, TX based solely on the word of a Swisher County undercover sheriff's deputy named Tom Coleman.  Texas Governor Rick Perry pardoned 35 of the Tulia defendants on August 22, 2003.  In addition to the 38, eight other defendants were falsely arrested but were able to prove their innocence.  One defendant, Yolanda Smith, had proof that she was making a bank deposit in Oklahoma City at the time she was allegedly hundreds of miles away selling cocaine to Tom Coleman.

In 2004 a lawsuit against the cities and counties belonging to the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force was settled, awarding $6 million to the 46 people arrested in Coleman's investigation.  Coleman was convicted of perjury in 2005.  At Coleman's trial, defense witness Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart forgot he was at a perjury trial and committed apparent perjury himself.  The judge dismissed him as a witness and assigned him a defense lawyer to consult with.  (Justice: Denied) (CWC)  [9/05]

Richard Danziger and Christopher Ochoa were roommates who worked at an Austin Pizza Hut.  While visiting another Austin Pizza Hut they raised suspicions when they asked employees questions about the murder of a manager there.  The manager was twenty-year-old Nancy Depriest who was raped and killed at that location two weeks before.  The two were brought in for police questioning and under coercion Ochoa confessed first to the rape and then only to the murder of DePriest.  In order to avoid the death penalty he agreed to testify against Danziger for the other crime.  Both men were convicted and given life sentences.

Eight years later another prisoner, Achim Marino, serving three life sentences, began writing letters to police, the DA, Gov. Bush, a newspaper, and the ACLU, confessing to the rape and murder of DePriest.  He said he did not know Ochoa or Danziger or why anyone would confess to a crime he had committed.  Marino had apparently undergone a religious conversion while attending AA/NA and felt obliged to confess his responsibility for the DePriest murder.  Although Marino exhibited detailed knowledge of the crime, the letters had little effect.  Austin Police did go to interview Ochoa, but he continued to profess guilt.  Later he explained that he feared claiming innocence would hurt his chance for parole.

Three years afterward Ochoa reconsidered and contacted the Wisconsin Innocence Project.  After DNA tests were done, both he and Danziger were exonerated and released.  The tests also confirmed that Marino was the perpetrator.  While in prison, Danziger was severely beaten by another prisoner and suffered severe brain damage that incapacitated him for life.  Danziger and Ochoa were awarded $9 million and $5.3 million respectively in 2003 for 13 years of wrongful imprisonment.  (IP1) (IP2) (CWC1) (CWC2) (Frontline)  [9/05]

Gilbert Alejandro, star of the 1972 Texas state championship high school football team, was convicted of rape.  In her initial description, the victim said she could not describe her assailant other than giving his basic physical size as he had placed a pillow over her head during the assault.  She also noted that her assailant was wearing some kind of cap, a gray T-shirt, and dark-colored shorts.  The victim later picked out Alejandro from a police mug book.

At trial, forensic technician Fred Zain testified that a DNA test of the evidence conclusively matched Alejandro, when the test he referred to was inconclusive.  Two other tests were performed, one before trial, and one after trial, which were exculpatory, but Zain failed to report the results of these tests to anyone.  Later it became known that Zain had falsified results and lied about his credentials when he was employed as a State police serologist in West Virginia.  In 1994, after the results of the exculpatory tests were made known, Alejandro was released.  In 1995, Alejandro was awarded $250,000 by Bexar County, at whose laboratory Zain had worked.  (IP) (CWC) (CBJ)  [2/09]

Odell Barnes, Jr., was convicted of the murder of Helen Bass, his friend and lover.  He was sentenced to death.  Bass, 42, was beaten and stabbed with a kitchen knife, then killed with a gunshot to the head.  While driving by in a car, witness Robert Brooks claimed to have seen Barnes, wearing coveralls, hurdle a fence in Bass's backyard at 10:30 p.m.  Brooks allegedly witnessed this event under bad lighting conditions from 40 yards away while wearing tinted glasses.  He first made this statement before it was known that Bass did not arrive home from work until 11:30 p.m.  In addition, Brooks barely knew Barnes.  According to the prosecution theory, Barnes kicked in her back door at 10:30 p.m. and waited an hour for her to return home.  Such a theory seems dubious given Barnes's relationship with Bass and the fact that Barnes's mother was picking up Bass from work at 11:15 p.m.  A shoe print found on the back door and mentioned in a police report, was wiped clean.  Given Barnes's 14EEE shoe size, it easily could have been used to identify or exonerate him.

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