A Texas man who admitted that he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed the 18-year-old girlfriend of his drug dealer was executed on Wednesday.
Ramiro Gonzales, 41, was pronounced dead at 6.50pm following a chemical injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the January 2001 killing of Bridget Townsend.
Gonzales was repeatedly apologetic to the victim’s relatives in his last statement from the execution chamber. Just before he spoke, a spiritual adviser sang a prayer, resting her left hand on his chest.
“I can’t put into words the pain I have caused y’all, the hurt, what I took away that I cannot give back. I hope this apology is enough,” Gonzales said in words directed to the family.
“I never stopped praying that you would forgive me and that one day I would have this opportunity to apologize. I owe all of you my life and I hope one day you will forgive me,” he added, just before a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital.
As the drug took effect, Gonzales took seven breaths, then began sounds like snores. Within less than a minute, all movement had stopped. Authorities said his time of death was 24 minutes after the injection began.
The remains ofTownsend were not found until October 2002, two years after she vanished, when Gonzales, having received two life sentences for kidnapping and raping another woman, led authorities to the spot in south-west Texas where he left her body.
Gonzales was condemned for fatally shooting Townsend after stealing drugs and money and kidnapping her in January 2001 from a home in Bandera county, located north-west of San Antonio. He took her to his family’s ranch in neighboring Medina county, where he sexually assaulted her and killed her.
The US supreme court declined a defense plea to intervene about an hour and half before the scheduled execution start time. The high court rejected arguments by Gonzales’s lawyers that he had taken responsibility for what he did and that a prosecution expert witness now says he was wrong in testifying that Gonzales would be a future danger to society, a legal finding needed to impose a death sentence.
“He has earnestly devoted himself to self-improvement, contemplation, and prayer, and has grown into a mature, peaceful, kind, loving, and deeply religious adult. He acknowledges his responsibility for his crimes and has sought to atone for them and to seek redemption through his actions,” Gonzales’s lawyers wrote on Monday in their petition. A group of faith leaders have also asked authorities to stop Gonzales’s execution.
“I just want [Townsend’s mother] to know how sorry I really am. I took everything that was valuable from a mother,” Gonzales, who was 18 years old at the time of the killing, said in a video submitted as part of his clemency request to the Texas board of pardons and paroles. “So, every day it’s a continual task to do everything that I can to feel that responsibility for the life that I took.”
Bridget Townsend’s brother isn’t persuaded. In various petitions and posts on Change.org, David Townsend has criticized efforts to portray Gonzales as anything other than a convicted murderer who committed “unforgivable acts”. He said the death sentence should be carried out.
“Our family seeks not revenge, but closure and a measure of peace after years of heartache – a quest that is hindered, not helped, by decisions that allow the perpetrator of our pain to remain in the public eye,” David Townsend wrote.
Earlier this month, a group of 11 evangelical leaders from Texas and around the country asked the parole board and the governor, Greg Abbott, to halt the execution and grant clemency to Gonzales, saying he now helps other death row inmates through a faith-based program.
“We are writing as Christians calling for you to spare the life of another Christian – Ramiro Gonzales. Ramiro has changed. Because he has changed, we believe the circumstances surrounding him should change as well,” they wrote.
On Monday, the parole board voted 7-0 against commuting Gonzales’s death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a six-month reprieve.
Prosecutors described Gonzales as a sexual predator who told police he ignored Townsend’s pleas to spare her life. They argued that jurors reached the right decision on a death sentence because he had a long criminal history and showed no remorse.
“The state’s punishment case was overwhelming,” the Texas attorney general’s office said. “Even if Dr Gripon’s testimony were wiped from the punishment slate, it would not have mattered.”
Gonzales’s execution was the second this year in Texas and the eighth in the US On Thursday, Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Richard Rojem for the 1984 abduction, rape and killing of a seven-year-old girl.