Adolph spoke to the media about his doubts as to whether or not all five death sentences would be upheld. “It’s all fine and dandy that you’ve got these five death sentences and all, but until I see it, I won’t believe it.”
Adolph added, “I wanted to accept it that every one of them was going to die someday, and then everybody would be just fine, but I just knew that it was too good to be true. Every day, the judicial system can change from one minute to the next. From one judge to the next. It’d be nice, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Adolph’s prophetic abilities would be seriously tested.
Chapter 42
Tuesday, October 11, 1994—7:00 P.M.
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Museum District—Main Street
Houston, Texas
Later that evening, Randy Ertman and Andy Kahan appeared before the monthly meeting of the Houston chapter for the Parents of Murdered Children. Kahan spoke to the group and informed them of his next fight—to make sure family members of victims have the option of witnessing their loved ones’ killer’s execution.
According to Kahan, at that time, only the state of Louisiana allowed the families of victims the opportunity to view an execution.
“I plan on Texas being the second state to allow this,” he informed the crowd.
After the meeting, Randy spoke of his desire to see all five killers’ executions. “It will please me,” he stated very clearly. “I’m not a morbid person. I know it won’t bring my daughter back, but I think it’s just plain justice.”
Randy added, “We have the right, as victims, to watch that . . . ,” he paused, rolling his eyes, and continued, “individual who murdered our children, we have the right to watch him die.”
“When Randy asked me that question in the hallway after the Cantu trial,” Kahan recalled, “he said, ‘I’d really like to be there when they execute these guys. Can I do that?’ Now, trust me, if you know Randy, you know he didn’t say it so politely.
“I said, ‘That’s a good question. I don’t know.’ I found out that victims’ families were specifically prohibited as a part of policy.” On the other hand, defendants were allowed to have up to five family members present in the death chamber with them.
“So that’s when we got the bill sponsored. Did some research on who had been witnessing executions. Did all that background research. That’s how we got the bill sponsored just from that one question. One question in the hallway.”
Getting the bill passed, however, was not so easy.
The following year, Kahan, the Ertmans, and Melissa Pena all traveled to Austin to appear in front of the Criminal Justice Committee. Randy Ertman informed the committee he wanted to view the executions of the young men who killed his daughter. In no time, the committee agreed and said no problem, consider it done.
Everything was smooth sailing. But, eventually, another obstacle reared its ugly head. Texas politics at the most ridiculous level entered the fray. According to Kahan, “All of a sudden, you’ve got personalities to play into it, and next thing I know, they’re shitcanning it and buried it so we didn’t even get a full vote. All because Mark Stiles, the chairman of the Calendar’s Committee, was feuding with John Culberson, who was the cosponsor of the bill.”
Kahan was flabbergasted at the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the premature burial of the bill. “No one testified against it, it was smooth. It was the smoothest thing I ever did, until I got that phone call from (House sponsor) Kevin Bailey’s office. He said, ‘We’ve got a problem.’
“I said, ‘What problem?’”
“Mark Stiles,” Bailey informed Kahan, “is in a feud with a cosponsor of the bill, and unless he removes his name from that bill, he’s going to bury it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kahan replied exasperatedly.
Sure enough, according to Kahan, “the issue never came up for a vote, and it died. Time ran out. Stiles stuck it on the bottom of the calendar and it disappeared.
“So I called the chairman of the Board of Criminal Justice, Alan Polunsky, and asked him what we could do. I reminded him that no one was against it, the Texas Department of Corrections said we could do it.
“If we can’t get the law changed, how about if we change the policy?” Kahan asked.
In September 1995, the Penas, the Ertmans, and Kahan all traveled together to the coastal town of Corpus Christi, Texas. Polunsky told Kahan there was a board meeting coming up and he would call him back. “He called me back,” Kahan remembered, “and said we are going to put you guys on the agenda. And he did.”
Kahan added, “He put us on the agenda to testify in front of the Board of Criminal Justice. We all drove down there. Testified as to why we thought it was important. They all listened to us. There were some other families that came down, too. And next thing you know, they voted unanimously to change the dang policy.”
There has never been a problem with the policy since. “Seventy-five percent of families have witnessed the executions. And all we wanted to do was to give them the option as to whether they wanted to be there or not. I was shocked how many people would watch. Which tells me we did a good thing.”
Chapter 43
Three years after the murders, the first of several appeals came across the transom. Efrain Perez’s appeal was denied.
Yuni Medellin was eventually transferred from a youth facility to an adult prison. The judge cited the heinous nature of the murders and opted to make Yuni serve out his entire forty-year sentence. The hearing went by very quickly. The judge read the sentence, informed Yuni that he would be transferred to an adult prison, and banged his gavel. It was over almost as soon as it had begun.
According to Adolph Pena, the judge said, “‘Put the cuffs back on and send him back to the big house. You got sentenced to forty years—you’re going to serve forty years.’”
Adolph simply said, “Hallelujah! See ya later. Now you got to go up there with the big boys. You ain’t gonna go to no little penitentiary.”
According to Andy Kahan, Yuni Medellin has been up for parole twice since he was sent to an adult prison; he has been denied both times.
The second appeal was heard—this time for Raul Villarreal. The end result was the same: verdict upheld.
The third appeal was heard—this time for Sean O’Brien. The end result was the same: verdict upheld.
The fourth appeal was heard—this time for Peter Cantu. The end result was the same: verdict upheld.
The fifth appeal was heard—this time for Joe Medellin. The end result was the same: verdict upheld.
Chapter 44
Five years after the murder of their only child, Randy and Sandy Ertman decided they had had enough of Houston. Everywhere they looked, they faced painful reminders of their lovely daughter, Jennifer. Whether it was the stuffed animals hanging in a hammock in her untouched bedroom, or if they saw a blond teenager wearing jewelry and shopping at the nearby mall, they could not escape the pain.
Randy had given up on his days as a crime victims’ advocate. The pain that others experienced cut quickly and deeply every time he experienced it with them. It became too much to bear. He admitted he turned to alcohol to ease his pain. His consumption level increased each year he was removed from the loss of his daughter. He admitted to drinking nearly twenty-four beers a day.
The Ertmans had to do something about it.
They packed their bags, including all of Jennifer’s belongings, and moved to a tiny little town near Lake Somerville, called Lyons, Texas. They bought a quaint cabin near the lake and kept to themselves.
It was the start of a positive recovery for the couple.
Wednesday, June 24, 1998
T. C. Jester Park
T. C. Jester Boulevard and West Thirty-fourth Street
Houston, Texas
Adolph and Melissa Pena gathered some of their closest friends and family members together at the memorial benches for the
girls. Several of the girls’ friends from high school, most of them now in college or off in the working world, made sure to stop by to support the Penas.
It was a joyous and solemn ceremony. People tried to focus on the positive aspects of the girls’ short lives. It was not easy knowing their final resting place was a mere two hundred feet away on the other side of White Oak Bayou.
To honor the girls’ memories, Melissa and Adolph released a large batch of pink and white balloons to symbolize innocence and purity, and to acknowledge that we cannot always hold on to those qualities for our dearest loved ones, no matter how hard we try.
Chapter 45
As the years passed, and the families waited for execution dates to be set for the convicted killers, strange little tremors erupted here and there to remind everyone about the case.
Six years after the murders, Efrain Perez stabbed a guard while inside his prison cell. Luckily, the guard survived.
One year later, Don Davis, defense attorney for Peter Cantu, committed suicide. Some of his associates believed it was because his first batch of death row clients had recently been executed and it hit him hard. In addition, he recently had two legal complaints filed against him with the Texas Bar, and he was potentially on the verge of facing disciplinary action.
Davis was discovered dead in his bathroom from a single gunshot to the abdomen.
More tragedy occurred that same year. One of Jennifer Ertman’s best friends, Annie Caballero, and her three-year-old daughter were killed in a fire in their Heights-area home, not far from where Jennifer lived.
Annie’s daughter was named Jennifer, after her mother’s slain friend.
Chapter 46
In the summer of 2003, more than ten years after Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman were murdered, a judge finally set an execution date for one of the five killers on death row. Judge Mike Anderson scheduled Raul Villarreal’s execution for June 24, 2004, the eleventh anniversary of the girls’ murders.
Judge Anderson informed Villarreal that he wanted him to dread that day as much as the Penas and the Ertmans had to for the past ten years.
The following day, Judge Jim Wallace set an execution date for Efrain Perez for June 23, 2004, the day before the anniversary. Judge Wallace wanted to make it more convenient for the Penas and Ertmans so they could witness both executions without having to deal with all the attendant hassles.
Chapter 47
During January 2004, the United States Supreme Court agreed to review the case of Roper v. Simmons, in which Christopher Simmons, who planned and executed a murder when he was seventeen, was given a death sentence when he turned eighteen. The case would be argued before the Supreme Court in October 2004. If the Supreme Court decided that executing a minor would violate that defendant’s constitutional rights, several cases, including Raul Villarreal’s and Efrain Perez’s, could be adversely affected.
The Pena and Ertman families were devastated when they heard the news. They had waited so long for the executions to come, and the first two convicts up to bat—Villarreal and Perez—were both seventeen at the time of the murders.
When October finally arrived, the Penas traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the Supreme Court hearings for Perez and Villarreal. Texas attorney general Greg Abbott made sure the Penas received passes so they could attend the hearings. They were accompanied by their youngest daughter, Rachael, and also Dianne Clements, from the crime victims’ advocacy group Justice for All.
The Ertmans were unable to make the trip.
“I was scared to death of going inside the Supreme Court,” Pena recalled. “I was scared to death, but mostly I was scared that they were going to be against me. That was my fear.”
Adolph’s fears were not without merit.
Several months later, in March 2005, the Supreme Court ruled against them, by the slimmest of margins, 5–4, and in favor of murderers who were aged seventeen at the time they committed their murders.
Adolph stated he was sick and tired of hearing the arguments as to why minors should not be executed. “It’s that part of the brain that’s not developed. They didn’t really know what they were doing because they were too young. How many times did we go through that shit? Yeah, a seventeen-year-old’s mind is not completely developed, so there is no way he knew what he was doing when he was murdering these girls. A six-year-old knows not to kill somebody! C’mon, give me a break.”
In addition to taking two of the murderers of Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman off death row, the Supreme Court also allowed another famous Texas death row inmate to escape the needle. Robert Burns Springsteen IV, one of two teenagers convicted in the 1991 Austin, Texas, yogurt shop murders, was only seventeen at the time of the massacre. He, too, was released from death row. (See Corey Mitchell’s Murdered Innocents, Kensington /Pinnacle 2005, for more history.)
Adolph spoke about the decision made by the Supreme Court. “You talk about being pissed,” the angry father spat out. “I said, ‘Here we go again.’ Would have been nice to take them back the day after they got their sentences and executed all five of them right there. Back in the day, they used to hang them from the oak tree in front of the courthouse.
“I was just outraged,” Adolph recalled. “I had my three-hundred-dollar suit on. I need some freakin’ cameras. I’m ready to say something.” Adolph, who had been the less vocal of the two fathers during the trials back in 1994, was finally coming out of his shell. He was furious at the Supreme Court’s decision and wanted everyone in the country to know how he felt.
Apparently, the media were interviewing a few people before him, and one television crew member told Adolph in a snotty tone, “You’re just going to have to wait, Mr. Pena.”
“I was about to bust a vein. I was gonna be last and I was gonna let them have it.”
He did.
Adolph ripped into the United States Supreme Court for siding with the killers, not only of his and Randy’s daughters, but also of the sons and daughters of hundreds more affected by the ruling.
“It must have made an impact”—Adolph shrugged—“because I received more phone calls about the case after that interview than anything I had ever done before. People were calling me up and complimenting me for going after the Supreme Court. They said, ‘You kicked some ass!’”
In the end, it did not matter. “Them sons of bitches,” Adolph said, referring to the members of the Supreme Court, “they just pissed me off.
“I’m just this little bitty guy who grew up in San Antonio and I’m up against the Supreme Court of the United States. Going up there to raise some damn hell. Somebody’s going to hear what I’ve got to say.”
After the letdown from America’s highest court, the Penas did not see how things could get any worse.
They did. Quickly.
That same month, Joe Medellin, now using his given name of “Jose,” claimed that since he was born in Mexico, he should have been considered a Mexican national at the time of his arrest. Because of this, he should have been afforded the opportunity to contact the Mexican consulate, which could have been by his side and prevented him from confessing to the police.
Miraculously, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear his case as well, along with fifty other Mexican nationals on death row.
That November, the Penas dutifully traveled back to Washington, D.C., to sit in on the Supreme Court. Powerful, broad-ranging arguments about international intercession, American rights in foreign countries, and more were raised.
Afterward, Adolph was determined to have his voice heard on behalf of his murdered daughter, Elizabeth. There was a large Mexican news contingent present for the Medellin hearings.
“I had to bone up on my Spanish that day.” Adolph laughed. “Those [guys] were from Mexico, and the Mexican people wanted to hear what I had to say about the Supreme Court’s decision to hear these cases. They speak the good Spanish. I polished up my teeth and spoke in Spanish.”
Afterward, the reporte
rs told him that he did a good job and they wished him luck and hoped things would work out for him.
Two months later, the Supreme Court dismissed the case and said they never should have taken it in the first place. In addition, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that Medellin did not assert his treaty-based claim on time was upheld.
Joe Medellin would get his execution date after all.
Any chance for celebration for the families of the victims was short-lived, however—thanks to President George W. Bush. The former governor of Texas intervened in the Joe Medellin case and ordered the state of Texas (and several additional states) to hold hearings for the fifty-one Mexican nationals imprisoned for the death penalty, which included Jose Medellin.
One week later, Condoleezza Rice informed the international community that the United States would be withdrawing from the section of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that allows consular access to occur. The international community was up in arms at the latest nose-thumbing by the president.
Echoing Natalie Maines, of the Dixie Chicks, Adolph Pena said of Bush, “I’m just ashamed that son of a bitch is from Texas. I am really ashamed that that boy is from Texas.” Adolph added, “My wife said that if something happened to one of his kids, he wouldn’t go through this shit. If somebody was to murder one of his daughters, I bet you he wouldn’t think the same way. Until it hits you right there. Until you actually are the one who got damaged from the killings, you have no earthly idea what it does to not only an individual, but to a whole family and a whole lifestyle. You don’t have any idea.”
Pure Murder Page 28