This is from May, but I hadn't seen the reference to the Mexican Counsulate and President Bush's involvement before this article.
NM
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 0M380.html
Gang member convicted in slayings of high school girls set to die

05/15/2006

By MICHAEL GRACZYK / Associated Press


Even in a city accustomed to violent crime, the savagery of the slayings of two Houston high school girls, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena, struck a nerve.

On a June night in 1993, the girls, ages 14 and 16, were trying to get home from another friend's house in time to meet their 11:30 p.m. curfew. They took a short cut along some railroad tracks.

Crossing a trestle, the girls were spotted by members of a gang who called themselves the Blacks and Whites. The boys were drinking beer and initiating a new member.

After the girls walked by, one of the boys grabbed Pena. As she screamed, Ertman ran to help.

Evidence showed the girls were gang raped for more than an hour. At least one of the girls was forced to perform oral sex on one of her attackers. The girls were kicked, had teeth knocked out and hair pulled out, and stomped on so hard that ribs were broken.

They were strangled in a frenzy police described as sadistic. A red nylon belt, with an attacker tugging at each end, was pulled so tightly around Ertman's neck that the belt snapped. Shoe laces likely were used to strangle Pena, authorities said.

Four days later, the girls' bodies were found, decomposing and mummifying in 100-degree heat, culminating a frantic search by their worried families and police.

Five gang members were later convicted of murder and given death sentences. Derrick Sean O'Brien, who turned 31 last month, is the first to face the death chamber. His execution is set for Tuesday. If carried out, he'll become the ninth criminal put to death this year in Texas.

"Jennifer and Elizabeth were kind of symbolic of how horrible our society had become," said Dianne Clements, president of Justice For All, a Houston-based crime victims group.

O'Brien, looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the punishment, asked the court in an appeal filed April 26 to review his case.

"Life is a miracle and therefore precious each time one is taken before its time," according to writings by O'Brien posted on an anti-capital punishment Web site. "All of this may sound strange coming from me, a death row inmate, but if I never strove to change even knowing my wrongs, I couldn't call myself human."

Authorities identified O'Brien as the owner of the belt used to strangle Ertman and recovered a piece of it from his apartment, apparently kept as a trophy. A tip from a brother of one of the gang members led to the arrests.

"The girls were young and pretty, one white, one Hispanic, doing nothing wrong," said Steve Baldassano, one of the prosecutors at O'Brien's trial. "He gave a confession and that made the case pretty easy."

He said O'Brien was also a suspect in another murder six months before the girls were killed, but he was never charged. Evidence put O'Brien at a Houston park where the body of Patricia Lopez, 27, was found. A beer can with his fingerprints on it was found under her remains. Lopez had been raped, eviscerated and had her throat cut.

Randy Ertman describes the killers of his only daughter as having "no socially redeeming quality."

"They're a waste of space," he said. "All I want to do is see them die."

Ertman and his wife, along with Pena's parents, were instrumental in changing Texas prison procedures so relatives of murder victims now can witness the execution of their loved one's killers.

The Supreme Court, however, last year barred the executions of criminals who were under 18 at the time of their crime. The ruling spared two of the gang members, Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal, who were 17 when the girls were killed. The men are now are serving life prison terms.

"After those two got off death row for being 17, that really broke our back," Ertman said. "They were juveniles. Here's a case where if you're driving a car and arrested for DWI, you're an adult. But for murder, you're not going to be tried as an adult. The Supreme Court ruling, that sucks."

A third man condemned, Jose Medellin, who O'Brien said was at one end of the belt being pulled around Ertman's neck as he yanked on the other, had his case returned to the state courts under an order from President Bush.

Medellin is among some 50 Mexican-born offenders who argue that under international law, they should have been allowed assistance from the Mexican consulate before they went to trial.

"'Frustrating' is a good word," Ertman said. "I could use other words but I won't. Nothing surprises us any more."

Still on death row is Peter Cantu, who police described as the ringleader of the fledgling gang. He does not have an execution date.

A sixth person convicted in the case, Medellin's brother, Vernancio, was 14 at the time and received a 40-year prison term, the maximum sentence for a juvenile.

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