Execution: Leonard Rojas
David Carson
December 2002 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of three people.
Leonard Rojas lived in Alvarado, a small town south of Fort Worth,
with is common-law wife, Jo Ann Reed, and his brother, David Rojas.
On the morning of 27 December 1994, Leonard Rojas, then 44, was in the
kitchen, making coffee, after a night of drinking and using drugs. He
saw Reed, 34, slip out of his brother's bedroom. He accused her of
sleeping with his brother, but she denied the accusation. They then
went into their bedroom, where she performed oral sex on him. Rojas
then shot Reed between the eyes with a .32-caliber handgun. Next,
Rojas called for his brother, 43, and shot him three times in the
bathroom. Returning to the bedroom, Rojas saw that Reed was still
breathing, so he tied a plastic bag over her head, and stacked pillows
and blankets on her body.
After the killings, Rojas went back to the kitchen and had a cup of
coffee. Two people telephoned for Reed. Rojas told them that she was
ill and could not come to the phone. Next, unable to find his car
keys, Rojas hitchhiked to the bus station in Fort Worth and bought a
ticket to Atlanta, Georgia. When he reached Dallas, he confessed to
security guards at the bus station. He later confessed to Dallas
County sheriff's deputies, including taking them on a videotaped
walk-through of the crime scene.
Rojas had previously served three prison sentences for drug offenses.
The first was in Germany, where he served in the U.S. Army. In 1976,
Rojas was convicted of selling heroin in California. His third prison
sentence was for selling cocaine in Nevada in 1990.
A jury convicted Rojas of capital murder in May 1996 and sentenced him
to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction
and sentence in September 1998.
Rojas was originally scheduled for execution in 2000, after his
appeals attorney failed to meet a filing deadline. According to the
Texas Defender Service, the lawyer, David Chapman, had a mental
disorder, had never worked on a capital appeals case before, and had
his law license put on probated suspension three times. Chapman
disputed the claims that he bungled Rojas' appeal, noting that Chapman
gave three confessions to police. "I played a very bad hand as well
as I could," Chapman said. "The facts of Mr. Rojas' case were
extraordinarily incriminating."
At any rate, a federal judge allowed a new attorney to be appointed,
and the usual appeals were then filed on Rojas' behalf. All of them
were denied by the courts.
"I'll never regret it. Never," Rojas said of the killings in a death
row interview. He said that his brother and wife taunted him all the
time. When he confronted her about sleeping with David, she laughed
and said, "You can't prove nothing, Leo." Rojas said that he used a
.32-caliber gun he got in exchange for cocaine to shoot his wife and
his brother. "I just snapped ... I just said, no more abuse from
these people." Rojas also claimed that the two were trying to kill
him slowly by poisoning his coffee. "These people, they were just
basically evil," Rojas said. "They wanted my money, wanted my drugs,
and they wanted to do me in." Though Rojas freely admitted his guilt,
he also claimed that his court-appointed attorneys were incompetent
and he did not get a fair trial.
Rojas declined to make a last statement at his execution. He was
pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.
David Carson
(Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Texas Attorney
General's office, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, Huntsville
Item.)
--
Texas Execution Information
www.txexecutions.org
David Carson
wrote:
>Leonard Uresti Rojas, 52, was executed by lethal injection on 4
>December 2002 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of three people.
Sorry, make that two people.
David Carson
--
Why do you seek the living among the dead? -- Luke 24:5
Who's Alive and Who's Dead
http://www.whosaliveandwhosdead.com
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, David Carson <da...@neosoft.com> wrote:
> Rojas had previously served three prison sentences for drug
> offenses. The first was in Germany, where he served in the
> U.S. Army. In 1976, Rojas was convicted of selling heroin in
> California. His third prison sentence was for selling cocaine in
> Nevada in 1990.
This makes it sound like his Army service *was* the first prison
sentence. I don't personally object to this characterization, but I
doubt that's what you meant.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Kentucky Wizard
"J.D. Baldwin" <INVALID...@example.com> wrote in message
news:aso3v4$ov1$4...@reader1.panix.com...
>
> In the previous article, David Carson <da...@neosoft.com> wrote:
> > Rojas had previously served three prison sentences for drug
> > offenses. The first was in Germany, where he served in the
> > U.S. Army. In 1976, Rojas was convicted of selling heroin in
> > California. His third prison sentence was for selling cocaine in
> > Nevada in 1990.
>
> This makes it sound like his Army service *was* the first prison
> sentence. I don't personally object to this characterization, but I
> doubt that's what you meant.
I wonder if he was still in the Army at the time he was arrested, for that
would then changes things, and he would have served his sentence in a
military prison. I'm like you J.D., the way it was written does make it
sound like his military service was his first prison sentence. I guess what
the author meant to say is that he was stationed in Germany in the Army, and
at a later date and after his discharge, committed and was imprisoned for a
crime.
--
The Wiz.....
Mack Twamley
"David Carson" <da...@neosoft.com> wrote in message
news:d2uuuuskflramhht5...@4ax.com...
> Leonard Uresti Rojas, 52, was executed by lethal injection on 4
> December 2002 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of three people.
Next,
> Rojas called for his brother, 43, and shot him three times in the
> bathroom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Damn, that's an especially painful place to get shot!
(I'm reminded of the old Andy Griffith record, describing Romeo and Juliet,
where he says that "Juliet stabbed herself, 'twixt the crypt and the wall'.
")
Rich Clancey
+ On Thu, 05 Dec 2002 10:17:22 -0600, David Carson <da...@neosoft.com>
+ wrote:
+>Leonard Uresti Rojas, 52, was executed by lethal injection on 4
+>December 2002 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of three people.
+ Sorry, make that two people.
It was only a matter of time...
--
rich clancey r...@world.std.com