Execution: Jessy San Miguel, 'Taco Bell Killer'
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A high school dropout with a history of
mayhem was executed Thursday for a 1991 shooting spree that left
four people dead in a suburban Dallas Taco Bell restaurant.
Jessy Carlos San Miguel, 28, received the fifth lethal injection in Texas
this month and the 24th this year.
Over nine years ago, on Jan. 26, 1991, San Miguel and a companion
were pulled over by Dallas-area police who suspected them of drunken
driving. The officers found a Taco Bell restaurant bag filled with $1,390,
ski masks and a 9 mm pistol.
The slaughter was discovered not far away. The carnage inside the
fast-food restaurant was so overwhelming that the police officer who
discovered the four bodies in the walk-in freezer fainted.
The victims were Michael Phelan, 28, the restaurant's assistant manager;
employees Theresa Fraga, 16, and her cousin, Frank Fraga, 23; and a
friend of Theresa's, Son Truong Nguyen, 35.
San Miguel's accomplice pleaded guilty and is serving a 50-year
prison term.
San Miguel's execution attracted little of the attention showered on
Gary Graham, who was executed a week earlier after proclaiming his
innocence and intensifying scrutiny of Texas Gov. George W. Bush's
support of the death penalty.
"It's going to be all right,'' San Miguel told friends and relatives watching
his execution. "Y'all take care of each other. I'll be watching over you.''
San Miguel was well known to police even before the Taco Bell killings.
He had been arrested nine times and was accused of a shooting at
age 16.
AP-NY / 06-29-00 19:59 EDT
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