HUNTSVILLE, Texas \u2014 A\u00a0Texas man convicted\u00a0of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a Walmart store nearly 22 years ago and burning her body was executed Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
David Renteria, 53, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing of Alexandra Flores. Renteria prayed, sang and asked for forgiveness before his execution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry for all the wrongs I have done. And for those who have called for my death, who are about to murder me, I forgive you,\u201d he told those present in a loud, clear voice. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a powerful sedative.<\/p>\n Renteria sang a hymn in Spanish, then prayed with a spiritual adviser standing next to him, and sang another hymn in English after witnesses, including relatives of his victim, entered the death chamber and watched through a window a few feet from him.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is not a day that goes by that I do not think about the fateful events of that day and what transpired,\u201d he said, looking at his victim\u2019s relatives. \u201cThere are no words to describe what you\u2019re going through, and I understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n He told his sister and a friend, watching through another window, that he was \u201cgood … strong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI love you all, I truly do. I\u2019ll see you in the next life.\u201d<\/p>\n He then began reciting The Lord\u2019s Prayer as the drugs began flowing. \u201cOur father, who art in heaven\u201d is as far as he got. \u201cI taste it,\u201d he said of the drug, mumbled something, took two loud breaths and snored twice before all movement stopped.<\/p>\n Ignacio and Sandra Frausto held a photo collage of their slain sister, the baby among eight children in their family, while speaking with reporters after they had watched Renteria die.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to recognize her, not forget about her,\u201d Ignacio Frausto said through sobs. \u201cIt took 22 years but the time came. It is done. We can finally and really begin to heal \u2014 22 years of wondering what was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Prosecutors said Flores was at the El Paso store on Nov. 18, 2001, during a Christmas shopping outing when she was abducted from the store, strangled and her body set on fire. The body was found the next day in an alley some 16 miles away.<\/p>\n Renteria\u2019s execution proceeded after the U.S. Supreme Court declined two separate defense requests for a stay earlier in the day.<\/p>\n One request stemmed from efforts by Renteria\u2019s attorneys to gain access to evidence they said could have shown he was not responsible for her death. Another appeal rejected by the high court without comment late Thursday focused on claims the state\u2019s supply of pentobarbital, the execution drug, had degraded and would cause him \u201cterror\u201d and \u201csevere pain\u201d in violation of the Eight Amendment\u2019s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n Authorities said evidence showed Renteria, a convicted sex offender, carried out the abduction and killing alone and that his lawyers did not raise that defense at his trial. Blood found in Renteria\u2019s van matched the slain girl\u2019s DNA, according to prosecutors, who added that his palm print was found on a plastic bag put over the girl\u2019s head before her body was set on fire.<\/p>\n Renteria was accused of patrolling the store for about 40 minutes before zeroing in on the 5-year-old girl. Grainy surveillance video showed her following Renteria out of the store.<\/p>\n The execution was one of two carried out Thursday in the United States. In Alabama, inmate\u00a0Casey McWhorter\u00a0received a lethal injection Thursday evening for a murder conviction in the fatal shooting of a man during a 1993 robbery.<\/p>\n Renteria had long claimed that members of a gang called Barrio Azteca, including a person using the nickname \u201cFlaco,\u201d forced him to take the girl by making threats to his family \u2014 and that it was the gang members who killed her.<\/p>\n In August, state District Judge Monique Reyes in El Paso granted a request to stay the execution and ordered prosecutors to turn over their files in the case. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Reyes\u2019 orders.<\/p>\n In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out Renteria\u2019s death sentence, saying prosecutors provided misleading evidence that gave jurors the impression Renteria was not remorseful.<\/p>\n During\u00a0a new resentencing trial in 2008, Renteria was again sentenced to death.<\/p>\n Renteria was the eighth inmate in Texas put to death this year. There have been 23 executions in the U.S. this year, including the two carried out on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [ad_1] HUNTSVILLE, Texas \u2014 A\u00a0Texas man convicted\u00a0of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a Walmart store nearly 22 years ago and burning her body was executed Thursday evening. David Renteria, 53, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing of Alexandra Flores. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"David](\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2023-11\/231117-renteria-1-cc-1257a-39320e.jpg\")
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