The brother of a teenage girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in 2021 watched her killer’s execution on what would have been her forty first birthday, claiming the household have ‘lastly witnessed justice being served’.
Ramiro Gonzales, 41, was pronounced useless at 6:50pm on Wednesday following a deadly injection on the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, for the killing of Bridget Townsend in 2001.
In his last assertion within the execution chamber, Gonzales issued an apology to Townsend’s family members, saying: ‘I am unable to put into phrases the ache I’ve prompted y’all, the damage, what I took away that I can’t give again. I hope this apology is sufficient.
‘I by no means stopped praying that you’d forgive me and that in the future I’d have this chance to apologize. I owe all of you my life and I hope in the future you’ll forgive me,’ he added.
However the sufferer’s brother, David Townsend, was not moved by the profuse apologies, recalling his households ‘ache and heartache’.
Ramiro Gonzales, 41, was executed by way of deadly injection on the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, for the kidnap, rape, and killing of Bridget Townsend in 2001
Bridget Townsend was simply 18-years-old when she was sexually assaulted and killed by Gonzales. She would have celebrated her forty first birthday on Wednesday when her killer was executed
‘We now have lastly witnessed justice be being served,’ he David, mentioned after watching the execution.
‘Today marks the top of a protracted and painful journey for our household. For over twenty years now we have endured unimaginable ache and heartache.’
He mentioned Gonzales’ dying ‘supplies us just a little little bit of peace. I do need to say we aren’t joyous. We aren’t pleased. It is a very, very unhappy day for everybody all the way in which round.’
Gonzales kidnapped Townsend, who would have turned 41 on Wednesday, in 2001 from a rural house in Bandera County, northwest of San Antonio.
He later took her to his household’s ranch in neighboring Medina County, the place he raped her earlier than killing her.
Townsend’s physique was left undiscovered till October 2002, when Gonzales led authorities to her stays in southwest Texas after he had obtained two life sentences for kidnapping and raping one other girl.
The US Supreme Court docket declined a protection plea to intervene round one-and-a-half hours earlier than the execution was scheduled to start.
The excessive courtroom rejected arguments by Gonzales’ attorneys that he had taken accountability for what he did and {that a} prosecution professional witness now says he was within the incorrect in testifying that Gonzales can be a future hazard to society, a authorized discovering required to impose a dying sentence.
‘He has earnestly devoted himself to self-improvement, contemplation, and prayer, and has grown right into a mature, peaceable, sort, loving, and deeply spiritual grownup. He acknowledges his accountability for his crimes and has sought to atone for them and to hunt redemption by his actions,’ Gonzales’ attorneys had written Monday of their unsuccessful request to the Supreme Court docket for a keep of execution.
After re-evaluating Gonzales in 2022, Gripon mentioned his prediction was incorrect.
Earlier this month, a gaggle of 11 evangelical leaders from Texas and across the nation requested the parole board and Governor Greg Abbott to halt the execution and grant clemency.
They claimed Gonzalez was serving to different dying row inmates by a faith-based program.
Pictured: The state of Texas execution chamber in Huntsville, the place Gonzales was executed by way of deadly injection on Wednesday
In video submitted as a part of his clemency request to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gonzales admitted accountability.
‘I simply need (Townsend’s mom) to understand how sorry I actually am. I took every thing that was beneficial from a mom,’ mentioned Gonzales, who was 18 years outdated on the time.
‘So, every single day it is a continuous process to do every thing that I can to really feel that accountability for the life that I took.’
However Townsend’s brother was not persuaded and took to Change.org to criticize efforts to painting Gonzales as something aside from a convicted assassin who had dedicated ‘unforgivable acts’.
‘Our household seeks not revenge, however closure and a measure of peace after years of heartache – a quest that’s hindered, not helped, by selections that permit the perpetrator of our ache to stay within the public eye,’ David wrote in a publish.
On Monday, the parole board voted 7-0 in opposition to commuting Gonzales’ dying sentence to a lesser penalty. Members additionally rejected granting him a six-month reprieve.
Prosecutors described Gonzales as a sexual predator who informed police he ignored Townsend’s pleas to spare her life.
They argued that jurors reached the proper resolution on a dying sentence as a result of he had a protracted legal historical past and confirmed no regret.
‘The State’s punishment case was overwhelming,’ the Texas Lawyer Normal’s Workplace mentioned.
‘Even when Dr. Gripon’s testimony had been wiped from the punishment slate, it could not have mattered.’
Gonzales’ execution was the second this yr in Texas and the eighth within the U.S. On Thursday, Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Richard Rojem for the 1984 abduction, rape and killing of a seven yr outdated lady.
