Texas Executes Double Murderer

A Texas man convicted and sentenced to death for the 2000 robbery and murder of his cousin, James Mosqueda, and the cousin’s fiancee, Amy Kitchen, was executed Wednesday evening. James Powell of USA Today reports that Ivan Cantu continued to claim that he was innocent right up to his death, arguing that his ex-girlfriend gave false testimony at trial implicating him in the killings and that his defense attorney was incompetent.  Kim Kardashian contacted Texas Governor Greg Abbot asking him to postpone the execution for 30 days and 150,000 people signed a petition urging a stay of execution. Based on the overwhelming evidence, it is remarkable that anyone could question Cantu’s guilt.

Court records indicate that at 11:30 PM on November 3, 2000, Cantu called his cousin and asked if he could come to the house that he shared with his fiance. Cantu took his gun with him and returned an hour later driving his cousin’s Mercedes and carrying his driver’s license and house keys. Cantu’s girlfriend threw his bloody jeans and socks in the trash. After Cantu cleaned up, he and his girlfriend returned to the victim’s house. While Cantu searched the house for drugs and money, the girlfriend saw the victim’s bodies in the master bedroom. Cantu took the dead fiance’s engagement ring and gave it to his girlfriend, then the couple drove off in his cousin’s Corvette. Police discovered the bodies the next day while Cantu and his girlfriend were visiting her parents in Arkansas. A police search of Cantu’s apartment uncovered his gun, his bloody jeans and the keys to his cousin’s Mercedes. At trial, a forensic expert testified that Cantu’s fingerprints and the murdered cousin’s blood were found on the gun. DNA evidence confirmed that the cousin’s blood was found on Cantu’s s jeans and the fiancee’s blood was found on his socks. Ballistics testing revealed that the bullets retrieved from the victim’s bodies were fired by Cantu’s gun.

Following his conviction and death sentence, lawyers representing Cantu filed at least twelve petitions in numerous state and federal courts over twenty-three years seeking to delay or overturn his death sentence. Over that time a podcast claiming that Cantu was innocent, an OpEd in the Austin American Statesman and news stories from CNN contributed to the effort by death penalty opponents to halt his execution.

Death penalty opponents often claim that condemned murderers are innocent and sometimes people, who haven’t actually looked into a case, believe them. Their real goal is not to prevent innocent people from execution, it is to prevent any executions. Ivan Cantu killed his two victims for money, drugs and cars in a state that enforces the death penalty for murderers like him. Thank goodness that liars and fools did not prevent him from receiving the justice he deserved.