3rd gang member executed for 1993 murders of Houston teens

[mike r]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7157533.html

Cantu executed for 1993 deaths of Houston teens
By MIKE TOLSON

HUNTSVILLE – The legal saga that began several days after the horrifying murder of two teenage Houston girls in 1993 came to an end Tuesday night with the execution of Peter Anthony Cantu, a former gang leader who all but ordered the execution of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena... Cantu’s execution was the third connected with the case. Two of the six assailants had their death sentences commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court barred capital punishment for those who commit crimes under the age of 18. A 14-year-old attacker was given a 40-year sentence...

Cantu was described as the leader of small gang known as the Black and Whites. On June 24, 1993, the group was conducting a fight-filled initiation ceremony for a prospective member across from T.C. Jester Park when Ertman, 14, and Pena, 16, crossed their paths while taking a shortcut home. The girls were hurrying along railroad tracks in the dark in order to get home by their curfew. They were spotted by the group, pulled off the tracks and taken into nearby woods where they were sexually assaulted. When the attackers were finished, the girls were taken deeper into the woods where, at Cantu’s urging, they were beaten, strangled and stomped to death.

The bodies were found six days later after Cantu’s brother, using an alias, phoned police. Joe Cantu had watched the group divide the girls’ small amount of cash and meager possessions and listened to them laugh and brag about the assaults. Police traced the 911 call to the Cantu home, and Joe passed on what he knew. The attackers confessed and at times seemed indifferent to the charges against them. Cantu showed little emotion at his conviction and death sentence and had no reaction when Randy Ertman, Jennifer’s father, was allowed to make a victim impact statement at the end of the trial. When Cantu looked away, Ertman yelled at him, "Look at me … look at me good!"

The murder of the two girls, both students at Waltrip High School, became one of the most notorious crimes in modern Houston history. The inexplicable act of random predation struck a chord among city residents as few other cases. Even more than a decade later, the mention of their last names could generate disgust and fear, with many people remembering the vivid and gruesome details of the girls’ assault and death in the dark woods by White Oak Bayou... The Ertman and Pena killings led to five death sentences, at the time the most of any crime in modern American history...

[Statistical]

1. Good riddance.

Some people stopped being human a long time ago.

[formercia]

5. A product of their environment

Some are born psychopaths but most find their roots in the disjointed society that we live in. Fragmented families, social isolation and us against them mentality, all contribute to deviant behavior.

[MadMaddie]

6. I think that is part of it

I also think these men knew exactly what they were doing. This guy was a model prisoner, he chose not to break the prison rules and became a good prisoner. So this leads me to believe he actively made the choice to rape and murder those girls.

[GodlessBiker]

2. Bad facts make bad law. A terrible, horrible crime. But stop the killing.

[brendan120678]

3. While in general I'd like to see Capital Punishment used less frequently...

I still think it is a valid punishment in rare circumstances, such as this one.

[geek tragedy]

4. The death penalty should be abolished, but this kind of case

is as about a strong a case for it as there is.