On Aug. 24, 1993, the State of Texas executed Ruben Cantu by lethal injection. Twelve years later, the Houston Chronicle published an investigative series detailing compelling new evidence of Cantu's innocence.
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On the night of November 8, 1984, two Latino teens broke into a house still under construction, apparently intending to rob the two illegal immigrants who were staying there. Pedro Gomez, 25, and Juan Moreno, 19, were laborers helping to build the house and were guarding the place because of an earlier theft. The two were awakened by the intruders. After giving the robbers his wallet, Gomez tried to pull a gun from under the mattress. He was shot dead. Moreno was shot nine times, but miraculously survived.
Moreno, as the surviving eyewitness, was key to any prosecution. He told the police that his attackers were two young Latinos who he thought he had seen around the neighborhood. During the investigation San Antonio police detectives showed Moreno multiple photographic lineups of possible suspects from the neighborhood, each of which included Cantu's photograph. The first was on December 16, 1984. However, Moreno was unable to identify Cantu or anyone else. The investigation then stalled - the police had no DNA or other physical evidence, and Moreno could not identify Ruben Cantu as an assailant.
A few months later, on March 1, 1985, off-duty police officer Joe De La Luz was drinking and playing pool at a local lounge. Cantu was there doing the same. The two had a barroom altercation that ended with Cantu shooting at and wounding the officer.
After months of inactivity, the investigation into the murder of Pedro Gomez was abruptly reopened the day after the barroom shooting-and focused explicitly on Cantu. No new evidence had been uncovered in the interim, but on March 2, 1985 a detective went back to Moreno with Cantu's photo.
For a second time Moreno failed to identify Cantu, though Moreno later said that it was then that he learned Cantu had shot a police officer. The police were still not yet ready to give up their quest to prosecute Cantu and returned to Moreno's house one day later. This time a different detective went back to Moreno to try to get an identification. This time they took the 19-year-old illegal immigrant to the police station and for a third time showed him a photospread including Cantu's picture. Finally, the police got what they wanted - Moreno ultimately agreed to identify Cantu as the perpetrator. He later provided the only testimony at trial linking Cantu to the crime.
While Cantu had admitted the barroom fight with and shooting of De La Luz (who had a history of similar incidents), he always maintained his innocence in the attack on Gomez and Moreno. His codefendant, 15-year-old David Garza, did not acknowledge his presence at the murder but he did admit to being there and to the robbery of Gomez and Moreno. In doing so, he managed to negotiate a plea deal from the prosecutors. Usually in cases where there are multiple defendants, the prosecution will try to get one defendant to flip on any others and testify against them. But Garza never did that.
The Houston Chronicle's in-depth investigation revealed accounts directly from Garza and Moreno that implicate someone other than Cantu in the shooting and corroborate what Cantu had been saying all along until the moment he was executed - that he was innocent and he was not even there that night. Indeed, alibi witnesses place Cantu in Waco on the night of the robbery-murder, over a hundred miles away.
Garza attested in a sworn statement that "Ruben Cantu had nothing to do with the murder, attempted murder and robbery of the two men at 605 Briggs Street. I should know." What would cause Garza to tell the truth regarding something that he had remained silent about for so many years? Garza attributes it to an ever-growing guilt he has felt; his silence helped send his best friend to his death. Garza said, "Part of me died when he died." And Garza wasn't the only one who had something new to say.
The prosecution's sole witness, Juan Moreno, has said that his testimony was not true. In reference to Cantu being the shooter, Moreno now says that he is "sure it wasn't him… It was a case where the wrong person was executed." Moreno told the Chronicle that Cantu was never there that night. He only identified Cantu on the third try because he felt immense pressure from the police to do so. His story suggests that police exploited the vulnerability of the 19-year-old illegal immigrant. Both Moreno and Garza assert that they have nothing to gain by coming forward with the truth - except unburdening their consciences.
While the San Antonio police continue to insist that Cantu was guilty of the murder of Pedro Gomez, the forewoman of the jury that sentenced him to die was deeply troubled by the new revelations. "When the pieces come together in the wrong way, disaster happens," she said. "That's not the way our legal system is supposed to work. Ruben Cantu deserved better."
Sam Millsap, the former Bexar County District Attorney who decided to seek the death penalty against Cantu said, "The person I prosecuted in 1985, Ruben Cantu, was probably innocent. . . . . What we see over and over again are situations where witnesses who have no reason to lie recant testimony and for good reasons."
The judge who presided over the 1985 trial has not commented on Cantu's guilt or innocence. But he conceded that "People do lie under oath, and people do get convicted on the basis of lies… This case, like thousands of other cases in the system across the country, cries for a thorough examination of the process."
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