Ramiro Gonzales, 41, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. (local time) after receiving a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, for the murder of Bridget Townsend in January 2001. His attorneys appealed to The Supreme Court of the United States that he should not have been eligible for the death penalty, argued that they considered that the inmate was no longer dangerous.
He had been on death row since he was convicted and sentenced to death in 2006 for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of 18-year-old Bridget Townsend, court records show.
He apologized to Bridget’s family.
Before the lethal injection was administered, Gonzales used his last words to apologize to the family of the victim, whose remains were found in October 2022, after she was reported missing from her home in Bandera County.
“I cannot put into words the pain I have caused them, the damage, what I took from them, the pain they took from me and that I cannot return. I hope this apology is enough,” he expressed in the procedure, as reported by EFE.
“I never stopped praying that they would forgive me and that one day I would have this opportunity to apologize. I owe them my life, to the best of my ability for restitution, restoration and accountability. I hope that one day they will forgive me,” he said before his execution.
As he finished saying his last words, he notified the authorities that “he was ready” for the injection.
He tried to stop his execution with a donation
In 2022, Ramiro Gonzales attempted to stop his execution scheduled for July 13 of that year, arguing that he wanted to donate a kidney. A day before the execution, a Texas appeals court agreed to stop the procedure because of an error in his conviction and not because of the defendant’s organ donation.
Univision Noticias shared that earlier this month, a group of 11 evangelical leaders from Texas and other states asked the parole board and Governor Greg Abbott to stop Gonzales’ execution and grant clemency. They said the inmate was helping other death row inmates through a faith-based program.
No argument was enough for Ramiro Gonzales to be pardoned, and this June 26 he was executed, the second this year in Texas and the eighth in the United States. Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Richard Rojem for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl in 1984.
The crime was committed in 2001
The crime committed by Ramiro Gonzales occurred in January 2001, when he kidnapped Bridget Townsend from a rural house in Bandera County, northwest of San Antonio. He later took her to her family’s ranch in Medina County, where he sexually assaulted her before shooting her to death.
Gonzales confessed to the rape and murder of the young woman when he was facing life in prison for another crime and told police where the victim’s remains were, almost two years later.
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