Texas man facing execution for 1998 killing of elderly woman for her money

HOUSTON — A man from Texas who has long wanted DNA test The man claimed that this would prove that he was not responsible for the fatal stabbing of an 85-year-old woman decades ago. He was to be executed on Tuesday evening.

Ruben Gutierrez was convicted of the 1998 murder of Escolastica Harrison in her Brownsville home in South Texas. Prosecutors said the killings of the mobile home park manager and the retired teacher were part of an attempt to steal more than $600,000 she had stashed in her home because of her distrust of banks.

The lethal injection was scheduled to be administered to the inmate Tuesday evening at the state prison in Huntsville.

Gutierrez, 47, has long maintained that he did not kill Harrison. His lawyers say there is no physical or forensic evidence linking him to the killing. Two others have also been charged in the case.

Gutierrez’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, arguing that Texas has denied him the right under state law to take a post-conviction DNA test that would show he is ineligible for the death penalty.

His lawyers argue that several items found at the crime scene, including Harrison’s nail fragments, a loose hair wrapped around one of her fingers and several blood samples from her home, were never tested.

“Gutierrez is faced not only with the denial of (DNA testing) that he has repeatedly and consistently requested for more than a decade, but also with execution for a crime he did not commit. No one has any interest in an unlawful execution,” Gutierrez’s attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.

Prosecutors have said the request for DNA testing was a delaying tactic and that Gutierrez was convicted based on several pieces of evidence, including a confession in which he admitted planning the robbery and being in her home when she was killed. Gutierrez was convicted under Texas’s law of parties, which says that a person can be held liable for the actions of others if they aid or abet the commission of a crime.

In their response to Gutierrez’s petition to the Supreme Court, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office said that state law does not provide for “post-conviction DNA testing to prove innocence of the death penalty and, even if it did, Gutierrez would not be entitled to it.”

“He has repeatedly failed to demonstrate his right to a post-conviction DNA test. His sentence is therefore justified and his execution will be constitutional,” prosecutors said.

Gutierrez’s attorneys have also argued that his case is similar to that of another death row inmate in Texas: Rodney Reed — whose case was remanded to a lower court after the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that he could advocate DNA testing. Reed is still seeking DNA testing.

Lower courts have previously rejected Gutierrez’s requests for DNA testing.

Last week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted against commuting Gutierrez’s death sentence to a lesser sentence. Members also rejected granting a 90-day reprieve.

Gutierrez has had several execution dates postponed in recent years, including about issues related to have a spiritual advisor in the death chamber. In June 2020, Gutierrez about an hour’s drive from execution when he was granted a stay by the Supreme Court.

Authorities said Gutierrez befriended Harrison so he could rob her. Prosecutors said Harrison hid her money under a false floor in her bedroom closet.

Police have charged three people in the case: Rene Garcia, Pedro Gracia and Gutierrez. Rene Garcia is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison, while Pedro Gracia, who police say drove the getaway car, remains at large.

Gutierrez would be the third inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, the state with the most death sentences in the country, and the 10th in the U.S.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70