TEXAS: Confessed murderer executed Tuesday

With a smile on his face and words of compassion for the families of his victims as well as his own family, Juan Rodriguez Chavez was executed Tuesday evening inside the Huntsville "Walls" Unit.

Chavez, 34, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Jose Morales, 39, in Dallas County. That same night Chavez killed 3 other people, part of a 3-month long crime spree in which he killed 9 people while on parole for a murder he committed in 1985 when he was 17 years old.

"To the media, I would like for you to tell all the victims and their loved ones that I am truly, truly sorry for taking their loved ones' lives," Chavez said during his brief final statement. " I hope they will find it in their heart to forgive me for what I did to them. I am a different person now, but that does not change the fact of the bad things I have committed.

"To my beautiful family, be strong," he added. "Remember what I said: God is the way, the truth and the life."

After telling the warden he was ready, Chavez closed his eyes, only to open them a few seconds later and ask, "Is it working?" Seconds later he said a short prayer, and as the drugs started working, he gasped for breath several times before he stopped breathing.

None of Morales' family or any family members of other victims attended the execution. Afterward, Jesse Rodriguez Chavez, Juan's brother, asked the victims' families not to hold any grudge.

"Tell all of the families and everybody he hurt, please find it in your heart to forgive him," he said. "He went to a better place. What he did, he understood it was wrong, and now he's in a better place."

At his trial for the Morales murder, he wore to court an electronic stun belt that inadvertently activated during the 1st day of testimony. Jolted by the voltage, he stood up, saying: "It's shocking me," then slumped to the defense table. He was uninjured but his attorneys asked for a mistrial, contending his constitutional presumption of innocence was violated. The request was denied, then became an issue in unsuccessful appeals.

Chavez was a middle child in a family of 19 born to a migrant farm worker couple who moved to Dallas 3 months after he was born in Fort Wayne, Ind., April 27, 1968.

While serving his 1st murder sentence, he accumulated more than 40 disciplinary violations, including punching a corrections officer and scaling a pair of fences topped with razor wire so he could attack another inmate in a recreation area. But by March 1994, he had accrued enough "good time" in prison to be paroled.

Chavez was the 13th inmate executed in Texas this year.

Barring any last-minute injunctions, Robert Charles Ladd, 46, is scheduled to be executed tonight. Ladd, who like Chavez, was on parole for a murder, was convicted for the 1996 murder of Vickie Ann Gardner inside her Tyler apartment.

He was connected to the crime by property he stole from Gardner's apartment and then sold for crack cocaine, and a palm print found on a kitchen cabinet in the apartment.

'Thrill Killer' executed today -- Juan Chavez is 13th Texas execution this year

A convicted killer believed responsible for at least a dozen slayings over a 5-month period while on parole was executed Tuesday for 1 of 5 murders authorities said he committed on a single bloody night in Dallas 6 years ago.

Juan Rodriguez Chavez, 34, who had earned the nickname "The Thrill Killer" for the random attacks was smiling and grinning broadly as his mother, a brother and a sister came into the death chamber to watch him die.

"To the media, I would like for you to tell all the victims and their loved ones that I am truly, truly sorry for taking their loved ones' lives," Chavez said in a brief and apologetic final statement. "I am a different person now but that does not change the fact of the bad things I have committed."

Chavez said he hoped God would give them the same peace that he had.

Looking at his relatives, he urged them to be strong and told them, "God is the way, the truth and the life."

He told the warden he was ready and closed his eyes, but looked up a few seconds later and asked, "Is it working?" He closed his eyes and began praying. As the drugs began taking effect, his eyes popped open, he gasped for breath and stopped breathing. 7 minutes later, he was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.

Jason January, one of the Dallas County district attorneys who prosecuted Chavez, said Chavez's nickname fit.

"He was truly a living breathing killing machine...," January said. "He was one of the few people I dealt with in 15 years with the DA's office that clearly demonstrated he enjoyed killing."

Many of Chavez's victims were robbed or carjacked. Some were shot with a handgun, others with a shotgun. Some were mowed down by a stolen car or truck -- their heads deliberately run over after they already had been shot.

"To shoot somebody, get a car and turn around and on several occasions take the tire of the vehicle and run over their heads, that's sadistic," January said.

Chavez, labeled an "equal opportunity assassin" by authorities, was condemned for the robbery and fatal shooting of Jose Morales, 39, gunned down July 3, 1995 while talking on a pay phone in northwest Dallas.

A witness said he grabbed Morales' wallet from his pants and shot him again before fleeing. The wallet contained $2.

Morales was 1 of 8 people shot -- 5 fatally -- during the early morning hours that day.

Chavez was arrested a month later when he reported to his parole officer. He had been released from prison the previous year after serving less than half of a 15-year term for killing a neighbor during a burglary. Chavez, a 9th-grade dropout, was 17 at the time of that slaying.

At his trial for the Morales murder, he wore to court an electronic stun belt that inadvertently activated during the 1st day of testimony. Jolted by the voltage, he stood up, saying: "It's shocking me," then slumped to the defense table. He was uninjured but his attorneys asked for a mistrial, contending his constitutional presumption of innocence was violated. The request was denied, then became an issue in unsuccessful appeals.

Chavez was a middle child in a family of 19 born to a migrant farm worker couple who moved to Dallas 3 months after he was born in Fort Wayne, Ind., April 27, 1968.

While serving his 1st murder sentence, he accumulated more than 40 disciplinary violations, including punching a corrections officer and scaling a pair of fences topped with razor wire so he could attack another inmate in a recreation area. But by March 1994, he had accrued enough "good time" in prison to be paroled.

"He should have never been let out of jail," January said. "He's a poster child for parole reform."

The killing spree began a year later with a fatal shooting during a robbery at a car wash.

At his trial, he was described as jovial, grinning at spectators, many of them relatives of slaying victims.

When State District Judge Harold Entz asked if there was any reason he shouldn't be sentenced, he replied: "I still say I'm not guilty."

He also had warned court bailiffs he would antagonize relatives of his victims, many of them Hispanic, by smirking.

"I'm not going to let them see me sweat," he said.

Another condemned killer, Robert Charles Ladd, was scheduled for lethal injection Wednesday for the rape and hammer slaying of a woman in Tyler 6 1/2 years ago.

Chavez becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 302nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Chavez becomes the the 63rd condmened inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.

Chavez becomes the 27th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 847th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Asesino hispano es ejecutado con inyeccion letal en Texas

Huntsville, 22 abr.- El hispano Juan Rodriguez Chavez fue   ejecutado hoy con una inyeccion letal en Texas por el asesinato de cuatro  personas durante un asalto hace ocho anos, informaron fuentes judiciales.

Rodriguez Chavez, de 34 anos, y un complice juvenil mataron a cinco personas y dejaron heridas a tres en el asalto perpetrado el 2 de julio de 1995.

Las autoridades del estado vincularon posteriormente a Rodriguez Chavez con otros 12 asesinatos.

Al ser atado a la camilla en que recibio la inyeccion letal que le causo la muerte siete minutos despues, Rodriguez Chavez pidio a representantes de los medios de informacion que transmitieran sus ruegos de perdon a los familiares de sus victimas.

"Quisiera que les digan que lamento profundamente haberme llevado la vida de sus seres queridos. Espero que encuentren en su corazon el perdon por lo que les he hecho", dijo, segun relato un portavoz oficial de la penitenciaria de Huntsville.

Durante el juicio, la policia dijo que los cuatro asesinatos del asalto fueron el eslabon final de una cadena que incluyo una docena de homicidios en ocho asaltos.

Todos ellos fueron cometidos cuando Rodriguez Chavez gozaba de libertad bajo palabra tras haber sido condenado a 15 anos de carcel por otro asesinato.

Su complice fue testigo de cargo en su contra y en otro juicio fue declarado culpable de asalto con agravantes.

La de Rodriguez Chavez fue la ejecucion numero 302 que se realiza en Texas desde que el estado restablecio la pena de muerte en 1982.

Manana miercoles sera ejecutado Robert Charles Ladd, condenado por matar a golpes a una mujer despues de haberla violado.