[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

May 24



TEXAS----execution

South Texas man executed for drug-related slayings


Jesus Ledesma Aguilar has been executed for the drug-related slayings of a
Harlingen couple more than a decade ago.

Aguilar admits he was a drug dealer who smuggled marijuana from his South
Texas home to Mississippi.

But he denied murdering his ex-partner's sister and her husband nearly 11
years ago in a Harlingen-area mobile home because of a drug dispute.

"I had nothing to do with this. I was at home" at the time of the
killings, he said. "These people they railroaded me left and right."

But unknown to Aguilar at the time of the slayings, the 9-year-old son of
the victims watched from underneath a kitchen table as his parents,
Leonardo Chavez Sr., 33, and his wife Annette, 31, were shot
execution-style.

Aguilar was executed tonight in Huntsville - 1 of 2 men convicted for the
June 10, 1995, drug-related slayings of the Chavez couple. Aguilar's
attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block his execution, claiming he
was not given a chance to challenge information used at his trial from an
alleged accomplice.

Prosecutors said Aguilar, 42, killed Annette Chavez while his nephew,
Christopher Quiroz, killed her husband. Aguilar was sentenced to death
while Quiroz got life in prison at separate trials.

According to court records, Aguilar and Annette Chavez's brother, Rick
Esparza, were friends who started smuggling marijuana in November 1994
from their homes in South Texas to Mississippi. After Esparza began
smuggling drugs for another supplier, Aguilar threatened to kill him if he
didn't stop.

While Esparza and his wife delivered a load of drugs to Mississippi in
June 1995, his sister and her family agreed to stay and watch his home.

Aguilar and his nephew spent most of the afternoon and evening of June 9,
1995, drinking. They then paid a visit to Esparza's mobile home early the
next morning, when they killed the Chavez couple, according to
prosecutors.

Authorities said Aguilar was a member of the Texas Syndicate, a prison
gang, and had a violent history, including wounding a Lubbock County
police officer during a 1983 shooting and assaulting guards and other
inmates while in the state prison system.

Leonardo Chavez Jr. testified at the trials of both Aguilar and Quiroz
that he saw the men kill his parents. His younger brother was asleep in
another room.

At the trials, the boy, now 20 years old, told jurors he was awakened at 5
a.m. by a loud noise. He went into the kitchen and saw his parents on the
floor. His father was holding a napkin to his bleeding nose. He then
watched as his parents were shot in the head.

"I know it affects him still," said Nicolas I. Chavez Jr., brother of
Leonardo Chavez Sr. and the boy's uncle. "He tries to see life in a
positive way and tries to keep going."

Aguilar, however, said Leonardo Chavez Jr. was "coached" to say he saw the
condemned inmate and his nephew kill the Chavez couple.

"They're killing me for something they know they lied about," he said.

Nicolas Chavez, 52, who plans on attending the execution, said he forgives
Aguilar for the slayings but the retired Texas prison system guard said he
will never forget that the condemned inmate "destroyed" his family.

"If I could tell Aguilar something, I would show him a portrait of my
brother's family and say, 'This is the family you destroyed. You destroyed
these children's lives. They are orphans because of you,'" he said.

Aguilar becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas and the 365th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982. Aguilar becomes the 126th condemned inmate to be put to
death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in January 2001. The state
has at least 15 more confirmed execution dates between June 6 - October
25.

Aguilar becomes the 20th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 1024th overall since the nation resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press and Rick Halperin)