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Thread: Michael Dean Gonzales - Texas Death Row

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    Michael Dean Gonzales - Texas Death Row


    Manuel and Merced Aguirre


    Michael Gonzales’ Mugshot upon entering death row (1995)


    Michael Dean “Spider” Gonzales


    Michael Gonzales in court receiving an execution date, September 1, 2021


    Summary of Offense:

    Michael Gonzales was convicted of robbing and murdering his elderly neighbors, Manuel and Merced Aguirre, on April 22, 1994. The couple woke up while Gonzales was burglarizing their home and he stabbed them repeatedly, killing them.

    Gonzales was resentenced to death in Ector County on May 7, 2009.

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    May 7, 2009

    Jury recommends death


    A second set of jurors has now recommended Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzales be executed for the April 1994 murders of two Odessans.

    Gonzales was profane and direct Thursday morning when he took the stand.

    "Y'all can f------ kill me. Makes me no f------ difference. Pass the witness," he told the jury.

    In front of a gallery of more than 60 people, defense attorney Woody Leverett told jurors that the 35-year-old Gonzales was trying to "woo" them into giving him the death penalty during his brief testimony Thursday morning.

    "He wants it," Leverett said. "What does that tell you about prison? What does that tell you about what that place is like?

    "If you want punishment. If you want him to suffer. That's the way to make him suffer."

    Prosecutor Wesley Mau said Gonzales has spent most of his life under legal supervision since he was 12, but it has done nothing to control him.

    Mau attacked defense assertions that being caught with a cell phone while in the Ector County Detentionn Center wasn't a major offense. He pointed out threats Gonzales made to wife Martha Reyes while she testified for the prosecution Monday. This led to more threats from Gonzales against his wife in an outburst during Mau's closing arguments.

    "You tell me that a cell phone in jail is nothing you should be worried about," Mau said.

    While the gallery was relatively calm the first three days of the trial, heated words were exchanged between members of the defendant and victims' families before Thursday's proceedings began.

    This caused Judge Bill McCoy to enter the gallery and threaten to jail anyone who caused further trouble.

    "We've got enough problems," he said. "We don't need anymore."

    http://www.oaoa.com/news/spider-3058...entencing.html

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    MICHAEL DEAN GONZALES v. THE STATE OF TEXAS

    In today's Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opinions, the court AFFIRMED Gonzales' conviction and death sentence on direct appeal, again.

    CONCURRING OPINION JUDGE COCHRAN

    DISSENTING OPINION JUDGE JOHNSON

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    Execution date to be set in “Spider” case

    An Ector County man who has been on death row for almost 17 years may finally get a timeframe on his twice-ordered execution.

    Michael Dean “Spider” Gonzales, 39, was convicted of capital murder in December 1995 in the April 1994 deaths of Manuel and Merced Aguirre of Odessa. A court document shows that a 1:30 p.m. Nov. 27 hearing is scheduled to set his date of execution.

    After his conviction in 1995, the case was appealed and sent back to state court in 2007 because expert witness and prison psychologist Walter Quijano, who testified in the original trial, was found to be racially biased in other testimony.

    Gonzales was accused of brutally stabbing the couple, who were his neighbors, and in the resentencing, his wife said it started out as him going into their house to rob them.

    Gonzales’ wife said she believed he was going to steal items, including a VCR, in order to sell the items and make money. But he then came back to their house with blood on his clothes as he washed off a knife.

    Autopsy testimony revealed that Merced Aguirre had at least 80 wounds, many of which were defensive, and Manuel Aguirre had at least five fatal wounds.

    The trail of the initial investigation led to Gonzales when police discovered the items he had sold to various friends and acquaintances, who said they purchased the items from Gonzales.

    A detective at the scene also said he found peppers, similar to those left around the bodies, growing near Gonzales’ house and stored in his refrigerator.

    Prosecutors in the resentencing also pointed to Gonzales’ violent outbursts in prison over the 12 years between the trial and resentencing, as well as outbursts in the Ector County Detention Center, including at least one prison stabbing in which he was accused of stabbing Robert Anderson more than 60 times.

    Anderson, who was on death row for the beating, stabbing and drowning death of a 5-year-old girl in Amarillo, survived the attack only to be executed in 2006.

    The trial was often interrupted by Gonzales’ numerous obscene and taunting outbursts, sometimes aimed at prosecutors, witnesses and even the gallery, the latter two he flipped off with his middle fingers.

    Even with his last public statements, Gonzales was taunting, daring the jury to sentence him to death.

    “Y’all can (expletive) kill me. Makes me no (expletive) difference. Pass the witness,” he said when testifying on his own behalf in the 2009 resentencing.

    Prosecutors declined to ask him further questions and the defense rested after the statement.

    District Attorney Bobby Bland recused his office from the prosecution in 2009 because of a possible conflict of interest. Assistant District Attorney Linda Deaderick was previously married to a witness: former detective Snow Robertson.

    Bland said Thursday the hearing on Nov. 27 also would be handled by the Texas Attorney General’s Office, just like the resentencing.

    Defense attorneys Woody Leverett and Jason Leach did not immediately return a message for comment.

    Gonzales is currently being held in the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Correctional Institutions Division.

    http://www.oaoa.com/news/crime_justi...a4bcf6878.html
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    Gonzales has not exhausted all appeals.

    Execution Date Set For Odessa Double Murderer

    An Ector County man who was convicted of a double murder nearly 17 years ago will be executed in March.

    An Ector County judge set an execution date of March 21, 2013 for Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzales on Tuesday.

    Gonzales, 39, was put on death row after he was convicted of two counts of capital murder in December 1995.

    The conviction came after Gonzales stabbed Manuel and Merced Aguirre to death during a burglary in Odessa in April 1994.

    The case was sent back to a Texas courtroom in 2007 because of an issue with a witness.

    Gonzales was then sentenced to death for a second time in 2009.

    Gonzales appealed the sentence, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied the appeal in September 2011.

    http://permianbasin360.com/fulltext?nxd_id=234682
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Spider’s death date scheduled

    “I wish him well in hell,” the brother of Merced Aguirre said of convicted murderer Michael Dean Gonzales, who is scheduled to die in 100 days for the 1994 killing of Aguirre and her husband Manuel.

    Also known as “Spider,” Gonzales was originally sentenced to death in 1995 and on Tuesday 358th District Judge Bill McCoy pronounced his sentence and set his execution date for after 6 p.m. on March 21, 2013.

    Gonzales will be transported to the Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division, where he will die by lethal injection.

    As he walked out of the courtroom, Gonzales said some final words to the family of the victims.

    “Y’all have a nice day, ‘cause I will,” Gonzales said.

    A relative of the Aguirres, who said she didn’t want to be identified for fear of retribution, said the family has been waiting a long time for Gonzales’ execution.

    “The indescribable pain that our family has suffered is beyond belief,” she said. “The sooner the execution is carried out, the better.”

    After the April 1994 stabbing deaths of Manuel and Merced Aguirre, Gonzales was convicted and sentenced to death in December 1995. He has been sitting on death row for the past 17 years.

    But after the punishment phase of the case was overturned because of racial bias of a witness, that phase was re-tried in 2009 and he was resentenced to death.

    Despite a history of defiance and obscenity while in the courtroom – including but not limited to obscene hand gestures directed at prosecutors, witnesses and the gallery, cursing at witnesses and the jury, and even taunting the jury to sentence him to death. But Tuesday, Gonzales was silent until the end of the hearing.

    Even as McCoy asked if there was any reason not to pronounce the sentence, Gonzales did not respond.

    Although his state appeals are fully exhausted, Gonzales may have some federal avenues available for a possible stay of execution before March 2013 rolls around.

    http://www.oaoa.com/news/crime_justi...a4bcf6878.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    The TDCJ added Gonzales' execution date to their calendar today.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    March execution date set for killer of couple with Marfa ties

    A family with ties to Marfa hopes to soon find peace and closure when the man who brutally murdered their parents is executed early next year.

    Merced and Manuel Aguirre were both born in Marfa where they attended school. On July 16, 1950, the young couple married at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Shortly after their marriage, the two settled in Odessa to begin their lives together and start a family.

    The next four decades of their lives were similar to any West Texas family’s life. Manuel worked hard as a mechanic for Texas Electric for the better part of his life, and Merced worked for the City of Odessa. The two were active in their church, St. Anthony’s. They were involved with the band boosters and PTA in the schools their four sons – Ricardo, Fernando, Ismael, and Manuel – attended.

    Life was good for the Aguirre family.

    That blissful life was shattered on April 21, 1994, when Michael Dean “Spider” Gonzales, the Aguirre’s 20-year-old neighbor, violently attacked and killed Merced, 65, and Manuel, 73 in their home, stabbing them multiple times.

    Gonzales was convicted of the double murder in December 1995, and an Ector County jury, deliberating for less than one hour, sentenced him to death.

    Gonzales’ death sentence, along with five other convicted killers’ sentences, was overturned in 2000 after the state’s prison system’s chief psychologist, Walter Quijano, gave racially biased testimony in an unrelated trial, triggering years of appeals and further resentencing hearings.

    The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Gonzales’ conviction in 2006, setting aside his death sentence and ordering that the punishment phase of his conviction be retried. A second jury sentenced Gonzales to death again, in the summer of 2009, and this week, Ector County District Judge Bill McCoy set Gonzales’ execution date: March 21, 2013, 105 days from today, by lethal injection.

    After court proceedings ended this week, Gonzales said aloud to the court and the Aguirre family, “Y’all have a nice day, ‘cause I will.” Gonzales regularly taunted the court and Aguirre family members throughout court hearings the past 18 years, showing little to no remorse for the crimes he committed.

    After the latest outburst from Gonzales, Merced Aguirre’s brother told the Odessa American, “I wish him well in hell.”

    When Gonzales was handed his death sentence in 2009, Riki Aguirre, the granddaughter of Merced and Manuel Aguirre, told him in court, “You are the last face my grandparents saw when they took their last breath, but I promise you this, when you take your last breath, my face will be one of the faces you see.”

    Speaking from his San Antonio home this week, Ricardo Aguirre, Merced and Manuel’s son, said, “As a family, we’re all relieved it’s coming to an end.”

    Weary from the length of this ordeal, Ricardo said calmly, “It was a horrible tragedy that did not have to happen. Hopefully after his execution we can heal and move forward.”

    Mary Jane Mendoza, a Marfa resident and first cousin to Merced said this week that she and Ricardo keep in touch and share a monthly phone call to talk about family.

    “I spoke to (Ricardo) and he’s relieved. He gets closure,” Mendoza said. While she, too, is relieved that the case is at long last coming to an end, she struggles with mixed emotions.

    “I’m Catholic and I don’t believe in the death penalty. I think God should take care of him in his own way. I would have preferred life in prison,” Mendoza said of Gonzales.

    “I still remember the phone call, that they had been found dead,” Ricardo said, remembering the worst tragedy to befall his family.

    “It is a horrible feeling and there’s no real explanation for it. It is hard to hear and go through.”

    Ricardo said he tries to make an effort to visit Marfa once a year to see family and friends, but hasn’t lately. He’s planning a trip in early 2013 to learn more family history.

    Ricardo says that he and his siblings, along with a few other close family members will attend Gonzales’ execution in Huntsville.

    At Gonzales’ resentencing in 2009, Ricardo said he spoke briefly in court. “I gave a short history on my folks, where they were born, the work they did, the things they liked doing.” He wants people to remember his parents for who they were and the peaceful life they lived. “I did not want my parents to be forgotten.”

    http://bigbendnow.com/2012/12/march-...th-marfa-ties/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Why is this a seemingly serious execution date if Gonzales hasn't even started his federal appeals? Is he a volunteer?

  10. #10
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    I don't know. I doubt he is a volunteer since he went to the trouble of a retrial. This happened last year with Randall Mays who had been given a date in August of 2011, and granted a stay to pursue federal appeals. There was someone else on TDCJ's execution list and was withdrawn for DNA testing. I can't remember the name.

    I did ask the AG's if it is policy to set dates after an appeal denial and the response was

    "There is no standard policy. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 43.141 leaves the setting of execution dates to the discretion of the trial judge."
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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