Anthony Fuentes

Anthony Guy Fuentes, 30, was executed by lethal injection on 17 November 2004 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a man during a robbery.

On 18 February 1994, Robert Tate, 28, was outside a Houston convenience store where he was a regular customer, drinking beer with his friends, when a group of four people showed up and went into the store. Kelvin Templeton, 17, grabbed two cases of beer and walked out. Fuentes, then 20, and Steven Vela, 17, went to the counter with guns. Vela demanded money from the clerk. Fuentes confronted the store owner and another customer. One of Tate's friends then walked in, saw the robbery in progress, and went back outside to tell the others. Tate began chasing Templeton. He caught up with him, and Templeton dropped the beer. Fuentes then came running from the store and shot Tate twice in the chest with a 9mm pistol. He died in a ditch across the street from the store.

Ten days later, Fuentes was arrested, but not for the Tate murder. In January 1993, Fuentes shot a man in the leg with a shotgun. At the time of his arrest, authorities did not know of his role in the Tate murder. He was charged with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, a second-degree felony. Five days after that arrest, while Fuentes was out on bond awaiting trial, he shot another man. Five weeks later, in April 1994, he went to trial for the shotgun incident and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. He served one year in Harris County jail. While serving that sentence, he was arrested, and later convicted, of attempted murder in the third shooting incident. Authorities still did not know of his role in the Tate murder. Fuentes was sentenced to 4 years' probation. Finally, in September 1996, he was arrested for killing Robert Tate.

Julio Flores, who was in Tate's group in the parking lot and witnessed the shooting, testified that Fuentes was the person who shot Tate. Kelvin Templeton also testified against Fuentes at his trial.

A jury convicted Fuentes of capital murder in November 1996 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in April 1999. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Steven Anthony Vela and Kelvin Deshan Templeton were both convicted of aggravated robbery. Vela was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Information on his current status was unavailable for this report. Templeton's sentence was 15 years. He was paroled in April 2004. No information was available regarding Terrell Lincoln, the fourth member of the group.

On a web site devoted to his cause, Fuentes admitted being part of the convenience store robbery, but insisted that he was not the gunman who killed Robert Tate. In an interview on death row, Fuentes would not even admit to being at the scene of the crime. "I can't be sorry for something I didn't do," he said. "I never killed anybody."

Fuentes' lawyers claimed that the witnesses gave conflicting testimonies and that Julio Flores' testimony was questionable because he had been drinking. Prosecutors said that all of these issues were raised at trial. "That is the purpose of cross-examination, and that is what a jury is for," an assistant district attorney said.

"Sorry that I have to put my family through this," Fuentes said in his last statement. "And to the family, the truth will come out, and I hope you find your peace. To everybody else, the truth will be known. It didn't come out in time to save my life. But when it comes out, I hope it stops this." The lethal injection was then administered. Fuentes was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m.