Execution Report: Andrew Cantu

Andrew Flores Cantu, 31, was executed by lethal injection on 16 February 1999 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder-for-hire of three people in their home.

Around midnight on 11 June 1990, Abilene firefighters arrived at a house fire. They broke into the house, removed Billy Mack Summers, 60, and saw he was covered with wounds. He was sent to the hospital. Next, they removed the body of Helen Summers, 64. While examining the body on the front lawn, they saw that she had been stabbed and cut repeatedly. After the fire was extinguished, they removed the badly burned body of Gene Summers, also 64. He had also suffered stab wounds. Billy Mack was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Homicide detectives arrived on the scene while the fire was still burning. They observed that the telephone line to the house was cut, as was a window screen. They found a pair of pantyhose behind the house.

On 15 June, police were contacted by Keenan Wilcox. Wilcox said that an acquaintance of his, Gregory Summers, then 32, tried to hire him to murder his parents and mentally retarded uncle and to burn their house down. He said that Summers offered to pay him from insurance money and cash in the house.

On 19 June, another tipster called the police. This man said that his brother, Andrew Cantu, 22, told him that he was hired for $10,000 to commit the murders, but he didn't receive the money.

At Cantu's trial, Ramon Gonzales, 19, and Paul Flores testified that they agreed to commit a burglary with Cantu. According to their testimony, on the evening of the crime, they picked up Cantu, who was wearing black sweat pants, and the three went to a grocery store, where Cantu purchased lighter fluid, gloves, pantyhose, and a cap. Earlier that day, Cantu had bought a knife from Flores. Sometime around midnight, they dropped Cantu off in an alley behind the Summers' house so he could cut the telephone line. They then picked Cantu back up, drove to a nearby street, parked, and walked toward the house.

The three men entered the Summers' yard through a back gate. Cantu cut a hole in a back window screen and crawled into the house. By the time they crawled inside, Cantu was already stabbing Gene Summers, who was lying in bed. Cantu threatened to kill them if they attempted to leave, then proceeded to the living room to stab Helen Summers, who was sleeping in a recliner. Cantu ordered Gonzales and Flores to search the home for the $10,000 that Summers promised to leave for them in a dresser drawer, then he proceeded to a front bedroom, where he stabbed Billy Mack Summers. Gonzales and Flores then told Cantu that they couldn't find the money, so he ransacked the house looking for it, to no avail. Cantu then doused the bedroom with lighter fluid and set it on fire. As they drove away, Cantu ordered Flores to get rid of the knife. Flores threw the murder weapon out of the car window. A woman found it while mowing her lawn.

The clerk at the grocery store the three men visited before the crime later identified Cantu and remembered some of the items he purchased. A neighbor also stated she was sitting on her unlit porch that night and saw three men walking toward the Summers' back yard, one of whom was carrying a knife that reflected the light from the streetlamp.

Cantu testified that he was buying cocaine in Fort Worth on the night of the murders.

An associate of Cantu's, Max Aguirre, testified that he knew Cantu for about one and a half or two years. Cantu made his living selling "crank," a form of methamphetamine, and sometimes carried a gun. Cantu once offered him $50 to shoot a man. On one occasion, Cantu gave Aguirre a gun and told him to shoot another man if "anything went down."

James Rogers testified that when he was riding with Cantu after a cocaine purchase, Cantu produced a shotgun and laid it on his lap. He said that if the police stopped them, he was going to kill them. Cantu later became angry with Rogers and told him if he ever saw him in Abilene, he would probably blow his head off.

Cantu had a previous felony conviction for burglary of a habitation. He served seven weeks of a five-year sentence in 1988 before being paroled. (At the time, early release was common in Texas due to strict prison population caps imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)

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