Execution Report: Moises Mendoza

Moises Sandoval Mendoza, 41, was executed by lethal injection on 23 April 2025 in Huntsville, Texas for the abduction, rape, and murder of a 20-year-old woman.

On Friday, 12 March 2004, Rachelle Tolleson hosted a party for about fifteen people in her house in Farmersville, in rural northeast Collin County. One of the guests was Mendoza, then 20. Tolleson's best friend, Megan Kennedy, subsequently testified that Tolleson spoke to Mendoza a few times at the party, but she told her she was not interested in him in "that way."

Sometime after 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 17 March, Tolleson, her five-month-old daughter, Avery, and her mother, Pam O'Neil, went to the store to purchase formula and diapers for Avery. Tolleson visited with her mother at her home for a short time and then went to her own home. She phoned O'Neil around 10:00 p.m. to let her know that she and Avery had arrived home safely.

At around the same time, Mendoza was at another party with some friends. Efren Gamez testified that two young women left the party at one point and later called to say they were not returning. Hearing this, Mendoza became angry. As he drank more, he became more belligerent, and his verbal outbursts began frightening other female guests. He left the party and returned several times, leaving for the last time between midnight and 1:00 a.m.

The following morning, O'Neil went to Tolleson's home, as she often did. Tolleson's car was parked in the driveway. The back door was wide open. O'Neil entered and saw a pillow on the floor between the kitchen and the bedroom. The bedroom was in complete disarray. The mattress and box spring were askew, the headboard was broken and lying against the bed, the night stand was pulled away from the wall, and papers were strewn across the floor. Avery was on the bed, cold and wet. Tolleson was not home. O'Neil collected Avery and phoned her husband, who phoned the police.

Farmersville Police Officer Scott Collins responded and confirmed O'Neil's description of the apparent crime scene. The police began interviewing witnesses, who told them about the party Tolleson hosted the previous Friday.

Megan Kennedy's boyfriend, Tim Holland, said that he returned to Tolleson's home the day after the party to retrieve some musical instruments he had left. Mendoza and another man were with him. Finding that Tolleson was not home and the doors were locked, Holland and the other man walked around the house looking for a way in. While they were doing that, Mendoza managed to open the locked back door. Learning this, Officer Collins interviewed Mendoza. He told him he had last seen Tolleson at the party.

Search parties were sent out to look for Tolleson, but were unsuccessful.

Six days after Tolleson's disappearance, James Powell found a burned body along Brushy Creek, east of Farmersville. It was identified as Tolleson through dental records. Federal Bureau of Investigation technician Jerry Farmer determined that the body had been there at least two days. Scraps of clothing clung to her upper torso, but no clothing was found below her waist. Tall vegetation had been piled on top of the body in an attempt to cover it. An orange rope was tied around her right ankle. Investigators determined that the body was burned nearby and dragged to the creek.

The medical examiner, Dr. WiIliam Rohr, testified that the victim had bruises and hemorrhages in numerous places, but the there was also a deep wound, such as from a knife, in her neck. The cause of death was strangulation or another form of asphyxiation. The body was burned post mortem.

After further interviews with witnesses, Mendoza was arrested. Once he was in custody, he confessed that he had driven by Tolleson's house late Wednesday night and seen a light on. He backed his truck into the driveway and let himself into the house through the back door without knocking. He said that Tolleson left with him to get a pack of cigarettes. They drove for a little while and then he started choking her "for no reason." She passed out, and he drove her to a field behind his home, where he had sex with her and "choked her again." He then dragged her out of his truck and into the field, where he choked her again until he thought she was dead and "poked her throat" with a knife to "make sure." Mendoza said he left Tolleson's body in the field until Monday, when he was first interviewed. Afraid that the body would be found and connected to him, he moved the body and burned it, then dragged it to the creek.

At Mendoza's trial, his lawyers did not dispute that he killed Tolleson. Instead, they challenged the state's charges of burglary, kidnapping, and rape that elevated Mendoza's crime to capital murder, claiming that all of Tolleson's conduct with Mendoza was consensual until he decided to kill her "for no reason." The prosecution pointed to the extreme disarray of Tolleson's home, the fact that she had a three-quarter-full carton of cigarettes in her bedroom, and the fact that her infant was left alone in the home with the back door wide open as evidence that she did not voluntarily leave with Mendoza to go buy cigarettes. Mendoza had already confessed that Tolleson was unconscious when he had sex with her, and Megan Kennedy had testified that Tolleson told her she was not interested in him. Mendoza had also already confessed to letting himself into Tolleson's home uninvited.

At Mendoza's punishment hearing, Robert Ramirez testified that he once saw Mendoza put a pill in a girl's drink at a party. When Ramirez confronted him about it, Mendoza pulled a knife on him and threatened to stab him in the stomach. A witness testified that Mendoza sexually assaulted fourteen-year-old Laura Decker at a party while a friend videotaped it. When the video was shown at another party, Mendoza laughed. Sarah Benedict testified that Mendoza nearly choked her to unconsciousness at a party because she repeatedly asked him for a cigarette, and that he only stopped because two young men pulled him off of her. Other witnesses testified that Mendoza once threw a boy down and stomped on his mouth, that he threatened to cut two women's throats with a rusty saw over a disagreement, and that he pulled a gun on two women and stole their cars and belongings. Witnesses testified that while in the Collin County Jail, Mendoza fashioned weapons and attacked another prisoner during recreation.

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