Texan who tried to prove his innocence through a DNA test is to be executed for the 1998 knife attack on an 85-year-old woman

A Texas man who has long called for a DNA test on the grounds that it could help prove he was not responsible for the fatal stabbing attack of an 85-year-old woman was scheduled to be executed on Tuesday evening.

Ruben Gutierrez was convicted of murdering Escolastica Harrison in 1998 in her home in Brownsville, on the southern tip of Texas. Prosecutors said the killing of the trailer park manager and retired teacher was part of an attempt to steal more than $600,000 she had hidden in her home because of her distrust of banks.

The inmate’s lethal injection was scheduled for Tuesday evening at Huntsville State Prison.

Gutierrez, 47, has long maintained he did not kill Harrison. His lawyers say there is no physical or forensic evidence linking him to the murder. Two other people have also been charged in the case.

Gutierrez’s lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, arguing that Texas denied him the right under state law to a post-conviction DNA test that would prove he was not eligible for the death penalty.

His lawyers argue that several items recovered from the crime scene – including nail shavings from Harrison, a loose hair found wrapped around one of her fingers and various blood samples from her home – were never tested.

“Gutierrez faces not only the denial (of a DNA test) that he has repeatedly and consistently requested for over a decade, but also the threat of execution for a crime he did not commit. No one has an interest in a wrongful execution,” Gutierrez’s lawyers wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court.

Prosecutors said the request for a DNA test was a delaying tactic and that Gutierrez was convicted based on several pieces of evidence, including a confession in which he admitted to planning the robbery and being in her home at the time of her murder.

Gutierrez was convicted under the Texas Party Law, which states that a person can be held liable for the actions of another if that person aids or abettes the commission of a crime.

In their response to Gutierrez’s petition to the Supreme Court, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office said that state law “does not provide for post-conviction DNA testing to prove death penalty innocence, and even if such a test existed, Gutierrez would not be entitled to it.”

“He has repeatedly failed to demonstrate that he is entitled to post-conviction DNA testing. Therefore, his sentence is just and his execution is constitutional,” prosecutors said.

Gutierrez’s lawyers also argued that his case was similar to that of another Texas death row inmate – Rodney Reed – whose case was sent back to a lower court after the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that he could request a DNA test. Reed is still requesting a DNA test.

Lower courts had previously rejected Gutierrez’s requests for a DNA test.

Last week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole voted against commuting Gutierrez’s death sentence to a lesser sentence. Members also declined to grant a 90-day reprieve.

In recent years, several execution dates for Gutierrez have been postponed, in part because of the presence of a chaplain in the execution chamber. In June 2020, Gutierrez was about an hour away from being executed when he received a stay from the Supreme Court.

Authorities said Gutierrez befriended Harrison so he could rob her. Prosecutors said Harrison hid her money under a false floor in her bedroom closet.

Police have charged three people in the case: Rene Garcia, Pedro Gracia and Gutierrez. Rene Garcia is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison, while Pedro Gracia, who police say was the getaway driver, is still at large.

Gutierrez would be the third inmate executed this year in Texas, the state with the most death sentences, and the tenth in the United States.