What you should know about the execution of Ruben Gutierrez on Tuesday in Texas

July 16, 2024

Gutierrez was found guilty of beating 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison to death in 1998. She was targeted because she did not trust banks and allegedly had $600,000 in cash in her Brownsville home.

Texas will execute its third death row inmate this year on Tuesday, just two days before a man is executed in Alabama. By the end of the week, the country will have executed 11 death row inmates.

Texas inmate Ruben Gutierrez, 47, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection sometime after 6 p.m. CT. He is responsible for the 1998 death of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison, who was beaten to death. The 85-year-old teacher was a retired teacher who enjoyed caring for migrant families living in the South Texas border town of Brownsville.

Although Gutierrez admits that he had planned to rob Gutierrez with the help of two other men, he insists that he never expected the night to turn violent and that he was outside when Harrison was killed.

For Harrison’s family, the execution is an act of justice, even though it comes more than 25 years after Harrison’s murder.

Here’s what you need to know about the case, Gutierrez and the execution.

Who is Ruben Gutierrez?

Gutierrez is from Fort Myers, Florida, and moved to Brownsville with his parents and older brother when he was about 8 years old.

He married at age 17 when his girlfriend became pregnant, and the couple had two children when Gutierrez was arrested at age 21 after Harrison’s murder. He spent most of her life on death row.

“When he was sentenced, he told his wife to move on with her life because of his death sentence,” said a report by Diane Mosnik, a clinical neuropsychologist who examined Gutierrez in 2019. “(Gutierrez) explained to this examiner that he did not want to interfere in his children’s lives because he was in prison and they had their own lives to live.”

His defense attorneys argued that Gutierrez’s alcoholic father’s abuse of his mother and brother was a mitigating circumstance for his crimes and should have helped spare him the death penalty.

What crime was Gutierrez convicted of?

Gutierrez was found guilty of beating 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison to death in 1998. According to court documents, she was targeted because she did not trust banks and allegedly had $600,000 in cash in her home.

Harrison had been living with her nephew, Avel Cuellar, since 1998. Gutierrez was a friend of Cuellar’s and frequently visited Harrison for social gatherings and drinking. He eventually befriended the 85-year-old and ran errands for her. That’s how he learned about the cash she kept at home and hatched a plan to steal it, court records show.

On September 5, 1998, Gutierrez and two other men – Rene and Pedro Garcia – went to Harrison’s house to rob her. Accounts of what happened at their home vary. Gutierrez claims he waited outside and had no idea violence was about to ensue.

Harrison landed “face down in a pool of blood” after being struck and stabbed 13 times with two screwdrivers, court documents say. She had defensive wounds that showed she was fighting for her life and died from “massive blows to the left side of her face,” a medical examiner testified in court.

Although Gutierrez believed Harrison had $600,000 in the house, it is unclear how much money the men stole. However, prosecutors believe it was at least $56,000.

A jury found Gutierrez guilty of capital crimes in 1999 and sentenced him to death a month later.

Who was Escolastica Harrison?

Escolastica Harrison’s nephew told USA TODAY in an interview that his aunt was a caring woman and a pillar of her community.

As a third-grade teacher at a poor elementary school full of migrant children, Harrison worked hard to make sure her students learned proper English to prepare them for success, her nephew Alex Hernandez said.

When she wasn’t teaching or tending to her plants, she managed a mobile home park where she was more than just a landlord, he said.

Harrison cared for her tenants, offering advice, fixing things and occasionally offering diapers to help families in need, Hernandez said. “All of her tenants loved her,” even if she would scold them from time to time, he said.

At home, she made sure summers were a lot of fun for Hernandez and his younger brother.

“She said, ‘When we get home … do you want to go fishing?’ She had a resaca, you know, a pond behind the house,” he said. “She told me, ‘Go fishing. I’ll call your cousin Robbie and we’ll make sandwiches. You’ll all have fun and play outside.’ That’s the kind of person she was.”

What was life like for Gutierrez?

Gutiérrez’s execution date had previously been set six times and then postponed, mostly due to clerical errors – a process that amounts to torture, his lawyer argued in a request for clemency that the Texas Parole and Parole Board rejected on Friday.

During these seven death sentences since 2018, Gutierrez “spent more than 575 days on death watch.”

“Although Mr. Gutierrez relies primarily on his faith in God to cope with this stress, he has reported that the emotional ups and downs he has experienced as a result of the numerous changes to his execution orders have made it particularly difficult for him to cope and maintain his faith and hope,” the clemency petition states.

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What did Gutierrez say about his death sentence?

Gutierrez’s defense attorneys argued that a DNA test would prove he was not in Harrison’s home when she was killed. All of their efforts to obtain a DNA test were denied.

Gutierrez also argues that a number of other issues make his death sentence unjustified, including lack of evidence, failure of prosecutors to disclose evidence, jury misconduct, counsel failure and coerced confessions, according to court documents.

In addition, authorities failed to properly investigate “another prime suspect” who knew the victim personally, had just as much access to Harrison and gave contradictory statements to authorities, Gutierrez argues.

Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz denies Gutierrez’s claims, telling USA TODAY last week that his efforts were merely a “delay tactic.”

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” he said. “I think the public is just frustrated with how long it’s taking to get justice. For Ms. Harrison and for every victim in these situations.”

In court documents, his office said Gutierrez’s arguments regarding DNA testing amounted to “an abusive delay.”

“Gutierrez deliberately waived DNA testing at his 1999 trial and has used that strategic decision over the past 20 years to delay the execution of his sentence,” prosecutors wrote this month.

When and where will Gutierrez be executed?

Gutierrez is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection sometime after 6 p.m. CT at the state prison in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston.

What will be Gutierrez’s last meal?

Unlike most states that impose the death penalty, Gutierrez has limited choices about his final meal.

Gutierrez will choose from a menu available to all inmates at the Huntsville Unit because Texas no longer honors death row inmates’ wishes for a final meal, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Hannah Haney previously told USA TODAY.

Who will attend the execution?

It is unclear who will be in the execution chamber, but typically a handful of media representatives, an inmate’s defense attorney, a representative of the Attorney General’s Office and family members of the victims are present.

Harrison’s nephew Hernandez wants to witness the moment Gutierrez is executed to fulfill a promise he made on his mother’s deathbed.

“I still remember the day she died, the day before she died,” he said. “She told me to make sure he was executed.”

When will the next execution take place in the country?

If Gutierrez is executed as planned on Tuesday, he will be the tenth prisoner in the country to be executed.

The country’s eleventh execution is scheduled for Thursday in Alabama, the state’s execution of Keith Edmund Gavin for the 1998 murder of William Clayton Jr., a courier driver.